on the road

i{ve joined with my good friends John Meyer and Zafer Ulkucu to drive down to Guatemala to make a documentary on people that are waiting for 2012. John{s been there a couple of times and recognized most recently that more and more people are headed down there.

a few short stories:

we stayed with Heiges in LA, as we had to go to a camera store there before headed out to Austin. met a guy there named Josh who told us that his buddy is in prison, and just recently there was a prison fight race war between white dudes and mexican dudes. one of the mexican dudes got stabbed and his last words were "you made me miss 2012"

we{re now in oaxaca. on the way out of the hotel, a mexican guy comes out of his room. "hey dudes, where's the good canibus" ha. we started talking to him about shit, he said he lived in LA and was hitchhiking all over Mexico. we told him we were going to guatemala, and he wanted to go. he said he was just in the yucatan hanging out at a pyramid and said there was lots of other people there, by themselves, really not knowing why they were there. we said we were making a movie on 2012 and he said "shit, that might be it. being drawn back down here for that to happen. who knows, makes sense tho, why else would all these people be hanging out a pyramids by themselves down here, clueless as to why"


The three of us are going to spend another day here, and then head further south. hopefully we'll be in quetzaltenango by the end of the week. so far the trip has been:
Oakland to LA to Austin to Laredo to a 10 building town on the side of 85 just slightly north of San Luis Potsi to D.F. to Oaxaca.

the toll roads have been two lane, very fast, good condition, expensive, and they route around major cities. the roads just outside of D.F. were totally insane, driving in that city was super easy to get lost, but we made it through there not too bad. the roads outside of oaxaca were one lane, very fast, way up in the mountains, and you have to pass even over double yellow lines, into on coming traffic. it was freaky at first but i got the hang of it. we almost died once though, as i tried to pass a double long trailer semi and half way in the pass, a bus came up in the other direction with no place to move over. so i had to slam the breaks and swing the car right at the last second, missing both the bus and the semi, and only landing one of our bags in the back onto Zafer's noggin.

NICK CAVE HATES HOLLYWOOD AND SO DO I

SO THE DILL HOLES THAT CREATED THAT PIECE OF SHITE MOVIE GLADIATOR ASKED NICK CAVE TO WRITE A SEQUAL. I'M SURE HE GOT SOME SCRATCH OUT OF IT OTHERWISE WHY WASTE YOUR TIME, RIGHT?

WELL FUNNY ENOUGH, HERE'S A QUOTE FROM VANITY MAGAZINE, AFTER THE SCRIPT WAS REJECTED:

"I'm very comfortable in my day job as a musician. The last thing I ever wanted to get involved with is Hollywood. The way it works is that people get an idea you could possibly do something, but there's a one-in-a-hundred chance that it could get made. It's a waste of fucking time, and I have a lot to do."

HERE'S SOMEONE THAT READ THE SCRIPT TELLING THE STORY

a prayer for ignorance

from the LA TIMES:

Before McCain spoke, a Christian pastor offered a prayer that seemed to ask for divine intervention on his behalf. "There are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that [McCain's] opponent wins for a variety of reasons," Pastor Arnold Conrad said. "And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens."

how to paint to sell paintings

the cows and their perps

I'm reeeeeeally into THE COWS. Great scumfuck grunge noise punk band from minneapolis. Am Rep put out some of their stuff. My friend Dana told me about them long ago, and i finally got a few of their albums. I'm especially into this one:

The Cows "Effete & Impudent Snobs" Amphetamine Reptile 1990


and then I came across this article today:




i would like to suggest an alternate title to the article:
Pig assaults women and fucks cows

live longer... free cascadia!

>

Crudos in LA

who wants to go to LA??!!!!

David Foster Wallace - R.I.P.

Another suicide by an amazing writer.... David Foster Wallace.

HERE's a link to a commencement speach he gave in 2005. its great.

final warning show

Final Warning back at it. Portland punk utopia continues!

art history

spinning platters of vinyl at the local dive

I'm going to be excercising my fine musical taste on your ears at Billy Ray's Local Dive on Monday nights.

My comrade will be the infamous international man of mystery, S.D.C. FreedomRock will be your trusty bartender, pouring delicious carbonated and non-carbonated beverages fermented and distilled from lands near and far.

