Poem Rocket >> Nothing is stopping me

Poem Rocket - "Small White Animal"

(PCP Entertainment, 1995)

Every great band has a song on which it eclipses its influences and creates an entirely new form of music, and for me this is that song for Poem Rocket.  The guitar feedback seems to levitate and take on a life of its own, like a cobra swaying to lull its prey to sleep.  A sinister, Ron Carter-esque bassline churns away underneath, and a robotic drum pattern forces the listener's mind into lock-step.  Michael Peters' lyrics are as confounding and dense as ever: "Thousands of incorporeal pieces / Fragments of the new form / So lucky you will never forget me."  It seems that he's singing about feeling insignificant in this big universe, and the cover art of the 7" (sort of a faceless take on Munch's The Scream) does nothing to dispel that.  The "small white animal" in question could be the moon, though, considering the line "I've seen the moon sink to the ocean."  Sandra Gardner's backing vocals add an element of disembodied coolness and mystery that most bands would kill for.  How has she not become a go-to vocalist for today's leading trip-hop bands?  There are no leading trip-hop bands today, but there could be, if only they would enlist Sand-Gar's services.

To see two short clips from the (apparently stunning) official music video, go here.  These clips should give us all impetus to pester the band to upload the full video (and the video for "Ka-boom") to its YouTube channel.  Even if this song is not your cup of tea, you have to take your hat off to the band for having the balls to actually release a song like this as a single, and to shoot such a cinematography-intensive video for it.  Though unthinkable to budding young noise rockers of today, back in the mid-'90s MTV would occasionally play videos by bands like this.  So I guess it was worth a shot for Poem Rocket to make several videos.

As for what I said about "an entirely new form of music," that might sound hyperbolic, and I thought about changing it until I stroked my chin and pondered the collision of space rock guitarscapes + industrial-style drumming + rubbery basslines + high-art lyrics + diametrically-opposed coed vocals.  This recipe is very different from the one used by most bands that could be classified as "noise rock."  If they had dumbed their sound down for the Neanderthal crowd, they could've easily become stars of the AmRep, Skin Graft, or Touch & Go stables, but instead they signed to PCP Entertainment, which was apparently a subsidiary of Matador Records that focused on NYC bands.  I'm not sure if PCP started off on its own and then was incorporated into Matador, or Matador created it out of thin air, but it had quite a varied roster.  Peters said he was a fan of The Church, which would explain his knack for cryptic lyrics.  The Church's Steve Kilbey is probably my favorite or 2nd-favorite lyricist ever, mainly because decoding his verbal webs is part of the fun.  The simple line "Nothing is stopping me" could be a high school football team's weight room motto, but if you look deeper into the phrase, it could also mean "The only thing that is stopping me is the concept of nothingness / insignificance."  Maybe I'm just reading too much into it and I should go back to rocking out on air feedback guitar while jumping up and down.  And that's the real beauty of a creation like this: Anyone, regardless of his or her care for, or knowledge of, specific types and subgenres of music, can just let his or her ass get rocked by a song like this.  It speaks in a primal, unspoken language, the one that impelled our amphibious ancestors to crawl out of the primordial ooze and head for higher land to build some sort of proto-life.  It has that visceral edge that the brain subconsciously craves in order to sharpen its fight-or-flight response.  Try getting that from a song by Guided By Voices, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Spoon, or any other Pitchfork favorites.  (My hatred of Pitchfork is deep and longstanding, as you might know by now.  That site has literally never printed a single thing about Poem Rocket, at least not since 1999.  Maybe they did sometime between 1996-98.)

This is such a great photo, and one of the few live pics of the Rockets that can be found on the web.  All I know is that it's from Brownie's in NYC, dated 1994:

I've been wanting a semi-hollowbody guitar like that, since they are notorious for their tendency to create unwanted (or wanted) feedback, and having three pickups rather than one or two would obviously help with feedback creation too.  Then again, maybe he used a totally different guitar to record this song in the studio.  Plexi's Michael Barragan is the only other guitarist I know of who had such a consistently abstract, feedback-laced guitar sound, and he always used Gibsons with P-90 pickups.

