UUUUUHHHHHHHHHNNNNGGGGGHHHHH...

No, not much to report. Life is swell; the sun is shining after a few days of rain; it's definitely feeling like fall.
I skulked into John Henry's yesterday to track down Eric for some practice scheduling...he'll be the interim drummer for a couple of NW shows. It's kind of fun switching bandmates around at the last minute-it could lead to some surprises for everyone. Eric also had some cool artwork for my next "interim" CD release. A cool turntable-thing + some stamp art also.
A beer or two later, I was hiking up Skinner Butte with Tina and experienced near-vertigo when I realized that we were at the top edge of the rocky cliff part with a nice 100-or-so foot drop right at our feet. Yikes! Be careful hiking with beer, kids!
UUUHHHHHH....Vagiant Uk this Friday at John Henry's with Courtesy Clerks and Fireballs of Freedom...should be a killer show.
Ok, Ok - back to work.

Not too much to update about. The weekend was nice - went out to the pumpkin patch w/ Tina and Cos...not very punk rock but totally fun + good coffee and lots of mud. I didn't make as much headway on the studio set up as I'd hoped but it's still at the top of my list. Tony Figoli has been helping me with a website and it's looking awesome - stay tuned for the grand opening. I'll be playing with the plastic-coated fairy band (Vagiant UK) at John Henry's on friday and after that I'm off to Seattle w/ Pellet Gun next week. Also, putting my hands together and chanting pagan prayers for a new job that does not include the telephone. Otherwise...life is good.

http://cul-de-sac.oops.jp/pv/ Total system failure - a blog by a depressed Japanese guy (teenager?) who loves Syd Barret and Pet Sounds... cute but depressing.

I don't know about anything rad or rockin' going on this weekend. I do believe my PDX friends Tracker are playing at Sam Bond's tonight; I might sneak down for a short while to soak in some suds and tunes.

Nothing else groundbreaking, save the anxiety of having to scrape together a rhythm section at the last moment before heading to Seattle and Portland next week.

Working on putting the home studio together this weekend. I now have enough mics and cables. All I need is a decent mixing board and a coat of paint...voila! I've already got a few bands lined up to record, so it looks like it could be a fruitful winter. Anyone out there with a 16 channel (or better) mixer they want to get rid of?

edhead101@hotmail.com

later

Dream last night...

A surreal, wild-west version of 5th street at Willamette. The street is dusty. It's as if a tornado has just blown through - no, it is blowing through. Holding on for dear life. Shit is blowing everywhere. Things calm down. I walk over to the train station - it looks like a post-apocolyptic heap of trash, but it's nicely overgrown with vegetation. Inside the train station, a group of kids and adults are hanging out. The kids are playing video games on an ancient TV set. Everyone seems resigned, yet content.

Dan sent me this cool link on The Stooges recent gigs in Europe, written by Mike Watt. I love Watt's writing style and aspire to live similarly someday. Sounds fab - i hope I make it down to LA for the November 9th show.

Stay tuned for edcolerocks.com in the near future

A great weekend, but I'm glad it's over.

Ultra-recap: Friday's Cosmo art show was a blast - thanks, people, for checking it out. Saturday's John Zorn show was outa sight, even though the bastard New Yorker was wearing camo pants and an ugly pea-green t-shirt onstage at the Hult-great display of juvenile attitude for a middle aged man, I suppose. Truly, my favorite part of the show was the fact that Shawn Mediaclast could not hold in his whoops of enthusiasm during hot parts of the program and really got other people in the audience loosened up. By the end, everyone was very vocal in their appreciation for drum fills, bass thumps, alto skronks and trumpet blasts. Probably the most unruly audience I've ever seen at the Hult, actually. At different points, the drummer was actually playing with his fingertips, transitioning to brushes, sticks, mallets etc...without skipping a beat. I could go on...I'm still pretty stunned, actually. My friend Billy said Cobra was equally enlightening & very fun to watch also. Too much.
So...last night I played a low-key gig at Sam Bond's with pop songwriter Jim Basnight and Phamous Phaces...didn't stick around for the whole show but Jim I'd seen before and he was very polished with his songwriting and performing and a decent guy to boot...very much in the vein of modern 70's jangle pop along with 80's/90's guitar crunch pop...maybe too pop, actually, but like I said, very good. We (Billy, Raenie and I) played one of our best sets ever (I always say that whenever we play decently) even though (or maybe because) not many people were there. No new tunes or anything; sometimes, you just really, really want to play for playing's sake and it turns out to be very fun without a whole lot of pre-meditation...well, that is what I speak of.
Now, I'm glad to be back to work.