I will be spinning records of the death and thrash metallic genres, my favorites, as well as some crossover into the classic and progressive rocking genres, to please him which will be pleasing us (with beverages).

I hope you will regularly attend these Monday evenings, and do not forget to

BRING A FUCKING NECK BRACE!

Death Metal Special 1993

Protest and Survive in China

Given their heavy handed security and pinkerton styled policing in years past, dispite public statements, I'm sure the IOC was plenty happy to have this years' events in an authoritarian police state. And 2012 will be in London, the city that is under complete video surveillance.

Here are a few facts I gathered concerning the protests of the Olympics in China.

*
Chairman of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge stated that the Chinese government designated three Beijing parks for protests during the Olympics, but it did not approve even one of the 77 protest applications it received.

*
Human Rights Watch has listed the cases of over 10 different Chinese nationals that were harassed and/or detained after applying to the police for permission to protest in the parks. Reporters Without Borders states that at least 50 Beijing-based human rights activists were placed under house arrest, harassed or forced to leave the capital during the games.

*
Jonathan Watts, the president of the Foreign Correspondents Club in China, said "Outside the stadiums, we have confirmed more than 30 cases of reporting interference, heard of another 20," by Chinese government officials.

*
According to Human Rights Watch, internet access was restricted inside the main olympic reporting headquarters and blocked teh following websites:

• Human Rights Watch
• Amnesty International
• Reporters Sans Frontières
• the Committee to Protect Journalists
• Human Rights in China.

Reporters were also unable to access the web pages of Tibetan and Uighur groups, as well as those of the Falun Gong, which the Chinese government has classified as an “evil cult,” including the sites of media outlets associated with the Falun Gong, such as New Tang Dynasty and the Epoch Times. One journalist told Human Rights Watch that although the US State Department’s website was not blocked, its annual human rights report on China would not open.

*
8 US citizens that were publicly protesting the Chinese occupation of Tibet were arrested and jailed. They were finally deported after the closing ceremonies, apparently only after the US Embassy insisted upon their release.

Brian Conley of Philadelphia and Jeff Rae of Wayne, Delaware County, were with a group from Students for a Free Tibet when they were arrested by Beijing police last week.

"Jeff said he was slapped around and threatened, with them saying, 'Do you want your head cut off or do you want to be shot?' " William Rae said. "All they had to eat was rice and hot water. After they fell asleep, they were awakened and taken to an interrogation room, and it started all over."

"They tore up his plane ticket, but when they got to the airport, they told him to use his credit card to buy a ticket on Air China," William Rae said. "He said no, and they took his credit card and charged the flight. Another guy didn't have a credit card or money, so they charged his ticket with Jeff's credit card."


*
*
In other Olympic news, congrats to US Water Polo for the Silver Metals! The men lost only to Hungary, the greatest Water Polo team in the world. The women's team lost by one, a stunning last second goal by Netherlands.

real pyramid

the goods right now

here's a list of the music rocking my GMINI right now. All of these are spot on excellent perfect rad greatness:

Bad Brains - Build A Nation
production value at first really bugged me. Whiteycamp INSISTED i give it another chance. now, i'm actually really appreciative of the scope of bad brains type songs they have on here. all different from straight forward h/c songs, more chugga chugga metal type songs, and some really good reggae songs. religion/christ haters beware.


Harvey Milk - Life... the best game in town.
saw them last night for the first time and they completely floored me. Totally and completely blew me away. it sounded so amazing. they did songs from a bunch of different albums. first track off this record was amazing. the addition of joe preston to the group is of course a brilliant one.


Torche - Meanderthal
this is the next level. they've taken it where weezer, hammerhead, sonic youth, and helmet all wished they could have gone, but never put it together. it is the heaviest loudest fasted most abrasive pop album i've ever heard. seen them twice this summer and this record sounds like their live show, not vice versa.


side note to the above two reviews.... both bands play the beatles in their live performances... harvey milk "a day in the life" and torche "i want you (she's so heavy)"

Black Angels - Passover
when reviews say "oh it sounds like psychedelic rock" they actually mean garage rock and prog. psychedelic rock was Jefferson Airplane, not Pink Floyd. Black Angels is psychedelic rock. I thought it was a woman singing til i saw pictures. still could be a woman, but he probably identifies as a man. either way, amazing voice, great lyrics, album sounds great. they're probably huge and hyped but i don't pay attention so it doesn't matter to me. its good.


