Valiant Arms debut at Slabtown.(R-L: Diane Rios, Eric Jensen, Rob Jones)















U-lings darkly rocking





















Dan McClure and myself.

Some things never change. Like spending nights in a club with your friends and your friends' bands, rocking out in an art-filled room filled with (thankfully ventilated) smoking people, sipping beers and scarfing fries.
We (the Underlings)had great fun driving up to Portland to play with our friends,The Valiant Arms and seminal PDX art/noise/bassline rockers Wow and Flutter. The night was only slightly marred by the fact that the sound wa sso bad that no vocals came through at all for the first two bands (VA & us). Worst sound experience ever. Go back to your day job, you lame-wad sound geek! Valiant Arms music sounded like a mix of the three musicians' bands - Oswald 5-0 meets Pellet Gun anxiety-rock + artsy/indie Beltline guitar. It would have been cool to have heard the words at all, but it was hopeless - I could barely make out Diane and Rob's singing. Oh well - better luck next time. The sound may have been awful, but the mood was high - it was great to see so many of our Portland and Eugene friends out to support and hang out. I'll spare you, dear reader, the name dropping, but I saw some friends I hadn't seen in years and it made me say..."hmmm...I'll probably be doing the same thing for the rest of my life." Hanging out in bars and other venues, playing music with my friends, just like Willie Nelson or Kurt Cobain or Marilyn Manson or Pete Seeger- just having great times with other old geezers just like me.
P.S. Wow and Flutter were great and had great distorted basslines and angular rhythms. Hadn't seen them in awhile and I was happy to check 'em.

I'm excited to go to Portland and play a show at Slabtown tomorrow night with the Valiant Arms and Wow and Flutter. I haven't had a band road trip to Portland in, like, two years or so. It is nice when working at meaningless slave-jobs to have a vision in one's mind of getting away from the routine things in one's life - like work - and playing riffs loudly in a cool room with the ears of others filling with your frequencies. It's the best way to be savage in an urban setting. Savagery through multi-frequency rock and roll!!
Tina has been laid-up with a kidney stone. She has been in pain for 2 or 3 days. At one point, she was in so much pain that we went down to the hospital for a couple of hours, where her midwife, Michelle and her nurse, Judy took care of her until they figured out what was wrong. I hate to see my girl in so much pain, but I think she's on an upswing now.
Our child is due on July 13th. We are almost completely prepared for the expansion of our domestic tribe. We just have to finish painting one room in our teepee and then we also need to get a gunny sack to carry the little bugger around in when we're out scavenging for remnants of civilization with which we would then burn for warmth and for cooking the charred bones of our enemies... uh, I mean, we're generally ready. Gotta get a car seat for the tractor and then we'll be good.

I often think of how hokey this whole modern rock-promotion shtick has become. Everyone is entitled to have their own band page on myspace and promote themselves - I do it; you do it - but what is this all about, really? 10+ years ago, when you did a gig out of town, you called all your friends in that town, sent your press kit to the local paper and hoped like anything that your song would get played on the college radio station in Bumfucksville so that some people would come down to Scrawny Ronnies Peephole and Sub Shop to see your half-hour set. Now, potentially thousands of folks can see your promo online, but do any more people actually come out? I know I hardly do, even though I'm bombarded with e-promo. Maybe we're just all a little de-sensitized by this whole digital age thing.
I still like rock and roll.

Pat and I watched We Jam Econo tonight. I highly recommend. I know I'm sounding old-mannish here, but what the fuck has happened to all the kids these days? Why aren't they totally pissed about the generic music that is making i's way onto their ipods and computers? It's a different world than it was in the 70's and 80's , when groups like the Minutemen and Husker Du and Mission of Burma and Wire were really pushing some boundaries, reacting to the glut of over-produced hair-metal and stadium cock-rock. Punk rock still exists, but it's become a category, not a state of mind. The walls young musicians face these days are in their own minds, not in the oppressive quantity and low soul-quality of commercial rock. The internet has made our current world an instant place, where true nobodies can become popular overnight from their youtube video, but the soul content is what is lacking. WHERE THE FUCK IS WOODY GUTHRIE WHEN YOU NEED HIM???