Here are my two invaluable Poem Rocket t-shirts, bought as a lot on eBay in late 2003:

I have recently been able to determine that the design on the left shirt is by Michael Peters himself, an accomplished visual artist (as well as singer, songwriter, guitarist, experimental author, college literature professor, biographer, etc.).  See / buy more of his art, and watch him give a rather intimidating book reading, here.  I miraculously stumbled onto & bought his incredibly bizarre book Vaast Bin; n ephemerisi at a bookstore in Houma earlier this year.

The shirt on the right is based on the striking cover art of the band's Into The Aether (a.k.a. Blue Chevy Impala) 10" EP.  And their old website uses a similar design for site navigation.

Noth'd Rookery by Michael Peters

Sorry to scatter out so much stuff about Poem Rocket, but like I said, any bit of info that can be shared about them is important, since this was not a band that practiced much self-promotion.  Those types of "secretive" bands, including many of my all-time favorites (e.g. Unwound, Hovercraft, Bailter Space, Bare Minimum) are the ones for which I am proud to take up the promotional mantle, to help "pay it forward" to the next generation of music fans.

Planets with similar climates: Live Skull - "Fort Belvedere" (1986), Bare Minimum - "Night We Streak, Divine Failure" (1995) & "Swim In Anxious Moment" (1997), Bright Channel - "Final Stretch" & "Night Eyes" (2004), Helmet - "Sinatra" (1990).

Poem Rocket >> I don't want to be your satellite

Note: In order to declutter this site and keep it more focused on the specific musical artist at hand, I'll be posting most of my personal photos, musings, etc. on a conveniently-URL'ed Tumblr page from now on.  This is just one of the many services that is provided to the Blowtorch Baby reader.  Subscribers of course get free landscaping advice (USDA climate zones 8 & 9 only) and the ability to stop time for up to four days.

Poem Rocket - "Flaw"

(Bear Records, 1994)

If you've been paying attention to the little "Planets with similar climates" sections at the bottom of every post for the last two years, you've seen this band pop up constantly.  And the previous post probably tipped you off to what was coming next.  I think the reason I haven't gotten around to posting anything by a lot of my all-time favorite bands yet is that I get sort of paralyzed by what to do, since I often have to decide between several photos, maybe a promo poster, a live pic that I took long ago and have on some disc somewhere, a review from some zine that's being stored in a closet, a music video that got yanked from YouTube, a tour t-shirt, etc.  The problem is that I want so badly to do a band justice that I don't want to leave any pertinent info out.  This especially applies to a band like Poem Rocket, about whom information & photos are quite scarce.  Any tidbit of information that can be unearthed about them is important.  So if you know of any review or live gig listing or photo, etc., please post it online somewhere so that it doesn't become buried beneath the mists of time.  This song is a great representation of Poem Rocket's quieter side.  It's the b-side to their "Period (Punctuation Or The Interval Of Time Required For A Cyclic Motion)" 7", which came on orangey red vinyl pressed at the audiophile-friendly speed of 33 rpm.  Like most of the band's chameleonic early non-album tracks, it can be found on the great compilation CD Felix Culpa.

Maybe due to the opening lyric "I'm waking up," as well as the sluggish tempo, this song makes me think of an alligator or capybara emerging from hibernation.  The drumming changes dramatically over the course of the song, and for what it's worth, Poem Rocket had a ton of drummers.  The core of the band was always singer / guitarist Michael Peters and bassist / singer Sandra Gardner.  They got married in 2003.  I think my online zine Cold Comfort was actually responsible for "breaking" that news in 2003, when I did an email interview with Peters, but for some unknown reason, it didn't shake the indie rock world to its core.  I'll post excerpts from that interview soon.  Peters' slide guitar brings a bluesy, desolate, wounded feel to the song, in an era when slide guitar was probably the most uncool thing on the planet.  (Juned also used it that same year in their great song "So White.")

As you can tell by the band's name, the cover art of this 7", and the use of a satellite as a lyrical metaphor, this band was kind of obsessed with outer space, but not in an overt or obnoxious way.  I think they viewed it as a good prism through which to deal with the subtleties of human relationships, e.g. the (real or imagined) distance between two people, rather than in a simplistic "Hey, let's jump on a rocket and go to Mars" way.  People who actually know about space know just how stupid most of those ideas are, mainly due to the fact that most cosmic distances are measured in a little thing called the light year.