Awesome show last night - John Zorn's Masada at the Hult center performing insane klezmer jazz. Zorn's cramped posture and extreme alto playing were out of sight and drummer Joey Baron was among the best drummers of any genre that I'd ever seen. Some people might view Zorn's punk jazz as all squeaks and skronks, but I view him and his various ensembles as musicians who can squeeze every possible sound out of their instruments to a musical effect. Bird chirps, breathy blatts, muted skronks + amazing jazz runs, all delivered with virtuosity on all the players parts. An expensive ticket but well worth it.

Hey, thanks to all who came by Cosmo's art show. He even sold three paintings, which rocks! I regret not getting out and checking out some of the galleries along the art walk last night, but I was highly agitated and annoyed with all the normal people herding themselves along to the Jerry Seinfeld show at the Hult, so it's just as well that I didn't venture out into the mean streets of Eugene.
There are more events I want to see than I haver money or time for. Today, of course, is John Zorn in two performances - one Cobra and the other his klezmer-jazz outfit Masada. I pick Masada, as much as I want to see some local friends like Jake play at the Cobra performance.
Now, it's supposed to be a laid-back Saturday Morning but instead, we're gearing up for a 10:30 Metal Detector practice and then...geez, I can't even think. More Coffee!

Alright! Another Friday and this one is going to rock. I like to sneeze my thanks to Mr Random and Eric for helping spread the word on my kid Cosmo's impending art show tonight at Feinstein's Museum of Unfine Art. A SMALL TIME CORRECTION: The opening is actually at 6:38 pm tonight; not 7:11 pm as was previously reported. Art, spasmodic improv music, food, drink and lots of interesting people to look at. For all those out there that aren't familiar with Eugene, Oregon - this town rocks! We have the greatest core underground art and music community that really crosses all boundaries - punks, hippies, musicians, photographers, artists, alienated weirdos, gorgeous people, total oddballs - we've got it all and we make the effort to support our own without staying in our own little niches.

OK, OK - enough on that spiel. I just got lost in a conversation with a co-worker about the large homeless 'family' group that sleeps in the adjacent church parking lot - we're talking 15 + kids and adults in sleeping bags every morning. As far as homeless folks go, these are decent people who clean up after breaking camp every morning and then head off to do whatever it is they do during the day. There's definitely a heirarchy - a young blonde hippy is the ringleader who seems to direct things and it trickles down from there. Another layer of the American caste (-off) system. Makes me evaluate whether I truly need to go across the street for that luxurious cup of coffee every day.

Ok - back to work

Sick as a dog / nothing to do but blog...

Glad to almost be feeling better. Nothing much to report. I hope that some of you can make it down to Cosmo's art opening on friday at 7pm at the Museum of Unfine art in Eugene/5th & Willamette. His pieces all look great and are affordable also.

Otherwise, come check out Ed C + College Girls of Tora Bora Sunday night at Sam Bond's Garage, opening for Jim Basnight (a songwriter that once played bass with Johnny Thunders)

Back to work...

Ungh! Home sick today. Apparently, something's going around. I feel highly spaced-out w/ scruntchy throat...very appealing , I know.

I still might drag myself down to the acoustic Ovulators tonight at Cafe Paradiso. I haven't set foot in there since their first gig a year and a half ago ( back when they were 'Super Duper')

Otherwise, band practice tonight and little else. Oh, except for the excellent feature/documentary series on the Blues on PBS this whole week. At 9pm, people - check it out. I was highly moved watching it last night. At some point, Beck and Nick Cave are featured along with many amazing trad blues guys from the past.

Enough rambling. C-ya

Another dream; this one bordering on bizarre:

I'm in Gasquet, the rural Northern California town I grew up in. I'm working in the vacant lot in front of my mom's old house with my mom and brother Mike. In the building adjacent to the lot, there's a display window. In the window there is a corpse-like body in tighty-whitey underwear. Upon closer inspection, I realize that it's me as a teenager. I look dead, yet well-preserved. I have bruises on my face and body; apparently, I had an accident and I had to have a new body constructed at some point and this body is what's been left over for all these years, unbeknownst to me. I'm feeling a mixture of horror and curiosity as I get closer to this corpse of myself. I go into the building and examine myself. Now, I look even younger - maybe nine or ten - and I'm coming back to life. I'm very excited at this second chance to see myself grow up. The interior of the building is done in a bright yellow tile and is very clean and warm. I take my young self outside, talking all the way, telling young me about all the wonderful things that he has to look forward to. we decide not to go upstairs to the scummy apartments and opt to walk to my mom's house in the back. I can hardly contain my excitement.
At the front of my mom's house, about three of my brother's mexican friends are laughing and letting off fireworks; they seem drunk and are beckoning my brother to come out and either fight or party with them. I muscle past these guys with mini-me and go inside for dinner. When my brother goes to the door to answer these guys, they start talking loudly about all the new flavors of ravioli that are about to come out. I shout out to them that they should shut the f**k up and that I should know a thing or two about ravioli since I work for (insert name of the company I work for here).
I go back to myself, still sadly excited. Suddenly, we seem to be back at the original building and the small version of me is packaged, like a life-like doll. No; packaged like a frozen entree. I peel back the plastic, dip a finger in and taste myself. It's as if I've turned into some kind of hummus or tofu pate. I was delicious.