I might complain about my job, but I actually enjoy working all the time - at least in the sense that I'm contributing my time and energy to a working-class cause (Organics) that I actually care about, with people that are cool. I've always identified strongly with working class ethics and people, more so than white-collar, business-types, as necessary as they are for the structural integrity of our society (let's hear it for lawyers - hip, hip, hooray!)
Last night, at band practice, we started working on a cover of the Minutemen's "This ain't no picnic" (go and search it on Youtube for their funny and profound video from 1984). The lyrics to that song really hit home with me, the same way Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan would for some folks:

Working on the edge
losing my self-respect
for a man who presides over me
the principles of his creed
punch in punch out
8 hours 5 days a week
sweat pain and agony
on Friday I'll get paid

THIS AIN'T NO PICNIC

Hey mister don't look down on me
(for what I believe in-
I got my bills and the rent)
I should go pitch a tent
but our land is not free
so I'll work my youth away
in the place of a machine

THIS AIN'T NO PICNIC

Our show went smashingly well last Friday night. I often hate being a self-promoter, but you do what you gotta do to get people down to the clubs. After numerous emails and myspacey postey things, we actually had a good amount of people down to see us. The Crosswalks from Portland were excellent - really good dynamics and three-way vocals. I highly recommend them if you get the chance.
Other than werk and music, I've been enjoying going to Cosmo's baseball games. His team, the Pleasant Hill Billies, have been kicking butt the last several weeks. Watching pro games on tv seldom interests me, but seeing a bunch of 13 and 14 year-old boys playing their hearts out is a blast. Plus, you get to see some of the finer sports fields of greater Lane County.

We only have this show and one other scheduled May 19 at Luckey's Club Cigar for the time being. Please come on down to the Tiny Tavern and support your local Underlings. Let us assist you to.ROCK!!

Werk has been all-consuming lately. I know it is oh-so-common to say so, but at this stage of my life, I've been hurling myself into my job, few complaints necessary, in order to earn the almighty paycheck. Someday - mark my words - I will not be the typical, broke-as-a-motherfucker Eugene musician that I am at the present. All told, though,I realize that I actually like my job and love all of my comrades at the vegetable warehouse. There ain't a bunch of guys and gals I'd rather spend my time with while lifting box after box of spuds, bananas, broccoli or whatever while I nearly get run down by a forklift. It's always helpful to have somebody around to call 911 for vegetable-related injuries.
Years ago, during my first stint at OGC, one of my first Eugene bands, Tulip, actually practiced in the warehouse late at night when all operations had ceased. We'd crank up the amps by a stack of pallets and bash away into the night, occasionally shocking a delivering farmer or two. Now, with my current band having it's practice space converted into a baby room, I may be back to jamming amongst the vegetables again. Perhaps the frequencies will help the bananas and avocados ripen properly...C# diminished, please...Krrraaaannnnngggggg!!!!!

Alright, not to be a copycat or anything, but following Mr Random's lead I set up my own Ed Cole Vimeo page right here. My first post is a nicely exploded-sounding clip from Mission of Burma at WOW Hall last September that still sends shivers down my spine. I hope you enjoy.





Mission of Burma 9/17/06 on Vimeo

I realize it's annoying to rant about myspace like I did last week - I just think I've been exhibiting signs of a useless myspace addiction, so therefore I rant. I have actually been excited to be receiving contacts from friends I've lost touch with over the past twenty years or so. It's funny that we tend to hold onto memories of friends we used to have when we were young, even if they are fairly inaccurate or embellished by time and glossed-over fantasy. If anyone I was friends with twenty or so years ago and lost touch with were to die or join a religious cult or the military or became a cop, would I have even known or cared, were it not for the internet? It makes me think that my friends really exist in my head, first and foremost. If I lived in any other part of the world, perhaps I would find the exact same friends, only in different bodies, with different faces. We may only be as real as our friends and co-conspirators perceive us to be.

I think this way about religion and faith, too. When a group of people believe so strongly in something, a philosophy or religion or a particular version of historical events, it almost certainly becomes real to them by virtue of their faith. When a person truly believes, there is no arguing with that belief; facts can't counter belief. Skepticism and science can't be used as arguing tools against someones absolute conviction of what is real to them.