Some publication called Sound Views praised this single's "guitar-powered concoctions that slowly bloom into atmospheric/noise-rock":

This came in my Into The Aether 10" EP. Flower was a mighty fine Wipers-esque band that evolved into Versus, by the way.

L-R: Michael Peters, Sandra Gardner, Andy Nelson (I think), someone (probably Dennis Bass, a.k.a. Dennye)

I bought this 8x10" promo pic on eBay about 5 years ago, and, amazingly, it seems that it has never appeared anywhere on the internet.  Way to go, Poem Rocket's publicity team / person.  I even asked the (really nice) guy at PCP Records mailorder for one in 2003 to use in my interview, and he sheepishly told me they didn't have any.  If that is indeed drummer Andy Nelson, the pic must be from the mid to late '90s, since he was apparently in the band from 1993 to '98.  I know this because I created P.R.'s Wikipedia page and lots of people proceeded to add lots of details that I never knew about, such as exact years of tenure in the band.

Check out this hilarious review I found in the April / May 1995 issue of the California skatepunk zine Flipside:
"These guys could take up a whole side just with their guitarist's introduction and just as his guitar work was approaching a solo on the level of Led Zeppelin, in jumps the singer who has a rather annoying style of purposely changing the inflection in his [sic] voice in a manner which makes him [sic] sound very off-tune.  In jump the other instruments as the songs play on and this whole scenario appears so overly self-indulgent as to make one want to vomit.  They bring new meaning to the word 'obnoxious.'"  The review was by their usually-reliable scribe Michele, who must've mistaken them for some sort of classic rock-influenced grunge band angling for a major-label deal.  (Flipside was obsessed with trying to valiantly sniff out and expose those types of bands.  If you thought that review was harsh, you should read some of their Lollapalooza reviews.)

Song credits from the inside flap of the Felix Culpa Digipak:

Planets with similar climates: Live Skull - "Bootcamp" (1986), Bardo Pond - "Tantric Porno" (1996), Opal - "Supernova" (1987), Bleach - "Crimson 'O'" (1990), Warpaint - "Warpaint" (2010).

Currently drinking: Three intriguing dark beers - Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout, Sierra Nevada Narwhal Imperial Stout, Fuller's London Porter.

Allen Ginsberg >> Moon now attainable

Allen Ginsberg - "Poem Rocket (Be A Star-Screwer)"

(live reading, 1959)

Here's one artist who needs zero introduction.  In the intro, Ginsberg says he wrote this poem in Amsterdam at the time of the Sputnik launch, meaning October 1957.  Based on where it was written, it's not gauche to wonder if he was chemically-enhanced at the time of its writing.  This reading was recorded at the Poetry Center at San Francisco State University on Feb. 27, 1959, and it apparently never got any sort of official release.  This one goes out to Drea.

After a fairly tedious midsection that demonstrates all the reasons why I usually avoid "Beat Poets," the ending suddenly adds a lot to the recipe, but also helps to decrypt the whole thing: "I send you my rocket of amazing chemical, more than my hair, my sperm, or the cells of my body, a speeding thought that flies upward with my desire as instantaneous as the universe and faster than light, and leave all other questions unfinished for the moment to turn back to sleep in my dark bed on earth."  I guess he's saying that one can transform into a hybrid poem/rocket that flies up into outer space and impregnates stars, using the concept of a rocket as a phallic metaphor.  And since he says "you," he's referring to the reader as a star that is presumably soon to be knocked up.  If not totally romantic, it's at least quite an avant-garde scenario, hence the reason why A.G. became so famous and why he needs zero introduction.

A permalink to the mp3 at UbuWeb (where I downloaded this mp3 years ago) is here, and all the Ginsberg stuff they have is listed here.  So knock yourself out.  It's good to see the amazing UbuWeb back online after its recent disappearance.  All I can ask of anyone who reads this post is to tell at least one person about UbuWeb, and make sure that person passes the word along.  I used to spend untold hours on there, watching old experimental short films and reading strange prose.

This manuscript was typed by A.G. in Paris in 1958; it was sold in a 2006 auction. Here's page 1:

I recently saw the above page, or one very similar to it, replete with the ASCII rocket drawing, in a huge Ginsberg compendium at Barnes & Noble.  I will go back and check on it to see if I should take a pic of it.

