THE LAST ISSUE OF MOJO MAGAZINE ON EARTH--IF IT IS INDEED EARTH!

I've had one issue of Mojo magazine since Christmas, a cool stocking stuffer. I am still absorbing it and checking out artists reviewed in it, and it makes me reflect on how much new music there is and how one Mojo per year may be enough.  Just one random Mojo could be the stillpoint or locus of a diverse musical education--an artifact to rebirth musical culture, if it came to that, discovered in the rubble or on the beach by an ape boy with no wi-fi! 

How do we absorb it all, or even pretend that we are up to speed?  On any one page of this excellent magazine, I find enough new and reissued music to spend all of my discretionary income on for months.  One mention of any of these artists in a Rolling Stone in 1983 was a sweet rumor of the wider world, if you were a punky kid in suburban KC.  Even an image of The Fall or The Clash in a import t-shirt and merch ad, in the back of Rolling Stone, glimpsed while riding in the back seat to Ponderosa Steakhouse with my parents.

So yesterday I buckled and listened to almost all of the newest Pop Group album on Spotify while I was walking around the Troostwood neighborhood.  I've also checked out a band I find to be really original, Wildbird and Peacedrums, and haunting soundtrack music from Jozef Van Wissem.  I have not gone out to spend fifty bucks on these records, I'd sure like to, go see Judy at Mills, Sherman at 7th Heaven, Dave at Zebadees, Marion at Records with Merritt…the last record I bought was a copy of the new Testface for a friend.  I have been spending extra money on flagstone for our back slope, step by step by step.  For new records I find records I forgot I bought, like this one by Milton Nasciemento, a Eugene Record Convention find.





I've been on this kind of music fast, too, listening to Audible instead of compact disks in the car on my commute.  I'm about 1/5th through the unabridged Don Quixote, translated by Edith Grossman.  For years I have wondered what tattoo I would get, on shore leave in Hong Kong.  Squids have always been in the running, and images of office supplies. (Just check Pinterest.) Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are at the top of the list.  Maybe Sancho tossed in a blanket by revelers while Don Quixote rests assured in his oblivious daydreams. 

To enjoy literature aloud cuts into music time and makes music time really intense, and easier to be welcoming and open to the new, as well as something like this:

Just Woke Up (Mountain Dulcimer Bleed) and More Journal Excerpts

This came from fooling around with multi-tracked mountain dulcimer and super-processed trombone. Don't not try this at home. In fact only try this at home. Somewhere along the way I also got a bass amp and that helped.




2014.09.24

I took 71 to work yesterday, it was super fast and I did not miss traffic on 39th, at all.  I'm farther away but it is about the same commute time: 20 minutes.  I get a nice view of downtown going 71 to 670 to 35, too.  I took a longish walk on campus last night and it is beautiful over there, what a great place to run and walk the dog.  I had a weird feeling of being at home there and wanted to look into continuing education classes just from being in that environment.

2014.9.27
I haven't bought a record in some time and this is nagging at me, like I haven't visited an elderly relative in the hospital.  I am looking forward to a good browse somewhere.  I would like to get rid of a bunch of stuff.  When I look at the pile of gear I moved and office things, I see a bunch of beatdown junk.  I mean, if you are working or active musician, your shit looks a pile of beatdown junk, so that's not THAT big of a deal.

2014.9.29
I really want a mocha master coffee maker because I think the ones at work make really good coffee and I am tired of the coffee ritual in the morning, I'd rather have that extra twenty minutes to write.  I wonder if it is actually possible that a machine could make good coffee at home.  I would like that.

2014.9.30

I had a scary dream last night about a diabolical character who was a police detective.  I met with him on a case, in a junior colleague kind of way.  He was an intimidating European, maybe Scottish, very intelligent and intense, tall and kind of lanky and handsome.  Our meeting was over dinner and I remember feeling like a nuisance or an irritation, and I remember something about a soggy sponge or brillo pad used to clean up a spill or something on the table.
    It turned out later that this detective had murdered many people and perfected a way of slowly disposing the bodies that involved chemicals and storage and off-gassing in neutral way.  I'm not sure who discovered this, but it was another older colleague, and I was still somewhat to the side of it, yet had shared a meal with the criminal and felt in some way that my intuition was moving me in the right direction, I just wasn't aware of it.
     It's weird what dreams can signify--weird in the ancient sense of the word.  I've always tried to intuit crime-related dreams as the energy of coming up against personal rules or structures.  I.E. if you feel criminal energy in your dreams or whatever, you might be up against breaking your own rules, represented by the rule of law or morality in your dreams.