Sepultura - Arise
I fucked up and thought this album was Rise, for the last 11 years. every time i saw it i thought, oh man, that later stuff sucks, i only like beneath the remains. but it never made sense to me how they got from beneath to chaos a.d. then i heard arise, and my mind was shattered. its actually a really good thing, since i now have a new sepultura album to listen to over and over and over and over and over and over. Slam Dunk LOVES this album.


Jay Reatard - Blood Visions
I LOVE THE ADVERTS. This is the new adverts album never heard before, as performed by someone named Jay Reatards. Seriously, he nailed it. Sounds exactly like the adverts, with a bit of the buzzcocks and the spits thrown in. Even covers the Adverts "we who wait"



Racebannon - Acid or Blood
I'm not saying i've heard this record yet because it was leaked on the internet and is going to be released on the 12th into my loving ears. Im just saying that if i were to happen to hear this new album and worship it as the soul brother continuation in smashism from the southeast (we'll act like chicago is in the southeast for this hypothetical situation) then yes, this album would be IT or THE ONE or NUMERO UNO or EL GRAN TORRISMO or whathaveyou. sick sick sick all over myself.



Immortal Technique - The 3rd World
This is a revolutionary rap album by a very angry man, and i like that because i find myself to be very angry most of the time. i'm not into rap very much, because usually people talk about stupid shit, and the whole point is talking so say something cool. IT says more than enough for all rappers. He'd probably agree that there are 2/3s of the scene that could retire since he showed up. All of it is worth it just for OPEN UP YOUR EYES, a song that outlines the struggle of the people of south america for the past 100 years.


i'll post more later. that should keep you busy for a while.

kevin seconds

i used to be a HUGE 7seconds fan. I mean huge. Not just knew all the records, sang in a tribute band, had the shirt, saw them perform a few times, talked to Kevin Seconds, spread crazy rumors about them to up their cred with the chugga chugga h/c kids, etc. but HUGE as in one night i decided that every sentance and statement spoken by me or anyone around me would be validated with the shout, 7SECONDS! I must have said it 500 times before first being shouted down "Go back to Reno!" then finally being ducttaped at the mouth.

I found Kevin Seconds has a blog, and his post from May 11th, 2008 is pretty fucking heavy. Explains where he's coming from as far as a musician that is still makeing songs, just not 7Seconds songs. He comments on the reaction of the "kids" today, his songwriting, getting feedback from his peers, etc. Its pretty powerfull stuff.


http://blog.kevinseconds.com/?p=750

It also reenforced to me that sure, there are great creative works of art coming from all over the place in all different forms from all types of people. The people made it, but its not them. They are just products made public and should be taken as that. The synthesis, result, sometimes garbage, of the process the person went through.

What I really love is when the work shows a glimpse into a PERSON that is great work of art. When you can just see little bits of pieces into their core, their psyche, their motivations for living their life and it sticks to what I think is as close to authenticity as we're going to get THESE DAYS. (and you know what i mean by, theeeese days, right?)

So while I'm not into Kevin's new solo acoustic stuff, it doesn't matter, because I just know that guy is a ruler. I've seen, read, and heard 33 YEARS of bits and pieces of his mind. He's actually proven, to me at least, that he's someone that deserves to be rich and famous. Which means through this fucked up karmic universe of ours, he won't be. Only douchebags from other early 80s hardcore bands from Lodi, NJ that also had singalong anthemic songs then went on to solo projects of garbage techno music or stupid goth chamber music get to be rich and famous.

"You inspire me intensely
Without any doubt.
You keep me thinking, help me try,
Show that I can do without,
With you there's more foundation,
More than any other time,
And when it comes to you my heart is true,
Until the day I die"
7Seconds "TRUST" from the album THE CREW

True Blue ..... Blue Jays fans that is!

I love Toronto... but I haven't been in about 6 years. And since I was a kid I was told the Blue Jays are the best team and have the best fans. Well, next to the TWINS!