Found this making the rounds the other day:

Here's a not-so-subtle juxtaposition of ads I saw on an ultra-conservative website named Vision To America at the beginning of this month, meaning right around the time of the election:

People have probably been put on the Secret Service's watch list for much less than this, so here's hoping that Vision To America's advertising director lands a spot on the Service's speed dial.  And while they're at it, perhaps they could investigate whomever came up with that extremely clunky site name.

Thu. Nov. 22: Had short Thanksgiving dinner at Ashley's parents' house; lent her some shoegaze CDs (Lush, MBV, Slowdive, Verve; also The XX).  Then another short dinner at Jay & Kathleen's.  Jay had been hit by a car while riding his bike a few days earlier; he he was flipped over her Mercedes and she fled.  He didn't even need surgery, mainly due tot he fact that he's built like Ray Lewis.

Sat. Nov. 24: Went to the monthly art market at Palmer Park & bought some photos. For irony value, I went into the new American Apparel on Magazine.  Yeah, it sucked, and was packed with shoppers.  $22 for a plain one-color t-shirt.  I think I heard a song by Blouse on their radio, and definitely one by Future Islands.
"Pull me to the edge."

Mon. Nov. 25 - Went to the Southland Mall in Houma out of boredom and went into a trashy store called Spencer's.  If you have never been to this store, please brace yourself and suspend all semblance of morals or class that you might normally possess.  But I'll admit I did find a cool AK-47 necklace for a special someone.  So yeah, this post featured all kinds of weaponry (rocket, pistol, automatic weapon), plus the destruction of Earth.

eBay tells Glenn Beck he may not auction off an Obama statue floating in urine - "Someone actually offered $11,300 for the statue, maturely named 'Obama in Pee Pee'"

Planets with similar climates: John Ashbery - "A Blessing In Disguise" (1966), Long Fin Killie - "A Thousand Wounded Astronauts" (1996), American Music Club - "Will You Find Me?" (1992), Poem Rocket - "Milky White Entropy" (1994).

White Cascade >> How it can be so far

White Cascade - "Fine As Usual"

(self-released, 2010)

This mammoth multi-part suite encapsulates the quieter aspects of White Cascade's sound, which can vary from noisy pop to long ambient drones.  It's from their self-titled debut EP (actually 40 minutes long, hence album length), which they self-released in June 2010 as a digital download and on cassette.  (Their follow-up EP consists of short, relatively spiky pop songs.)  The monster ambient intro really throws the gauntlet down.  As for the lyrics, your best approximation is about as good as mine.  I made out the line "How it can be so far" at the 7:52 mark, for what it's worth, and it rhymes with "Every second star" from the previous verse.  What matters is that this song is pure instant Prozac for the soul, especially if your soul is a fan of (The) Verve's flawless debut album A Storm In Heaven.  A Storm In Raleigh doesn't have quite the same ring, but I could be convinced to catch a plane there just to see White Cascade live.

This .jpg is in honor of White Cascade being the first North Carolina band in space, living up to the state's "First In Flight" motto

I found out about this band last year, but I don't remember how.  In true shoegaze / dream pop fashion, they have released two EPs, but no official album, though as I mentioned, their first EP is 40 minutes long.  Hopefully they can be convinced to go on tour, though their sound is, defiantly, and with clenched fist, the opposite of every prevailing trend in both "indie" and non-indie music.  Perhaps this is why they give their music away for free at their Bandcamp page; or at least they did last year, but it appears they're charging $1 per track now.  Which is good, because it shows their music is now becoming in demand.  See them performing in their newer, more upbeat style here: Sessions at Studio B with The White Cascade.  It also includes an interview.

Sat. Nov. 17: Donned one of my Plexi shirts and went to the Record Raid at Tulane on a pretty cold day.  Stopped by the Mushroom (a block away) first, to give the dudes & dudettes 3 mix CDs and some of my fav. beers, and my VHS of Paris, Texas.  Why?  Because they always give me good deals, since I'm always recommending them obscure stuff from the used stacks.  I stupidly forgot to take a pic of all 3 CDs together, but here's the first one:

(The second one was part 2 of the "Intensity In Ten Cities" theme, and the third one was all ambient music, titled "Ambient Assault."  Request them by name!)  Sam was enthused and said she was going to bring the CDs home to listen to them, and said she loved the Unwound CDs I'd recommended to her in September.  She burned me the Dinosaur Jr. cover album by The Electronic Anthology Project, and is gonna also burn me one of those Italian horror soundtracks that Goblin did in the '70s.  Best music buddy ever.  I was sad to hear she missed the Dino Jr. concert last month due to illness, since they're probably her second favorite band after Sonic Youth.  Was relieved to hear her family in NJ didn't get any damage from hurricane Sandy.  The store has been remodeled after the hurricane and looks really good.  At the Raid, I bought less stuff than usual, so I was pretty proud of myself.  My best find was American Music Club's extremely rare debut LP for only $5, plus their fairly rare California CD (33 cents), Pageninetynine (pre-Ghastly City Sleep / pre-Pygmy Lush)'s Document #8 CD (33 cents), Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Experimental Remixes CD EP (33 cents), Roy Ayers Ubiquity's Vibrations LP ($5) (mainly for the heliocentric chillout classic "Everybody Loves The Sunshine").  Also got an amazing clear blue vinyl 7" by You Am I that I never thought I'd see in person (33 cents).  I had bought the Blues Explosion CD right when it came out in late '95, so it was quite sweet to nab it again after unwisely selling it ca. 2000.  Bought the sick Japanese edition of Trans Am's self-titled CD from Joey Buttons; it has a whopping 9 bonus tracks and cool neon orange cover art.  It turns out he was also at the Future Islands / Talk Normal show the previous week, and the vendor sitting right next to him was at it too, so we all discussed it.  Small world...  Joey also told me about his new project called Pressures.  Talked to Scott from Skully'z about a bunch of concerts too, incl. Cold Cave; he was wearing a Cold Cave hoodie.  Towards the end of the raid, I asked how they were doing, and he told me they had sold about $500 of stuff already.  Also bought a CD by punk "supergroup" OFF! for 33 cents and gave it to the Mushroom, since several of them had seen them live.  When I was walking up the stairs to the store, a guy who works there saw me and enthusiastically complimented me on the mix CDs.  I had him burn Bare Minimum's first CD so that I could give it to this guy who I always talk to at these Raids, whose name keeps escaping me (Jason or James?).  So yeah, I kept going back and forth between the Raid and the 'Room.  Took some free LPs that the Mushroom had put out in boxes at the foot of their stairs, incl. a mint copy of Yoko Ono's classic Season Of Glass and a Sesame Street album.  Drove around and tried to find the N.O. Book Fair, but failed, since it turns out it had moved to the Warehouse District.  So I went to this lame music festival on Magazine St. for about 15 minutes and endured Rockin' Dopsie & the Zydeco Twisters while looking at all the touristy art booths.  Apparently one can now buy a little glazed clay statuette or fridge magnet of every single noteworthy location in the city.  These "artists" are totally shameless in their pillaging of N.O.'s culture for quick dollars.  Dopsie (pronounced "Doopsie," for you non-locals) shouted his catchphrase "Somebody screeeeam!" at least five different times, and believe me, I wanted to after looking at all the aforementioned trinkets.  If you've ever walked on Royal Street and peered into the "art galleries" there, you'll know what I'm talking about, but the stuff at this fest was even lamer.  As I've mentioned before, I really refuse to call this stuff art, since it's really in the realm of just crafts.  Note: Was a bit saddened to see that the former home of Underground Sounds is going to become a Dat Dog location.

Planets with similar climates: Verve - "Already There" (1993), Slowdive - "Blue Skied An' Clear" (1995), SIANspheric - "Watch Me Fall" (1995), The Emerald Down - "Recondite Astral Traveler" (2001), Feverdream [Australia] - "No Stone Unturned" (1995), Catherine Wheel - "Girl Stand Still" (1993), Sonic Youth - "Karen Koltrane" (1998).

Merchandise >> Girl, I'm really just an animal

Merchandise - "Time"

(Katorga Works, 2012)

The title of "The next Smiths" has been floated in regards to many bands over the last 25 years, just like "The next Jordan" has been applied to everyone from Harold Miner to Vince Carter.  Merchandise crawled out of the Tampa punk scene with a polished, remarkably full-bodied sound that does evoke the Smiths, as well as stuff like Echo & the Bunnymen, the Chameleons, the Sound, Gang Of Four, and the Church.  I think the Smiths thing comes mainly from how the singer holds out his notes and lets them unfold luxuriously in the ether, and of course the tastefully skillful guitar-playing and catchy melodies.  Much like recently-minted star soul crooner The Weeknd and very serious rappers Das Racist, they give away their music for free on the popular mp3 format at their website, though vinyl will cost you.  (I did buy this album on LP at their show.)  I assume / hope they are named after the immortal Fugazi anthem "Merchandise".

