Geez, I can't believe I haven't checked over at the Dave Shack for awhile now. He's written some nice entries, logging our shows and pics and various what-nots. Check it out, ya'll - but try not to get any bbq sauce on your lapel.

Otherwise, life is grand. I took the night off from work so we can go down to the McDonald Theater and see Gogol Bordello, who we also saw when we sat down to dinner at Poppi's earlier this evening. I am psyched to go and see a good band! It's been too long since I've been to a concert, other than the club shows I usually see and play. I'll post the whole low-down on the show some other time.

Cheers,

Ed

Life keeps moving forward in mysterious ways. THe Underlings CD project, which has consumed so much time and thought, has finally come to fruition. After the cds came back in five big boxes on my porch and I hurriedly ripped open a box, sliced open a cd and reviewed the contents, all I could think was, "well, that wasn't so hard after all." It only took one garage band two years of gig money + some personal contributions from our blessed credit cards to make enough dough to cause the recording, artwork and duplication to happen; maybe next time, we'll just rob a bank - that is, if it happens to be a FDIC insured bank. We could always resort to collecting cans with our hobo bike trailers after we lose our mansions to foreclosure.
I hope lots of people come to our 2 shows at Sam Bonds on Saturday, October 4th - one free, all-ages show at 5:30 with Chanteuse opening up and the later, 21+ show at 9:30 with Dan Jones and the Squids opening. See you there!

Somehow, on Sunday evening while I was at work, Louis broke his little baby leg. Tina called me around 8 or so and said he was acting "in pain" after she retrieved him from being baby-sat by a friend. The babysitter didn't have a clue over what might have happened, which was, to say the least, utterly frustrating. According to the doctor at urgent care, Louis has a fracture in his lower fibula and he needs a cast for at least a few weeks. The little guy is bummed out, but he seems to be taking it in stride. Rats! He was having so much fun walking. Tomorrow, he goes to his regular doctor's office to get checked out and we'll see what they prescribe.

Here are a few pics from the last couple of days:

















Extended Underlings band during the Joe Strummer tribute show we played on Saturday. L-R: Alex Fletcher, Dave, Bryant on drums, Reed Gilchrist, myself and Stephen Mathys on the mandolin and bg vocals. Totally, big hella fun
















Cosmo, Louis, myself and Tina at Jed Smith state park in Nor Cal, on my favorite river, the Smith.
















Louis, me and my highschool friend Matt, one of the few people from high school that I still keep in touch with. He and his wife had us over for dinner and beers a plenty.

O.K., that's it for now

-Ed

So much has been leading up to this moment. My band has been preparing for thi sJoe Strummer tribute since March and now, we ar eon the verge of the whole damn thing. Tomorrow night, August 16th at WOW hall, we play our set at 8:50. CAN'T FUCKING WAIT!

love ,
Ed

Here's a bit of video I took during part of Yeltsin's set last night

Yeltsin at Sam Bond's Garage 7/25/2008 from Ed Cole on Vimeo.

I went to see the Melvins play at John Henry's last night, along with my friends Slayer Carl and Gobbles. I arrived late, so I missed the majority of the Melvins' set, but what I did see was delightful - about 3 sludge-y songs plus a guttural version of the Star-Spamgled Banner. Here is an excerpt of that song:

Melvins/Star-Spangled Banner excerpt from Ed Cole on Vimeo.
The crowd was an interesting mix of rock fans from Eugene/Springfield area. I love seeing different people that I've nver seen at show before, and wondering what brought them there. It's always a social scene melting pot of hipsters, un-hipsters, grimy people with appearance attributes that would lend one to believe that they might use heavy drugs, clean cut wussies that squeeze right into the fray and get an up-close looksy. All types, I tell ya.

Life is still good, ya. We've been listening to the newer Gogol Bordello cd around the house and I like that quite a bit. Later, we go to one of Cosmo's last baseball games this season and then, later still I go down to Sam Bond's Garage to play a show around 10. Busy, normal, happy, typingcoffeelaundry oops! Now it's time for second lunch.

-Ed

I've added a sidebar link to the Underlings mp3 practice blog - mainly for hosting mp3's for my bandmates to listen to, but feel free to check 'em out at your own risk:
edhead101.wordpress.com
Occasional, I guess I'll probably post live tracks or whatnot, and probably make it look nicer or something.
Last night, we had a semi-full rehearsal for the Joe Strummer Foundation benefit show that we're doing in late August. It was rad to have the awesome lead guitar of Alex, formerly of Chance Became Fate and currently of the Traitor Hearts, as well as the mandolin playing of Stephen Mathyss, a long time friend of the band.

write to you later,

Ed

We've had a busy stretch of family visitations over the last two weeks. First, Tina's parent's came over for Louis' birthday celebration. Then, we were graced with the presence of my older bro, Darrow and his wife, Cynthia and their two kids, age 6months and 4 years, which was totally awesome, since Louis had never met his young cousins before. Here's some video footage of Louis and his cuz, Nathan, eating some blueberries:

Nathan + Louis pt 1 from Ed Cole on Vimeo.