My dream road trip right now is through Montana, hit up Ty in Mlps, see the folks in ChiTown, up to TO to see my cousins, aunts and uncles, jet over to Philly and kick it with Zafer, then into Woodstock to see Bro #1 and Sister Heidi. Then hit up all of DC museums with my Mom, Virginia Beach for R&R, then down south to find a new home... savannah, athens, pensicola, N.O., visit Tre in west texas, santa fe, maybe do some gambling in vegas, party in LA, camp in Big Sur, party in SF, take a train up through the redwoods, and back to portland in time for the rain to start.

would anyone like to sponsor my trip? i'm now accepting paypal donations, or preorders on the book to follow.

a million little pieces

fiction or non-fiction, controversy or not, this book is fantastic. really powerful, stream of consciousness style, very descriptive without a bit of poetry to it. just brutal off the cuff honesty. depressing and hopeful. i had no idea what i was getting into and thought it would be something like William S. Boroughs' 'Junky' as the book's front jacket incorrectly states.

there is a part where he has two caps, a cavity and two root canals done, strapped to the chair, no anesthetic, no drugs. the description of pain so excruciating that he 'whites out' as opposed to blacking out is horrifingly vivid. he clenches tennis balls in each hand so hard in reaction that it breaks his fingernails.

there's another section in the book where he harshly criticizes television and film directors and producers for getting drug addiction wrong every single time. he talks about forcing a director to actually go through what addicts go though and see if they'd even make it out alive, yet alone how it would change their point of view, approach and aesthetic in the portrayal on screen.

that seems to be the case with a few other things... addiction, disease, famine, genocide and war. some things are just too real.

Richard Widmark 1914 - 2008

one of the greatest actors that ever lived passed away today. his villians in early pulp films by directors like sam fuller and jules dassin were horrifying and real to viewers and carry still today. he seemed to carry the torche from cagney on through the 60s. it also seems to me that jack nicholson owes quite a bit to Widmark.

Sinead and the two Bobs

ok so the story goes like this...

Sinead O'Connor goes on SNL 3 October 1992 and for the second song, she performs a cover of Bob Marley's "War"

but she changes the lyrics towards the end to CHILD ABUSE because she had just done a bunch of research and found out that the Catholic Church KNEW about priests abusing children in Ireland but didn't do anything about it. she herself was abused as a child (not by a priest but her own mother) and devoted her life to advocacy for children and victim's of child abuse.

so she tears up a picture of the pope at the end and says "Fight the real enemy"



People in the press and in the USA go nuts over it and get super pissed off that she would do that. they had stunts in NYC where they gathered up all of her cds and bulldozed them.

13 days later she's to perform one of her hit songs "The end of our Acquaintence" at a Bob Dylan tribute concert. Here's the video of her performance there:



So crazy that she blew that story up in the face of the American public almost 15 years before it became "real news" and headlines here

People were so quick to judge her without actually hearing what she was saying. And now they turn and say "oh look at the muslims protesting the cartoon of mohamed, what ignorance."

And the parallel between Bob being boo'd at Newport for pushing the music into a new place, and then her doing the same thing, and being boo'd for it at a Dylan tribute concert just furthers the example of goddamn american hypocrites

oh yeah, and another reason why she rules... she refused to play any arena that would have the national anthem played on the loud speakers before her concert. she said she'd never support any country that would openly and deliberately censor its artists,
specifically the USA. (remember the PMRC!)





----------------
Now playing: Sinéad O'Connor - The Last Day of Our Acquaintance
via FoxyTunes

i forgot...

i forgot i created this blog!!! I'll try to get back innit!

well, first off, we've got this really killer ACRE cd at CDBaby now:

ACRE: CANDYFLIPPING


Its pretty amazing ambient drone music. I listen and read. Aaron is a good friend of mine and hilarious!!

check out this video too.

instead of music.....

check out this video. interview with Dick Cheney back in 1994

local rock and classic reggae

Local rockers Red Fang have a new tour CD they released through Wantage,
USA. These dudes used to be in Last of the Juanitas and PartyTime!