Right from the opening (very Fugazi-esque) bassline, you know this band is swinging for the fences, and they pull it off in stunning fashion.  It took me a while to realize that the guitarist plays parts that sound like a singing voice, adding sort of phantom backing vocals to the music.  Johnny Marr aficionados will know what I'm talking about.  My only qualm is that they use a drum machine rather than a human drummer.  I really don't get excited like this about guitar-rock bands very often, but when it's done this well, you'd be a dumbass to not sit up and take notice.  As YouTuber Pablo Elias said in the first-ever comment on this video: "this guys know how to play post punk."

The two other great songs on this album, Children Of Desire, are the dense, Bailter Space-esque "In Nightmare Room" and the 11-minute "Become What You Are."  So go see Merchandise at a little club on their neverending tour before they either get huge or self-destruct.  From their website: "We’re putting the finishing touches on our next 12″, coming out via Iowa City’s impeccable Night People label. Should be out sometime in January. Touring will surely follow."  They recently did some shows opening for dazzling kindred spirits Wild Nothing.  And by the way, no, I don't think Merchandise are the next Smiths, because they don't have as many doofy, tedious filler songs as the Smiths.  In addition to the vocals, the unsung weapon that the bands share is funky, liquid-y basslines.

I like the "high art" quality of these recent woodcut-design posters by the An Idea Like No Other guys, but it seems to me that they're using centuries-old prints and not crediting the original artists, which, as an artist, is really uncool to me.  (One poster even has the artist's name visibly scratched out.)  Maybe the prints are so old that they're now considered part of the public domain, and hence the original artists no longer have to be credited, but I still think it's not a very punk thing to do.
Anyway, the concert was quite entertaining.  I filmed Merchandise doing their three best songs: "Time," "In Nightmare Room," and "Become What You Are."  I didn't take any pics.  The singer was really chatty beforehand (partly due to being drunk), and told me about the American Snakeskin 12" EP that they had at their merch table.  Fun Fact: He told me the woman on the cover of Merchandise's debut album (Strange Songs) In The Dark is the lead singer of the band Neon Blud, and maybe she was also in Amer. Snakeskin.  By the way, Loveless is a DJ, not a band.  Apparently it's usually a guy & gal, but it was just the guy at this show, and he wore a mask the whole time.  Noisy / danceable obscure '80s fare seems to be his / their specialty, and they apparently have a weekly gig at One Eyed Jacks, but I avoid any type of "'80s Night" as a rule.

At the Spanish Moon the other day, I asked Jack from Kindest Lines / The Public if he was into Merchandise.  He said KL had recently opened for M, but that he hates them because M's merch person stole KL's profits at said merch table.  I thought that was a weird reason to dislike a good band, but I didn't press further.

Find me at this tomorrow and I'll give you free record-buying guidance in exchange for free records or CDs from you:

This and the New Orleans Book Fair are stupidly scheduled on the same day this year, and at the exact same time, so I will have to pick music over books.

