Here's a new demo. We revved it up quite a ways at Golden Motors prak night before last.
Here's an oldie posted via Bandcamp...I haven't put the albums up whole. One song every few days is more fun, then I put up the whole record.
Tracy and I kicked in the new year in Ashland. I liked all the twinkle lights on the main drag and walking in the clear, dry cold. (December was your standard mush and moss month in Eugene; if this were Holland we'd all get free Paxil in the mail, no questions asked.) We ate well (at The Ashland Springs Hotel restaurant--Lark's--and at a fusion-y joint called The Dragonfly.) T spilled half an americano in her Queen Bee purse on a movieplex caffeine smuggling op, so it was new purse time for her, and book-hunt time for me. I picked up The Black Flag history, Spraypaint The Walls, as well as a Camilleri mystery, a non-Wallander Mankell novel, and Have You Seen...? by David Thompson, a personal compendium of 1000 movie recommendations with short, readable essays about each one. The first one (under "A") is "Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein."
Our hotel was The Columbia, a quaint old place, pretty small, and affordable, right on the main drag, and close to Larks. I have a habit of wanting to go back to the same restaurant if it's good, just to make sure it's good, I guess.
It was probably a good thing that half the americano spilled. During one of the scary parts in The Black Swan, I hollered loud enough to startle the lady next to me. I was wound tight on Starbucks and that gothic pscych-ballet flick pushed all the buttons. Any time Natalie Portman tears off a fingernail, I'm gonna squirm. My row-mate pulled a basket out from under her seat, which I took to be preliminary to moving to a new spot. But it turns out I had also scared her dog, a small poodle happy to hang out under her chair where the popcorn windfall was steady, at least until I started yelling. It was like that old movie "The Tingler," where they installed buzzers under all the seats--but I was THE TINGLER. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Last night at Sam Bond's was kind of a second New Year's--one band backing 25 or so singers on their favorite "guilty pleasures," which ranged from a ripping take on Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" to Kiss's "Beth" to Nillson's coconut song. I did "Baby Hold On" by Eddie Money. He has so many hot-summer-night awesome songs, it was hard to pick, but I knew for me, it had to be something by THE MONEY MAN. I've never seen the place fuller or happier, with almost no attrition as the night went on. It was a magic fairy dust night that ended w/ Peter Wilde leading a gang chorus of "Against the Wind." I hope that goes annual--something to look forward to through the holidaze.
Photos of the wingding by Claire Flint here.
I ran into Patty Joe Hayden at Guilty Pleasures and discussed the new Husker Du book. He likes it. I haven't been super-charged gung ho about the excerpts I've read, and this is a book I've wanted to read since I was fifteen. Of course I'm gonna read it, and look forward to further reports.
I've said before that I don't really have an exhaustive survey for end-of-the-year lists, but those OFF! e.p.'s are my favorite of 2010. They rip. Keith Morris is a great singer, period. An avatar of tongue-in cheek hostility who turns rock and roll phrases like Chuck Berry. The songs are short, tight, and in your face. Kabam!