Also, my younger bro, Walter, was in town for a stretch, on leave from the Army. He is deployed in Afghanistan with his platoon and hopefully will not get his ass blown off. Even though I don't in any way support war, I support my brother in the military. He really seems to have more of a sense of maturity and direction in his life that wasn't there before. Discipline, training and learning to get along with others is a good thing. Blowing people up just because someone tells you to...that's another thing entirely. There will always be a contingent of people in this country that think fighting in the armed forces for America is a worthy calling; I have a different opinion, especially when oil companies and big business are the ones running our government and it seems to suit their collective profit desires to start another war.
Enough said. I'm sure I'm not the only dissenter who has a close relative in the military. I just hope they quit enforcing the U.S.'s will on the rest of the word.

Peace and Love !

Ed

(Louis and Louis)

So many things to report - let's see if I can hit a few of the more important happenings:

Louis had his first birthday yesterday. He stayed pretty well entertained the whole time, thanks in part to Tina's parents, Big Louis and Cathie, who came up from Cali to observe the event. We had BBQ steak and cake and then went to go see Cosmo play some baseball, out the old Elmira way. His team won and Cosmo's keen hitting was part of the reason. Fun, fun, fun.

Mr Random came ove today to record the Underlings' practice for his radioNOT blog. I think he said he'll have it posted in a day or two. The segment will be part interview, part music and all sweat, since it wsa 96 degrees Fahrenheit outside and about 110 degrees inside the garage. Phew! I think our playing was better on some songs than on others, but overall we rocked it good and can't wait to hear the results. Be sure to check out his other fine podcasts as well - get hip to listening to radio in a pod-style. Time to plug in and pod-out, geekoids of the internet!

I've really been liking our fine, hot weather here in Eugene. The first half of June was bleak - cold, rainy, miserable - not at all like June should be. Now. it feels like summer is finally on and I'm glad.

My biggest bro comes tonight with his family - that would be Darrow - and my youngest bro - Walter - is here tomorrow. Plus, Softball tomorrow and of course, work tomorrow night. I think I keep busy, but I still feel lazy at heart.

Peace out!

-E

The Underlings live at Luckey's 6-6-08 from Ed Cole on Vimeo.
Video taken by Mr. Random

Holy Shit!!!! This vid re-charged my batteries and now I am ready to take on the day:
Meat Puppets live, probably from 1986/87/88

When I was a kid, I stayed over at my friend Bar's house a lot. Bar had a big family with lots of older and younger siblings, so it was a real zoo - people always stealing each others socks and constantly walking in on each other while in the bathroom. I was basically an only child, since most of my sibings head left the house by the time I was ten, and I loved the chaos that happened at my surrogate family's house.
One thing I remember about staying over at Bar's was the breakfast cereal. Food was at a premium for his brood, and if you ever had anything good to eat, you had better eat it before anyone else got to it. Breakfast cereal was at the top of the food chain, and on top of all cereals was Ohs!, the crunchy sugary prince of cereals. Bar used to hide his box of Ohs! from the rest of his family, but if I was lucky, he would share them with me, subsequently stashing the box from the prying eyes and fingers of the less fortunate members of clan McKinnon.
So, you must understand how I felt when Tina came home with a box of Ohs! a few weeks ago. I felt like pouring myself a huge bowl and locking myself in the closet, where passers by would wonder what the hell all the crunching was about.

Things are good. Tina is still painting the house and it is looking great in here. Hues of dusty yellow, olive green, light-ish blue and spring green are all around. It is very nice to live inside a color-aquarium.














(Yeltsin rocking Pee-town)
We went up to Portland over the weekend, where Tina was working with her Ovulators on their upcoming CD. The bit I heard was sounding great to my ears; can't wait to hear how it sounds when it becomes a finished product. I spent most of my PDX time hanging out with baby Louis, walking around the neighborhoods of Southeast portland, sipping coffee and taking in the sights sound , smells and SUNLIGHT that happened to touch down upon Oregon that fine two days.
Friday night, I went down to Kelly's Olympian to catch Yeltsin's CD release party. I saw many Eugene and Portland friends. I arrived too late to catch the Tractor Operator set, but people said it went over well. Excellence contains former Eugene Hot For Chocolate bassist Geof Unger and they had a cool, PDX-pop sound with baritone guitar, keys and drums rounding out their lineup.
I really enjoyed Yeltsin's set - really loose and rocking. Jivan was good on the mic, really working the PDX crowd. And a good crowd it was - plenty of Portland folks are hip to our hometown band.

Okay! Off to be useful!

Tina is painting the house this week, so shit's all askew. Furniture here, piles of books there - it reminds me of the way I used to live when I was a single man. I much prefer our more common state of ABSOLUTE ORDER around the house. True peace of mind can only enter when all things are in the absolute right place; no stray pins or discarded eyebrow hairs. ORDER! Soon, I will be tranquil again; for now, I am in flux.
The band is still working towards our gaol of finishing our cd by oblique forms of non-action. As the clock of humanity 'clicks' around, all the deeds leading up to our cd release will somehow take care of themselves. Money will appear from somewhere and tasks will be completed. Are we humans really the ones making these actions, or are we only the tools of a giant galactic force that we do not understand? Or, is the desire to create a CD just another step in humanity's compulsory mating ritual ? I guess a hundred years or more ago, a musician would compose a big piece of music instead of making a CD, and thereby be deemed a worthy mate. These days, technology has influenced our behavior to a high degree.
Must...make...coffee...check cell phone...blog...maneuver car without hitting anyone...and go to work. Now.