I was totally floored to see on the news yesterday that Mary Alvarez, co-owner of a plant nursery in Hammond, was killed (or died via suicide).  I only went there about three times and only bought a few plants (Foster's holly, white carnation) from them, but she was maybe the nicest person I've ever met.  The nursery is totally ramshackle and unorganized, with plants spilling out everywhere and hardly anything properly labeled; in other words, a plant-hunter's dream.  They have a big sprawling clump of Opuntia, a.k.a. prickly pear, cactus outside the front gate, and let me take a piece from it for free to start my own clump.  (See it at the 1:20 mark of the video.)  Unfortunately, I discarded it after I obtained a spineless variety growing in the yard next door to the Saturn Bar in N.O., but I may go back and get another piece at Alvarez.  People like the Alvarezes are a big reason why I've dedicated my life to horticulture, and people like them are the rule, not the exception, in this business.  Out of all the nursery owners I know from N.O. to Houma to Baton Rouge to Gramercy to Covington to Thibodaux to Prairieville, it's hard to pick which ones are the nicest, so I won't even try, but I can say these people have less overall petty angst towards life than your average citizen, due to being around plants every day and learning from an existential standpoint just how valuable life and nature are.  Even the older ones have an amazing youthful calm and inner vigor.  I would say my all-time favorites are Poochie and his wife at St. James Nursery in Gramercy; Wayne at Banting's in Bridge City; the ladies at The Cracked Pot in St. Rose; and the guys at Starke's in Houma.  When you grow an oak tree from an acorn, or a palm from a date seed, it makes you feel pretty useful in this world, yet also makes you feel very humble and small.  Plants are literally the lungs of the earth.  Give me a roomful of plant geeks over a roomful of anything else any day.  With Home Depot, Lowe's, Wal-Mart, KMart, etc. all selling plants nowadays, it's more important than ever to support independent plant nurseries, just as it is to support independent record stores, restaurants, etc.  Outsourcing the growing of plants to China is not something the Republicans have figured out how to do yet, and I intend to do my part to keep it that way.

17 of the saddest ex-celebrities on Twitter - "From Ian Ziering hawking anti-aging cream (rumor is he will actually call you if you fill out an inquiry) to Alfonso Ribiero selling a weight loss kit via their accounts, you can't help but think about how much more famous they would be if they had become stars today."

Planets with similar climates: Silkworm - "Quicksand" (1996), Echo & The Bunnymen - "The Killing Moon" (1983), The Sound - "Love Is Not A Ghost" (1984), The Comsat Angels - "The Eye Dance" & "Be Brave" (1981), Bailter Space - "Now I Will Live" (1987), The Church - "Tear It All Away" (1981), The Smiths - "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" (1986), The Public - "Ghosts" (2004).

Billy Reid >> As long as you commit, it will always work

Billy Reid - "White Chicks And Gang Signs"

(self-released, 2006)

You may remember this song when its video was briefly a viral sensation several years ago.  I was so obsessed with it that I told or emailed everyone I could about it.  As with all great works of art, every word of it is still relevant today, or at least can be used by future sociologists / historians to determine the zeitgeist of a certain era.

"What she said"

I don't know if it did anything to curb the overusage of gang hand signage among white females in North America.  If anything, it may have glorified it and caused it to even spread overseas.  I'm not totally against the usage of gang signs, and I've been known to throw up a Wesside (Westside), but only in emergencies.  Check out Reid's website Very Tasteful to see the wide array of stuff he does with comedic panache.  This song was compiled on a digital album called Very Tasteful: Volume One (available on Amazon and iTunes) in 2009.

I did not vote for Obama in '08 because I didn't think he had enough experience.  So I cast a protest vote against the Republicans by voting for Ralph Nader that year, as I had in '00.  I'm glad Obama was able to overcome the overtly racist attacks on him over the last 4 years, starting literally on day 1 of his first term, with Mitch McConnell's infamous "We will block literally everything he tries to do over the next four years" pledge.  The incredibly creepy, devious, and out-of-touch Mitt Romney never really had a chance in this race, and he literally invented Obamacare in Massachussetts, so there's that.  The Republicans' voter suppression tactics backfired.  Using the Benghazi scandal backfired.  The concept of having a Republican president, Republican House, Republican Senate, and ultra-conservative Supreme Court (bye bye, Roe v. Wade) was enough to get lots of people out to the polls who normally wouldn't have.  Republicans are doing very well in the House, but have now lost 5 of the last 6 popular votes in U.S. Presidential elections.  (Remember, Al Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes in 2000.)  This coincides with Rush Limbaugh's rise to power as the undisputed voice of conservative America in the early '90s.  Coincidence?  Rush's salary of $50 million a year does not seem to be providing his employers with much in the way of hard results, and he in fact seems to be simply helping the opposition get elected, time and time again.  Just my observations as a politics junkie and believer / hoper in the future existence of a third party in America.  This will not happen in my lifetime, of course.  I voted for Obama this time, mainly as a fuck-you to the current crop of rabid, secessionary, antebellum Republicans, even though I don't really agree with Obamacare and some other things, such as the fact that he didn't close Guantanamo Prison as he had promised back in '07/08.  Presidential votes don't even matter in my state anyway, since it always votes red; only "swing states" matter, and Obama won 8 of the 9 that were designated as such this year.  The other 41 states were pretty much ignored altogether.