2014.10.01

Well, that was the best baseball game I have ever seen while rooting for The Royals and having it come out in our favor.  I mean, it was some kind of crazy miracle game, with this ridiculous inevitability that came after getting down four runs.  I watched it over at Scot's house with the neighborhood dudes, Joe, Dan, Dave, Frank, and Gabe, it was really a grand time.  We set off fireworks at midnight.  It was crazy.  The Royals aren't just a wildcard playoff team, they are officially an American League division series playoff team.

JOURNAL EXCERPTS SEPTEMBER 2014

2014.09.07

This is our last morning at Lake Pomme de Terre and it is very pretty, sunny but cool, and I can hear the boats out on the water, which was one of my favorite sounds as a child.  Should we return we will bring a kettle for boiling water, a good kitchen knife, a domino set, fishing tackle, beach towels, floatation devices, and a 50 gallon drum of bug spray.  I walked by the water at dusk last night with the almost full-moon coming up.  I stood on the dock for a while and reflected on how lucky I am to return to a place I enjoyed as a kid.

2014.09.08

I love the new Bob Mould record, best one in a long time.  It has some aggressive, live-sounding tracks on it that are as vital as anything he's done since "Flip Your Wig" days.  And it has some ballads and more mid-tempo stuff that I like as well.  I basically want to listen to it all the time, which is an experience I have not had with a record in some time.

2014.09.09

If you take a look at pretty much anything in culture you can take a read on its usefulness, its triviality, its underlying animosity, or the self-regard of its maker.  Nowadays I look at a lot of what we do and the message I see is "this is NOT happening! Sell more shoes!"  The migratory patterns of North American birds are getting all fucked up.  Many species won't survive the adjustment process.  Sell more cars!  The culture of denial, or whatever you want to call it.  I don't believe in being a crank, unless you are a really, really, really good crank like H.L. Mencken or somebody like that.  But we are messing everything up, big time.  That's a weak way to put it.

2014.09.10
   
Later I dreamed Neil Young had a new lost album that required real estate developers to finish.  It was a new Tonight's The Night type record, but apparently was all about sex.  I was imagining the packaging of the sleeve and all of that.  The music was supposedly really great.

2014.09.11

I have used journal writing for bloodletting more than once and you end up with writing that you feel you need to burn or throw away.  I wrote it longhand in part to hide the negative commentary that might hurt someone else or make me look like an asshole.  I guess the point is in relationships, whether at work or at home, imperatives and intuitions are there, it's not like you have to write them all down, especially if you are writing them down to get rid of them until they build up again with such force that you're struggling again.  Better to just be present with whatever it is than to feed it, nurse it, drag it out in writing.
    I was thinking I'd make eggplant parmesan tonight, then again I was thinking I might go to the Royals-Red Sox game at the K.

2014.09.15

Yesterday I broke my step record of 16K and got close to 18K--that was a good long walk and a bunch of hauling boxes and stuff out to the van and into the basement of the house.  I was reviewing my journal entries and find that I have mentioned the step counter three or four times.   This makes me wonder about Alzheimer's but also tells me that I really like having a step counter on my phone.

BALBOA DISCOVERS THE LOST TROOSTWOOD COMPOST PILE

     Yesterday I exposed a pretty nice compost pile in our back yard and hacked away at three giant fountain grass clumps, untended for probably years.  I am no stranger to untended fountain grass but in middle age I do not hesitate to cut it down to the ground.  My better half would prefer it 90% eradicated.  This is how I feel about any kind of ivy, only100%.  Shooting it with RoundUp is better than having an XBox.
    
     I also located the lawn and leaf recycling center on North Chouteau Drive.  It was kind of a long trip because of the KC Marathon, a traffic jam on 71, and my alternate route all the way down Prospect to Independence Avenue to Chestnutt Trafficway.  But I had a nice sense of adventure getting the recycling center dialed in and still appreciate how much of the city I do not know.  When I drive some of those blocks full of boarded up houses I try to envision how this will change for the better because someday it will.  On Woodland I saw an old theatre with a beat old sheet metal marquee and wondered what bands and movies played there.
  
    Lawn shears, snow shovel, foaming hornet spray for an underground nest--all while flea bombs off-gassed at home--this way my errand-y day.  And of course what errand-y Saturday would be complete without a trip to the carwash?  Always psychedelic.

     Stuck waiting for a train near Knuckleheads in the East Bottoms, I listened to Mose Allison's
Back Country Suite for about the 20th time and read the liner notes, soaking it in after re-discovering it in my cd re-organization and cull. (The Westport library now has our doubles of Sugar, Beach Boys, Flaming Lips, and Son Volt records.)  Witty, intelligent, and narrative with country blues soul, perfect for being stuck by the tracks for half an hour with 9 bags of black walnut yard debris and a gnawing appetite for fried food on a Saturday afternoon.

