7.28.2009
7.24.2009
lay my passion down
While I suppose I always knew it was never for forever, I always hoped that The End Times would occupy space in my life, give structure to my week and be the promise of honest work rewarded. I've said most of what I wanted to (since I regard this band much as I do the man behind it), but this show marks the end of a long and fruitful period for me.
It's been a great and rewarding thing, this. I will miss it terribly. At the same time, I can't wait to see what adventures will ambush me in the future.
Tonight The Rendezvous hosts The End Times' last performance. After 3+ years of practice, performance, and recording, we thank you, each other, and beautiful luck for what was a wonderful time together.
I'm glad we're going out at the Rendezvous; it's my favorite venue we've played by far, quiet and intimate and old, always with a half-warm case of rainier in the greenroom fridge and the feeling that even a subaural desire has weight. My family is coming, many of my friends as well, and it would be lovely--should you find youself in neither of those groups--if you came too.
We play promptly at 7pm. Don't be late.
It's been a great and rewarding thing, this. I will miss it terribly. At the same time, I can't wait to see what adventures will ambush me in the future.
Tonight The Rendezvous hosts The End Times' last performance. After 3+ years of practice, performance, and recording, we thank you, each other, and beautiful luck for what was a wonderful time together.
I'm glad we're going out at the Rendezvous; it's my favorite venue we've played by far, quiet and intimate and old, always with a half-warm case of rainier in the greenroom fridge and the feeling that even a subaural desire has weight. My family is coming, many of my friends as well, and it would be lovely--should you find youself in neither of those groups--if you came too.
We play promptly at 7pm. Don't be late.
7.16.2009
Necessary redundance
Blue Notes is throwing a hissy this morning and refusing to post. So here's the piece that will probably maybe end up there. It's all about the good people of Pillow Army.
Pillow Army celebrates the release of their new EP, To Comfort and Destroy tonight at the High Dive, and you know I'm gonna be there.
I've had a damn hard time writing this, for two different reasons. Reason the first: I love, love, love this band and its creative force, Tim Franklin. An East Coast transplant, Franklin moved to our fair burg just under two years ago and has since assembled around him a remarkably talented group of players to give his songs depth, movement, and weight. Now six members strong, PA is wily and agile, a division of scouts for a mysterious military operation. Which brings me to the second reason: Pillow Army is not easily categorized.
Featuring cello, violin, and flute (along with the more traditional guitar, bass, and drums), the songs of Pillow Army's new EP To Comfort and Destroy organically explore the possibilities of melody, explaining and requiring what for other bands would be wild shifts in temperament and style. If that sounds like high-falutin academic/critic faux-speak, let's ground it in the evidence presented.
Happy opens the EP as a deceptively bouncy pop song about a church social. It starts simple with a rolling tom lick and assertive guitar figure before expanding the coda into an expressive orchestral wash. With clapping hands, hollered choirs, and the sweet addition of flautist Kaitlin Morrison's harmonies, Happy more than lives up to its name.
Model Citizen introduces social criticism to the mix via Franklin's pure tenor--"another dull suburbanite, born to drain the world's resources, I eat and sh-t and throw away"--and the result is an ominous tension/agreement between lyrics and the hard gnaw of strings. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Franklin's ability to separate and arrange voices (which, here, refers to all instruments) keeps the song's narrator from sinking, bashing and buffeting him with waves of conformity and expectations until it or he must simply stop.
The subject matter is revisited in The Price, a song darker still and one reminiscent of The Starlight Mints and/or The Pixies, with barely controlled feedback, skulking cello, and the first big example of genre shift: the bridge guides the arrangement from its trollish habitation out along the Irish countryside and then into the drawing room of an intimate manor. That its lyrics discuss pop culture's fascination with celebrity flameout ("perhaps an overdose will boost your cred the most, and every word you said will turn to poetry") shades the full cost of The Price.
Now we're four songs in and fully prepped for death. And while it's not completely fair to say You're Not Here Anymore is a meditation on the idea--the lyrics shy away from settling on death or break-up, which, I suppose, is an elegant way of saying there's not much difference between them--the plucks and squeals of string are too harrowing to be focused on much else. The resolution hinted at in the final lines ("you're not here anymore, but if you were, you'd want me to be happy") is left to drift away.
And then alights fully formed in Codeine. A love note, a warning, and an explosion, Codeine deftly wraps confusion around acceptance both lyrically ("I couldn't make it without you. Without you and codeine.") and musically, as the grounding riff is eventually obliterated beneath waves of distortion and the high song of violin. It's the perfect end to the EP: an overwhelming climax of intention as melody says what words cannot.
However, that's not how the EP ends.
Included as conclusion is a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's Oh Comely. A great many people don't know who NMH are and I consider it a great shame. In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, the album from which this song comes, is a new classic and one of my desert island choices; the song itself belongs to an elite collection of compositions that were recorded right the first time and simply do not need another go-round. So I'm probably a bad person to judge this cover.
That said, Pillow Army believes in it the way I do. They do not futz with the presentation. Utilizing a stripped-down set-up--only Franklin and strings--they shift and tear at the unrequited love that fuels the song, growing into the cracks and up into the light.