End of dream.

Just back from the show at EMU featuring Gossip and Rock 'n Roll Soldiers. There are too many shows happening lately; at least that makes up somewhat for those long spells where any and all hip bands seem to avoid Eugene for months on end.

I remember when RnR Soldiers were a bunch of squeaky voiced kids some years back when they recorded their first demos in my garage. They're looking like young men now and yowza! They're a hot item for the 70's rocker kids these days. They still pull from the Stooges/Stones vein of music, with a greater emphasis on performance than on actual sound. I would suggest that they slow things down and concentrate on writing some killer songs to go along with their great image, but no one asked me what I think. Still, I'm on their side and have a great affection for them.
Gossip. I don't know why I was expecting something a bit scarier or more intense from this 3-some of Olympia-ites. I've been listening to them on record for maybe 3 years and I have to say I was shocked by how young they looked - in fact, I'm quite certain the entire night was designed to make me feel old. All the young college kids looked more like 15 than 18 to me and the whole scene reminded me oh-so-much of my own mis-spent rock and roll youth. Anyway, I digress. The Gossip were great. Despite having a novice soundman who had NO IDEA HOW TO SET MICROPHONES UP FOR A DRUMSET AND ELECTRIC GUITAR, (I mean, the mics weren't even close or even aiming at what they were supposed to be picking up...) Gossip still rocked with a swagger and nerdy confidence that you could dance to. 4 string guitar and a shitty drum kit providing a perfect bed for the punk gospel wailings of Beth Ditto. Really, she has a great voice and stage presence and boy, can she dance. I can see her really going on to more interesting projects in the next decade or so. I'm not wildly into the whole Olympia kooky/cool scene, but I think it's a great thing for the younger kids looking for something non-mainstream that is self-affirming and fun (and sexy...) I still came away inspired that really, you can do ANY music project on your own terms and make it fun and interesting. Boo Ya!

Now, I'm tired and it's not even 11:30...time to put my kid to bed and then fall asleep watching Saturday Night Live.

The show at Tiny Tavern with Yeltsin was a success. I was afraid no one would show due to the neighborhood Anarchists' boycott of the club due to some dumb actions on the part of the owner. I did notice a letter of apology posted near the door for whatever it was he did to piss off the local political contingent. Guess what people? Humans make glaring mistakes all the time, whether they're proprietors of Tiny's or anarchists throwing rocks at cops and receiving heavy-handed sentences. I don't believe in an utopian potential for humanity - I believe we're flawed and beautiful and prone to dysfunction. (ed. note: enough on the rant, already!)

All aside, people showed up, so yay. I felt kind of spaced-out, but musically I think we were pretty on - especially for the band that never rehearses. I especially liked "Can't Move her" this time around, as it had some musical twists that none of us were expecting and still came out well.

Yeltsin definitely rocked it in their sad, post new-wave guitar-pop style. They were loud, so the vocals were hard to hear through the shitty PA but that's life. Highlights were the schoolyard bully song that Jake sings + ex Officio + By Myself. If you haven't heard these tunes yet, go check out their link and download their mp3's.

It seemed like a sad element prevailed in the mood the whole night, yet people seemed to be having fun at the same time. I pat myself on the back for avoiding all opportunities for bumming smokes off of friends; the downside was that I was a nervous freak all night long. Today, I'm feeling much, much better.

Got the rough mixes back yesterday for Vagiant Uk ...it sounds pretty good, in a Ratt/New York Dolls/ Billy Squire kind-of way. We have a Halloween show opening for the Cherry Poppin Daddies at McDonald Theatre. I don't think I've ever played in a venue that big before. I'm sure it will feel slightly weird, but it's only Eugene. I can remember opening for the Daddies 8-9 years ago at some theatre in Salem and being absolutely petrified to go on in front of a sizable audience. I think I have a bit more confidence about the matter now. We'll soon see.