Which, I suppose, holds true for beliefs that fall outside of the jurisdiction of faith and religion. If someone is terminally ill, for instance, and believes very strongly that they can be cured by drinking carrot juice and nettle tea, perhaps that belief can become a truth strictly out of the sick person's conviction. Or, perhaps not. Or death. If one believes very strongly in life-after-death, there is no science to contradict that. Maybe for that Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or New-Age Hippie, maybe that does become a truth simply out of the fact that it is a belief.

That being said, I believe the Easter Bunny dropped a generous load of money and candy-filled eggs for my teen aged child early this morning. All hail the miraculous Easter Bunny, back from Valhalla, back from the land of the un-dead!

Happy Easter!

AAARRRRGGGHH!!!!

I hate myspace! It has sucked my brain dry. Why do I ever check that stupid stuff??

I guess being in a band and all, I figure it's good to keep up on networking, etc... but this stupid myspace thing has gotten out of hand. I swear, it's just another instrument of The Man to anesthetize and distract us all while the underlings of The Man go raping our civil rights and burning all of our money in big piles, stacking it in with all the dead bodies and machines that they sold us and then threw away. I tell you, it makes it hard to get up in the morning and check my myspace to see if I have any new friend requests or comments of false adoration.

FUCK MYSPACE

My Space is and always has been in my HEAD!!!!!

I applied for a new job position at work and got it! Is this good or bad? Good, ultimately. I've come to the decision that it is easier to have a full time job to support my (and my family's) ass(es) and have insurance benefits than not. All I know is, I love going to school, working fullish time, playing in a band, doing sound and spending time with my family, but it's really hard to do all that and fit in an appropriate amount of sleep during the course of the week. I have made this life-change in the name of sleep-aquisition.
It's funny that I've been scratching out a lot more song and lyric ideas at work and school lately - filling my book full of inane little ditties and sordid lamentations while I hum along with a pallet jack or, if I'm in class, while I listen to some of my fellow students warble away in my group vocal class. That class in particular gets me to writing; I don't know why - maybe because it's stimulating to hear all these people that seem so different than myself singing songs, sometimes their own, that mirror so closely the experiences I have had in life. We are all just like John Peel's description of the Fall; always different, always the same.

Crazy fun show on Friday night. Dan Jones and Squids/Underlings/Femurs. Same old comrades rockin' in new decades. Sometimes, change happens slowly and is imperceptible, except one moment you notice...things are different. The Squids have turned into the Who! I've seen them so many times that I haven't noticed until now that something new has happened to them. High kicks, rock stances, sweat and broken guitar strings. Mangle-jangle, abrupt, spontaneous. Joy happens. Can't contain the exploding rage of being trapped in a person and wanting to...SCREAM!!!!!!

Still sluggin' my way through the school term. I'm keeping up in my classes, although I often have paranoid confidence lapses regarding grades and late assignments. I think I'll still be able to pull off some good grades this term; keeping my fingers crossed, tho'.

I had the pleasure of interviewing the illustrious Mrs. Random for a class assignment the other day. It seems like every term, in some class or other, I have to perform and "informational interview" with somebody working in a field that I am considering going into. So, as I am taking IT classes, I interviewed someone I knew in the IT profession. I think the whole think went smashingly and I gained some great information for my project. Thank you, Mrs. Random! A true professional if I've ever met one.

Aside from school, I've been working my butt off at the vegetable factory, putting in as many hours as I can between classes. The sad thing is...I think I'm going to cut my classload down to one next term so I can go back to work full-time. I love school and I'm having the time of my life expanding my brain, but I have too many bills to pay to be living like a low-budget student, at least at the present time. I'll more than likely have a higher amount of financial aid in the fall, since I actually applied on time this year, so school will have to wait for now.

Plus, uh...Tina and I are having a baby in July, so having a job right now would make sense. By the way ,we went in for Tina's first sonogram yesterday and found out that we're having a little baby...BOY!! Due date is July 13th. We'll keep you posted. Boy, it was great to see the little bugger squirming all around on the video screen - a very active little fetoid creature, aged 20 weeks so far. As far as the doctor could tell, it's a healthy little guy in there. We are very excited! Can't wait til he pops out. Check the images! We have a 99% sure name picked out, but we're keeping that under wraps for now.