This is what it sounded like at the Tractor (if you listen close, you can hear me yelling "holy sh-t" at the end. Just like they do on the record!):
Eventually, I realized a couple of things: 1) I need to let go, put my vinyl copy of ITAOTS away and get on with my life; and 2) I should think of it as encore. If Pillow Army did a five-song set that blew my mind like this EP did, said thanks, and stepped off stage, I'd be whooping and stomping until they came back out. If Oh, Comely was that encore I would never stop talking about it.
In fact, that's kinda what happened at The Tractor and I still haven't.
So, in summation, To Comfort and Destroy is amazing and as complete a realization of Pillow Army's talents as I could hope for. I can't wait to hear the full-length. I can't wait to see them again.
Pillow Army celebrates the release of their new EP, To Comfort and Destroy tonight at the High Dive, and you know I'm gonna be there.
I've had a damn hard time writing this, for two different reasons. Reason the first: I love, love, love this band and its creative force, Tim Franklin. An East Coast transplant, Franklin moved to our fair burg just under two years ago and has since assembled around him a remarkably talented group of players to give his songs depth, movement, and weight. Now six members strong, PA is wily and agile, a division of scouts for a mysterious military operation. Which brings me to the second reason: Pillow Army is not easily categorized.
Featuring cello, violin, and flute (along with the more traditional guitar, bass, and drums), the songs of Pillow Army's new EP To Comfort and Destroy organically explore the possibilities of melody, explaining and requiring what for other bands would be wild shifts in temperament and style. If that sounds like high-falutin academic/critic faux-speak, let's ground it in the evidence presented.
Happy opens the EP as a deceptively bouncy pop song about a church social. It starts simple with a rolling tom lick and assertive guitar figure before expanding the coda into an expressive orchestral wash. With clapping hands, hollered choirs, and the sweet addition of flautist Kaitlin Morrison's harmonies, Happy more than lives up to its name.
Model Citizen introduces social criticism to the mix via Franklin's pure tenor--"another dull suburbanite, born to drain the world's resources, I eat and sh-t and throw away"--and the result is an ominous tension/agreement between lyrics and the hard gnaw of strings. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Franklin's ability to separate and arrange voices (which, here, refers to all instruments) keeps the song's narrator from sinking, bashing and buffeting him with waves of conformity and expectations until it or he must simply stop.
The subject matter is revisited in The Price, a song darker still and one reminiscent of The Starlight Mints and/or The Pixies, with barely controlled feedback, skulking cello, and the first big example of genre shift: the bridge guides the arrangement from its trollish habitation out along the Irish countryside and then into the drawing room of an intimate manor. That its lyrics discuss pop culture's fascination with celebrity flameout ("perhaps an overdose will boost your cred the most, and every word you said will turn to poetry") shades the full cost of The Price.
Now we're four songs in and fully prepped for death. And while it's not completely fair to say You're Not Here Anymore is a meditation on the idea--the lyrics shy away from settling on death or break-up, which, I suppose, is an elegant way of saying there's not much difference between them--the plucks and squeals of string are too harrowing to be focused on much else. The resolution hinted at in the final lines ("you're not here anymore, but if you were, you'd want me to be happy") is left to drift away.
And then alights fully formed in Codeine. A love note, a warning, and an explosion, Codeine deftly wraps confusion around acceptance both lyrically ("I couldn't make it without you. Without you and codeine.") and musically, as the grounding riff is eventually obliterated beneath waves of distortion and the high song of violin. It's the perfect end to the EP: an overwhelming climax of intention as melody says what words cannot.
However, that's not how the EP ends.
Included as conclusion is a cover of Neutral Milk Hotel's Oh Comely. A great many people don't know who NMH are and I consider it a great shame. In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, the album from which this song comes, is a new classic and one of my desert island choices; the song itself belongs to an elite collection of compositions that were recorded right the first time and simply do not need another go-round. So I'm probably a bad person to judge this cover.
That said, Pillow Army believes in it the way I do. They do not futz with the presentation. Utilizing a stripped-down set-up--only Franklin and strings--they shift and tear at the unrequited love that fuels the song, growing into the cracks and up into the light.
This is what it sounded like at the Tractor (if you listen close, you can hear me yelling "holy sh-t" at the end. Just like they do on the record!):
Eventually, I realized a couple of things: 1) I need to let go, put my vinyl copy of ITAOTS away and get on with my life; and 2) I should think of it as encore. If Pillow Army did a five-song set that blew my mind like this EP did, said thanks, and stepped off stage, I'd be whooping and stomping until they came back out. If Oh, Comely was that encore I would never stop talking about it.
In fact, that's kinda what happened at The Tractor and I still haven't.
So, in summation, To Comfort and Destroy is amazing and as complete a realization of Pillow Army's talents as I could hope for. I can't wait to hear the full-length. I can't wait to see them again.
7.10.2009
Things change
Tonight I'm going to do something I've never done before, and--to answer your question--I don't think it's going to be of the sort where I have regrets tomorrow.