     For the first time in a long time I have my trombone out on a stand in a music room and I have been playing it for 15 minutes a day trying to get some kind of embouchure back.  The sound comes back, and it is relaxing, like ohming or chanting, just to play long tones.  But attacks are all spitty and florfy after only 5 or ten minutes.  I can't believe I played a whole 25 minute set with Drop A Grand. I don't remember the pain, and don't usually associate low brass with punk rock adrenaline.  Looping back to trombone as a classically trained player who plays self-taught rock and roll has always been really weird.  I immediately assume a strict concert posture even with Steve doing high kicks near my face.  Almost every time I pick up the horn I think of my old KC trombone teacher, Stephanie Bryant, who died this year.

 

SHOW THIS WEEK

RECORD BAR SUNDAY 10/27/13

Vacation Music

It's our last half day of vacation, back in Kansas City after the train ride back from Jefferson City last night, and a quick outing to Westport Cafe, our new favorite place.  We got to see the replay of the Royals 1-0 ten-inning win, and Hosmer's scrappy bloop single that won it.  It's going to be pretty hot today, in the low 90's, and I'm sitting out on Steve and Cheryl's deck with a pile of CD's to rip.  My official trip souvenir is the new Redd Kross record, picked up at Vinyl Renaissance on 39th.  But typically our trips to KC involve Steve turning me on to new stuff, in his car.

We drove around last week listening to the new Swans double, and that really blew me away.  The downtown NY art punk feel is elegantly embedded in music that has something in common with Balinese Gamelan, Steve Reich percussion pieces, and very remote, smoky, country and western.  I don't think there's a genre for it--just musicians totally in control of what they are doing in a unique do-not-change-one-syllable-or-cymbal-hit-of-this way.  Everything corny or standard stripped away and apparently built out of pure chi. (Do bands like this eat veggie burritos and drink Pepsi while they are in the studio?) Another record that hits me the same way is Richard Hawley's Truelove's Gutter, even though it is an unabashed popular music record.

The other record we discovered (in my brother's rig) was Mark Twain: Words and Music, a narrative song cycle with Clint Eastwood, Garrison Keillor, and Jimmy Buffet providing the story between folk, country and bluegrass songs.  It was really cool, and it is a benefit for Twain's boyhood home and museum.  The sad parts had us crying while we drove to visit my folks in Columbia.  I'm ready to revisit Twain's writing in a big way.

So, after a walk down to a cafe on The Plaza for coffee and a walk back Ward Parkway in the glorious sun and heat, I am unwilling to admit this vacation is almost over.  Kansas City is pretty well hopping in new ways (restaurants, especially) and it is hard to leave.  The only thing that is going to make me feel better is to rip all six disks of The Stooges Heavy Liquid box set and envision myself running around Margaret Bailes Johnson track in Eugene, sweating out a full week of pork: pork sausage, pulled pork, baby back ribs, crispy pancetta.  Bacon Fest is coming up and Dave Snider had better get himself an Amtrak ticket.  This may be the city of his dreams.

Power Pop, Polish Flicks, and a Salute to Guitar Castle

A Black Friday song? Didn't think of it that way, but here it is, posted on Black Friday. I was super bummed when I heard about Guitar Castle closing up in Salem.  Another one-man garage demo that's not gonna win any awards for engineering or production values. Much respect to Tim Knight. 


Liked this film alot--Ashes and Diamonds.  A war story set in Poland just after the end of World War II.

Multiple spins of the new Tommy Keene. He is coming to Eugene in September.

Golden Motors, Casey Neill, Dan solo

This Friday 10/7, my band and I have a show with Casey Neill at Luckey's Club Cigar Store in Eugene.  I'll be opening the show solo, then Casey Neill and The Norway Rats will play, and then, once Dan hustles over from the WOW Hall and his Daddies gig, and Mike hustles over from Cornucopea and his Stagger and Sway Gig, The Golden Motors will assemble and rock the wee hours at Luckey's.  Glad to be playing a gig with Casey.

Overall, I am pulling for The Brewers in post-season.  The Braun-Fielder combo is an historic one, and the Brewers are an emerging franchise, just like my Royals will be emerging in the coming years.  KC's current manager Ned Yost was a big part of their development, and former Royal Zach Greinke is a big part of their success year. 


It's still weird being back from Europe and straight into the rain and cold.