I have been really enjoying my group vocal class that I am taking this term. It seems as if the other students have taken this class one or more times before. Many of my fellow students are apparently from the drama department and many are amazing singers.
In addition to singing in Italian from a vocal workbook, we each have to sing 5 times solo in front of the class during the term. Today was my first time singing under the scrutiny of my peers. I sung 'Long Black Veil', Johnny Cash-style. I felt I did okay, but it's funny how nervous one becomes when singing in front of a class of people paying rapt attention to your technique. Nervy, but really fun. I can't wait for my next turn up.

We had a really good time at our wetlands show on saturday. The Underlings' set went by in a flash, but it felt really good. Everyone stayed on track and played with guts. The fun was large.
Yoyodyne from portland were a good guy/girl power trio with an edgy, pop sound. Good songs and good arrangements. Worth checking out if they are playing in town.
The Squids and Dan kicked out their slippery jams in a Squid-like fashion. Dave's baritone guitar work laid a low-rumble oomph to their sound. They seemed really fluid and pushin' and the rock was felt.
Back to school, back to reality. Goodbye, bar dreams.

I have been experiencing anticipation and excitement for the debut of my newest Underlings. Tomorrow night feels like it could be an explosive and unique event. The energy level is high. My fingers ae sore from playing large amounts of guitar.
Today, I had my one-and-only guitar student over for a lesson. The hour before he arrived, I realized that I had better come up with something cool to teach him. I looked up "Travis Picking" on google and learned some cool pattern-picking stuff wit me fingers. Now, my right-hand finger-tips feel like they are about to bleed. I guess I got hooked on those new finger-picking patterns and I overdid it during the course of my day's guitar playing. Let this be a warning to all instrument operators out there: practice often and practice well, but don't overdo it or your fingers might regret it.
Also swam some laps at the pool today and went to work. Life is enjoyable in it's plain-ness. Every day is like unflavored yogurt; waiting for some fruit and nuts; waiting to be consumed by a desirous omnivore.

What a hoot!

Things keep happening. The repetition of events in my life is unnerving. Good and bad things happening again and again. Are all the players real, or just a re-creation of kids I knew in grade school? Is it all just some big maze I've been placed in by some cosmic being, and am I just a rat in someone else's experiment? What hoops do I need to start jumping through so that I might make it to the next level of somethingness? For the time being, I am prepared to carry on.

Snow Day! Snow Day! I get the day off from school and work. The little birds flit about the backyard. Dribbles of snow-plobs drabble off of the tree branches. Eugene is a much more pleasant place when it is covered with a blanket of white snow. The streets look pure and un-molested by leaves and debris. Small children are running around pelting each other's heads with snow balls. Today, I am grateful for nature's own slacker holiday.

A new year, a fresh start. It'd be hard to run down all of the events of the past two or three weeks, but I'll try to hit on some key points.
Our household has been enjoying our kick-ass new HP computer that Tina's mom and dad got us for Christmas. We are spoiled shits, I know. It's very nice to be able to finally troll the internet at high-speed instead of hi-speed. Hopefully I'll have more time to dedicate to using this computerized power in a creative fashion, rather than rotting on myspace, defending myself from the forceful, digitized requests of other "people"; entities in "bodies" that look out from "eyes" into some device called a "monitor" and, using punch-keys, try to input themselves upon my life via the internet. God bless this digitized representation of existence.
The Underlings have changed again. I have two new members in my musical army - Bryant Grace on drums and Dave Peterson on bass. Mike Z and Dylan did admirably as the Underlings rhythm section and their service to duty is duly noted, but I have parted ways with them. Bryant is a friend of mine from work and Dave is from the punk rock boonies of Dexter. They're both about my age and we all tend to dig the same kinds of music. Oh, and they're both killer players, too. Practice has been happening more and more often and I am feeling really good about the resulting sounds. I can't wait to share them with you.
School starts today at 2 for me, so I had better get my ass in gear and figure out what the hell I'm doing.
C-Ya,
Ed