For an hour or so, I'll be busking outside Avanti Art & Design and then heading inside to perform. The difference between the two will be minimal, probably with slightly more heckling at one. If you show up, you get to decide which one.
Why am I doing this you ask? Because my good friend Brian Enriquez asked me.
He's releasing Ayasofya, his newest chapbook and recorded readings of the same. From design to content, it's a beautiful collection. I'm pleased to have an opportunity to support him.
Speaking of, we did an interview for Hollow Earth Radio about the release, the art of creation, and the delightful swoosh of procrastination. It's already aired, but a lucky few of you might be able to download it here.
If you're looking for something to do tonight, I believe this will be an awesome event. It's beautiful out, the Greenwood Artwalk will be in full effect, and I'll be singing songs I love (including one or two of my own).
For an hour or so, I'll be busking outside Avanti Art & Design and then heading inside to perform. The difference between the two will be minimal, probably with slightly more heckling at one. If you show up, you get to decide which one.
Why am I doing this you ask? Because my good friend Brian Enriquez asked me.
He's releasing Ayasofya, his newest chapbook and recorded readings of the same. From design to content, it's a beautiful collection. I'm pleased to have an opportunity to support him.
Speaking of, we did an interview for Hollow Earth Radio about the release, the art of creation, and the delightful swoosh of procrastination. It's already aired, but a lucky few of you might be able to download it here.
If you're looking for something to do tonight, I believe this will be an awesome event. It's beautiful out, the Greenwood Artwalk will be in full effect, and I'll be singing songs I love (including one or two of my own).
7.06.2009
The End Times
One of the first gigs I ever had in this city was for a little arts&culture mag run outta Wallingford. It always seemed on the verge of falling over, the magazine I mean, issues coming together in a haphazard fashion as writers delivered or didn't, and ideas got proposed or abandoned or refashioned under rules of order that involved dice, somehow. I wrote some stuff I loved there. And met more than a few people who affected me greatly. One of them was Fred.
Most of you know the story, I think, but what happened was Kate, one of the aforementioned few and the books editor, put up an ad as singer for hire. Fred found it, recognized the author and approached her at a bone-throwing editorial meeting. I can't say with any sort of certainty how I got invited along but it was probably because, as intern, they figured I'd take minutes. Instead, Fred allowed and encouraged me to play lapsteel slide as the odd rehearsals became thrice-weekly regular and the tiny project evolved into The End Times. I could not be more thankful he did. That was three plus years ago.
Because of T.E.T., I've traveled to Detroit and back, recorded with garage legends, done shows in tea kettles and movie theaters and lesbian bars, sung Capt. Beefheart at the Blue Moon, taken part in two choirs, laughed a lot, drank more, learned how to play slide so I could say something I meant, and then said it on songs and with people I loved and believed in deeply.
I've known for a little while, but Fred officially gave word: He and Lori will return to Michigan in August, in a move I'm sure augurs good things for them both. I can't begin to say how much I'll miss both of them. I feel a little bit lost already and they're still in-state.
This also means, for those of who have come and supported us over the years--you fervent and lovely lot you, thank you thank you thank you--the upcoming show at The Rendezvous will be our last for some time.
In one of those cosmic hilarities, our full-length should be done just in time for us to hand out copies to those interested. We've been recording for the past few months. I think you'll love it.
Most of you know the story, I think, but what happened was Kate, one of the aforementioned few and the books editor, put up an ad as singer for hire. Fred found it, recognized the author and approached her at a bone-throwing editorial meeting. I can't say with any sort of certainty how I got invited along but it was probably because, as intern, they figured I'd take minutes. Instead, Fred allowed and encouraged me to play lapsteel slide as the odd rehearsals became thrice-weekly regular and the tiny project evolved into The End Times. I could not be more thankful he did. That was three plus years ago.
Because of T.E.T., I've traveled to Detroit and back, recorded with garage legends, done shows in tea kettles and movie theaters and lesbian bars, sung Capt. Beefheart at the Blue Moon, taken part in two choirs, laughed a lot, drank more, learned how to play slide so I could say something I meant, and then said it on songs and with people I loved and believed in deeply.
I've known for a little while, but Fred officially gave word: He and Lori will return to Michigan in August, in a move I'm sure augurs good things for them both. I can't begin to say how much I'll miss both of them. I feel a little bit lost already and they're still in-state.
This also means, for those of who have come and supported us over the years--you fervent and lovely lot you, thank you thank you thank you--the upcoming show at The Rendezvous will be our last for some time.
In one of those cosmic hilarities, our full-length should be done just in time for us to hand out copies to those interested. We've been recording for the past few months. I think you'll love it.
7.05.2009
Meet Quimby.
He's new to my apartment. And already attacking the fish, that scamp.
Sums and I put this up over the weekend. The design's been kicking around for a while now, but I could never fix the medium. Canvas and (some kind of) paint was my last inclination. Thanks to a Summer suggestion, Quimby is contact paper of a wonderful pattern picked up from FM for a song, freehand drawn and cut by Summer and myself, and situated between art gifted me by Lui (the small oil in the top-left corner) and Jen (the evocatively painted fish in the lower right).
I like him already.
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