Great stuff!!

a man needing little introduction, reggae pioneer Burning Spear has
released a double cd and accompanying dvd on his own label. apparently he's
finally regained control to all of his work and is going to be releasing
his own stuff. hopefully we'll see some reissues as well.

releated projects

these two projects are releated in that they share a guitar player, Ed. He's not on the Burmese record below, but performs with them now. both groups are favorites of mine and luckily Burmese is playing here in Portland with RABBITS on Sept 7th

THE FLYING LUTTENBACHERS: The Void

intricate prog jazz punk from the bay area. angular guitars, bursts and blasts of drums, really chaotic parts but all seeming under control. really good musicians doing really messed up songs.

BURMESE / FISTULA: split

people always say "oh this bands is so brutal" and its a few jackasses talking about war atrocities over poorly composed discharge rip off riffs, or mediocre slayer worship. no, that's not brutal. Burbese is brutal. this is the sound of revenge. its the sound of a disturbed conscience. when i hear their records i feel uneasy, as if witnessing a public exicution.

TRAGEDY

To my surprise, we received a Tragedy record here at CDBaby.

If you haven't heard this band, let me introduce you to the finest hardcore outfit making music today. Their roots come from some of the best bands of the 1990's and the four joined music writing forces to create one of the most sonic experiences I've had the pleasure to be blasted with over 10 times live. And the records are a perfect match to their live performances, with really solid production by Dan Rathbun of PolyMorph studios in Oakland.

Check it!

Some fantastic music at CDBABY

BAD BRAINS

if you don't already know, this is all the education you need.


THE AVENGERS: Died For Your Sins

Out of print cd release of bootlegs and live tracks. Bay Area punk legends. I think there are only a few copies left. Otherwise, you'll have to go to itunes to get it.

ROSEMARY'S BABIES: Talking To The Dead

Eerie Von's first band! Thrash attack from the east coast early 80s. why doesn't every kid hooked on Gang Green and Urban Waste know about Rosemary's Babies?!!!

THE SPITS

Perfect punk record. irreverant and yet ramones obsessed. sing along drunk punk songs. short and sweet. i listen to it twice in a row.


GERRITT & JOHN WIESE: The Disappearing Act

to men that belong in seizure palace. you remember the anti-drug commercials with the frying egg.... yeah, that should have said "this is your brain on a gerritt/wiese collab"


ZWEISTEIN: Trip, Flip Out, Meditation

First ever CD reissue of one of the most extreme Krautrock-era albums ever made.



SISSY SPACEK: Remote Whale Control


GERRITT: Space Level Blaze


MINDFLAYER: Expedition to the hairier peaks


TERRORISTS W/ LEE PERRY


SUICIDE: Half Alive


EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN: 2 X 4


CHROME: Half Machine Lip Moves


CHROME: Third From The Sun

land and people

overpopulation is an issue that comes up every once and a while.

here are some facts all according to wikipedia


Land area of earth: 148,939,100 km²

Human population 2005: 6,453,628,000

Manhattan, NY pop. density: 25,849/km²

Land area of Oregon: 255,026 km²


You could put all of the people in the world into Oregon at the density of NYC and have the rest of the world untouched. All 148,684,074 km² of it.

We'd still have to flush our toilet on California, but they deserve it.

what's it all about

two new records on the way. here's how its done:

Entry one...... what for?

Thought I'd publish some thoughts and see what comes of it.

Today, I'd like to say that Rage Against the Machine was the last time I really considered if a band 'sold out' or not. They seemed to be so great to me, and musically I still consider their first album to be truely groundbreaking, but it was 'wrong' to me that a band should go on MTV talking about Leonard Peltier. That seemed to be for the underground, and not for jocks to know about.



That was pretty backwards thinking, especially now that no one talks about political prisoners on MTV. And everyone sells out now that Green Day made it punk to do so.


Now, I still think they sold out, but for different reasons. From their own website, you can see that when they did a benefit concert for Leonard Peltier in 1994, before hitting the spotlight, they raised $75,000 for his defense fund.

A year later, they did the same thing for Mumia. However, this concert raised just $8,000. Without specific numbers that I could research, it appears at quick glance that, even though in that one year they had gained worldwide fame, hit song and video on MTV, new album, and presumably a wider range of resources available to them to raise money, they in fact were less effective.

Why? From every story I've ever read of how the music industry works, and from my own experience working in the independent and underground version of such, everyone gets their hand in the till.