More later

Gnnngghghhhhhh AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been struggling with quitting cigs all year long and I CAN"T TAKE IT ANYMORE! I'm highly irritable and ready to bite the head off of anyone who comes near me, so STAY BACK! Don't smoke around me and if I beg you for a cig, TELL ME NO! My co-workers think it's a bit odd that I'm squirming and writhing around on the floor of the office biting myself, but they already have an idea that I'm a little sideways of normal, so they're politely ignoring me.

Tonight, at the Tiny Tavern, Yeltsin and Ed Cole will rock you. BYOB and stay outside if you're intent on maintaining the boycott on the venue - just come within earshot and enjoy the music at least. I'm sketchy on the details of what went down there last week (something about missing teeth and a flying beer glass); I'm just happy to play on a bill with one of my favorite local bands at the moment.

No other news to report. I'm just amazed I could sit still long enough to write this entry. GNNNNGAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Alright! On time for work today despite the late night out. Went down to John Henry's to check out Consonant with Evan Dando. I felt lucky that Keith let me "work the back door" in lieu of the steep admission price. Thanks to Abba, too.
Consonant...were awesome to hear and see, but something just didn't hit right about them. I most enjoyed just hearing the wispy rasp of Connely's voice along with the Burma-esque chord progressions. There is something about the Boston bands I've seen - they all sound great on record, but sometimes they're so fucking loud that it's hard to distinguish the subtleties of their songs. Call me old. Still, I could hear the roots of Sonic Youth, Husker Du and many others coming out of the geezer's voice and amp.
Evan Dando just about made me puke. I hate to be abjectly negative, but WHAT A WHINING WEENIE! I hate people that cut their first song short because their stage mix isn't right, especially when the (misguided) fans of his music were completely pulled in and attentive. I just got the feeling that Dando wasn't giving his all since it wasn't a packed show and he came off as being condescending towards Eugene for not coming out in droves to lick up his whining drivel. Compare that with artists of much higher stature (John Doe, Elliot Smith, Uz jsme Doma, the Jesus Lizard) who I've seen play to 20 people in this town and they still gave their all...waaaahh, Evan. Go back to Boston.
Afterward, T and I split and cruised by WOW hall to listen to Dick Dale from outside...the door guy was nice and popped open the window so we could look in for a few tunes - Dick was awesome! A totally packed house was digging his every move and his guitar heroics were dead-on. What a cocky bastard! An ace player with great stage presence; I was glad to catch a bit of his set.
A very rock and roll Tuesday.

I just read that

John Grisham

of TSOL is running for Governator of California. IF the recall still happens.

Hey, I hope anyone reading this gets a chance to tune in their radios/computers to

KWVA 88.1

at 5pm pst today to hear

YELTSIN

live on MR Random's show. If I get lucky, Mr Random will play a few cuts off my new CD as well. I would go up there and do a spiel if I had time today, but seeing how I need to make up a little time at work, I don't think that's going to happen.

My boss at work is tossing around the idea of using one of my tunes for a 15 second tv spot...I would be stoked if that happens. Eat Ravioli. It's your duty.

Check out this Killdozer fansite

I'm hoping and praying that I can make it to this

A very non rockin' afternoon...I felt like a weirdo, taking notes on what passers by were wearing as I sipped coffee outside of Full City today. (I can't help it-I'm a very curious person)

I was happy to chat with Honey today. Stoked about seeing Clint Connely's band Consonant tomorrow at John Hank's

So long suckas - nice baggy jeans, hoody sweatshirt, sunglasses and Addidas.

The weekend seems like a blur. Cos and I caught only a few bands down at the celebration. The best was Calexico. We almost didn't go down for them but decided to at the last minute.
I'd heard Calexico recordings before and knew they had a cool, spacious vibe with interesting instrumentation, but I was unprepared for how good they were live. Vibes, nylon string + electric guitars, upright bass, drums, accordian, lap steel and trumpets + killer mariachi-influenced alt-rock is the only description I can come up with offhand. All the players were ace; the drummer and accordian/trumpet/guitar player stood out as being exceptional and the guitarist/vocalist had great stage presence. Very inspiring and the large local audience was really digging it, although only a few were dancing. Highlights were a cover of Love's "Alone again or" and a drawn out mariachi/space jam (sounds wrong but it wasn't) called "Crystal Frontier" I'm always happy when some truly good bands come through Eugene and actually have a good audience. I can't even count the amazing bands that have only played here once or twice to empty halls and never return to the hippy-college town that's too stoned to break away from the TV to go receive some live music stimulation.

All aside, I feel drained on a Monday but happy to be more-or-less back on track with my various projects and other aspects of my life.