I have not been 'feeling it' lately. Too much real life stuff going on to feel like rotting my brain in front of www radiation. I think that several others in my blogosphere are in the same state of mind. Myspace is the ultimate time-waster, yet I still login for band stuff and friend communication. I like reading Dan' s and Justin's blogs and I always check out Ken's various pages; that and email are pretty much the extent of my online caring right now.
I was quite saddened this morning to learn that a friend of Tina's, Jessie, a woman we met in our childbirth class, recently suffered the loss of both her baby and her father in a car accident in Idaho. Jessie's baby, Sage. was the same age as Louie and they were friends from baby play dates. Kind of sobering, as it always is when someone you know dies in an untimely way. My heart goes out to Jessie and her husband; no one should have to endure such a harsh loss.

I went with my bros Zookie and Carl down to John Henry's to see the most recent incarnation of Agent Orange on Tuesday night. It was also Slayer Carl's birthday, so drinks were had and spilled, fun was splooshing in the night. Agent Orange were not bad, although I always have mixed feelings about older punk groups re-forming for glory and money (haha not a lot of $$$). Mike Palm's guitar playing sounded keen, and I liked the newer, surf-style instrumental that they opened with. I was, as usual, dismayed with the middle-aged mosh-pit, but apparently people were having fun. I couldn't take the entire set, but it was fun to hear some classics - "Everything Turns Grey", "Too Young To Die" and a few others that I forget now. Another show, another few brain cells down the drain, splooshing, splooshing...

Keep waking up into"life"like un-dream. Eyes open.Time=running. Clock tick-tick-ticking, into the future. Leap day and I haven't yet.
I can't wait for 3:66pm today - I'll be at Museum of Unfine Art, hoping to trade time for space.

NEWS FLASH: Local Space Money May Not Be The First Space Money!

An unfortunate Google search revealed that some nefarious forces of finance in the U.K. have already been pioneering the combination of Space Money with old-fashioned, corrupt, Planet Earth Time-Money!

You can read about the bogus concept of money for the super-rich space-tourists of the future here.

This year's Eugene Record Convention was a blast. Cosmo and I rolled out of bed at the un-Godly hour of 9am and picked up Mr. Zook and dragged our greasy asses down to mingle with the great unwashed masses of collector nerds from our local music community. I saw too many friends to mention and made some good scores on albums that I'd never had. Among my faves this year were an original press of Television's Adventure, on red vinyl no less and also albums by Tom Verlaine, Thin Lizzy, The Clash, 86 (the first band of Jesus Lizard drummer Mac MacNeily) and Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet. I spent more than I expected but it was worth it. A good time was had by all and then we went for coffee.
Friday night, the Underlings played with our good friends Valiant Arms and Long Tall and Ugly at Luckey's Club Cigar. I'll post some pics at my long-neglected flickr and then I'll throw the link up when I get a chance(*later: here's that link). The funniest moment of the night was when this fucked-up drunk guy jumped up onstage with V.A. and started singing some screaming nonsense to one of their songs. At first, it sounded like some manic, Cleveland nightmare music, like Rocket From the Tombs or something - the drunk was really on to something approaching art. I captured a few seconds of video before they threw the guy out, which I'll post when I get a chance. Another fun night of rock and roll.

I was putting up flyers, as per usual, and doing my route around town, to various establishments and bulletin boards, when I walked into the Museum of Unfine Art and learned from Shawn about Prudence the Pug's passing. I am deeply saddened that a much-loved pug has left our community of artists, musicians, weirdos and general Good-nics.
Prudence was a friend of mine; she often licked my hand and snurfed me from time to time. In '98 and '99, I was going over to Shawn's house quite often to jam with our various noisy noise-nerd friends such as Guy Tyler, Mark Stern and occasional others. Prudence was always there, a real fixture in Shawn's art-house. I knew her when she was fairly spry; I remember the last few times I saw her, she was showing the tired indifference of age. But she still gave me a good snurf.

Prudence the Pug, Citizen of Eugene and Springfield, fondly remembered, sorely missed, R.I.P.

Man, I had a great time going out to see the Circle Jerks last night. I have to admit, they've never been my favorite band, but I've always appreciated their humor, energy and old-school punk credentials. It was cute to see all the punk kids, with their freshly-shaved mohawks, going at it like animals. The mosh pit was big but relatively friendly. I saw a few people really hit the dust, and one big guy in particular took a faceplant right in front of Zookie and I. Ouch! It felt like chaos swept through the room; the people wanted a chance to go crazy and they got it. The Band was tight and energetic; Keith Morris was funny on the mic; the bass player looked like Jerry Garcia. I had fun hanging with my friends and having a beer. Good times, great oldies...