Related: Ted Nugent is right, you guys, we do have a problem with makers and takers:

You can see this is based on 2004-5 data, before California and Florida tanked due to the housing crisis.  But it was also before Katrina, so I bet my state is now #1 in the righthand column of this list.

Twitter racists react to 'that nigger' getting reelected

Some concert recaps:

Fri. Nov. 9: Future Islands + Talk Normal + Kindest Lines at the Spanish Moon in Baton Rouge.

I got a lot of strange looks due to my James Chance & The Contortions shirt that says WHITE CANNIBAL.  NOLA band KL opened unannounced, and impressed the crowd with about half an hour of synthy post-punk.  They opened with their single "Destructive Paths To Live Happily," as they usually seem to do.  Talked with their very loquacious guitarist Jack a lot the rest of the night about shared favorite bands (Chameleons, Comsat Angels) and about the drama (suicide, onstage fights, label bankruptcy) surrounding his previous band, The Public.  He insisted I take a free copy of the "Destructive Paths" 7" and I declined, telling him I already had it.  I offered him a few dollars for it but he refused, so I graciously took it.  Talk Normal were the reason I went to this show and they were badass.  A female duo: one on drums and lead vocals, another on guitar/bass and occasional lead vocals.  They had an abrasive but oddly melodic sound, not unlike Live Skull or Sonic Youth's more acidic songs.  The drummer is very entertaining and the guitarist is very icy and badass in her own way.  Most of the crowd was pushed to the rear corners (and upstairs balcony) of the club by the band's onslaught, but they cheered heartily after every song.  The lack of bodies up front allowed me to get this photo; check out the drummer's neck:

In addition to all these pedals, guitarist Sarah Register also had a large looping pedal unit of some sort off to the left; she used it a lot towards the end.  l freaking love this pic.

Bought this from them at the merch table afterwards: Sugarland CD, Secret Cog CD-R EP, "Lone General" 7". (Note: My 7" is pressed defectively and is essentially unplayable, even though it looks totally fine.  So be forewarned if buying it.)  If I had known it was a CD-R instead of a CD, I would've bought Secret Cog on 12" for the same price ($7).

Future Islands are a strange synth-rock band on, surprisingly, Thrill Jockey Records.  Those of us who grew up on Thrill Jockey's esoteric post-rock in the '90s will find the label barely recognizable nowadays, but anyway, the band's frontman is one of the most charismatic you will ever see.  The only way I can describe him is a cross between Jack Black, Morrissey, Peter Steele (of Type O Negative), and Har Mar Superstar.  He does some really cool, Ronnie James Dio-esque stage antics, and announced to the crowd that he had just eaten two cheeseburgers.  They played some new, unnamed songs.  At the merch table afterwards, Talk Normal's email signup list had only 2 names on it (one of them mine of course), while Future Islands' list had about 20.  I recommended Hovercraft and Lozen to Talk Normal, and they wrote it in their smartphone to check out later.  I actually typed in three specific Hovercraft songs for them; even though Hovercraft were much more spacey and atmospheric, their guitarist did some noise wrangling that Talk Normal sometimes does.  It turns out TN's guitarist is a sound engineer with a very impressive list of projects, such as most of Broken Water's releases.  (She told me they actually played with Broken Water.)

I got home and found out I actually did NOT own the "Destructive Paths" 7", so I was glad Jack made me take it.  A good ending to a very interesting night...

Sat. Nov. 10: Finally saw The Right Stuff and was pretty impressed.  I have to say Chuck Yeager is the world's ultimate badass.

Sun. Nov. 11: He Can Jog at McKeown's Books And Difficult Music.

He Can Jog is a guy from Milwaukee who makes glitchy, ambient electronic music via circuit-bending and real-time use of some sort of software that he apparently writes himself.  His bandmate used a melodica and some sort of keyboard.  The crowd was about 15 people, but they seemed to be really digging it.  Reminded me a lot of Oval.  HCG played here in 2008 as a trio but I didn't go.  Bought a Kennech Koch book called Thank You and Other Poems (1963) and a compendium of works by "punk poet" Steven Jesse Bernstein called More Noise, Please! (1996).  Talked with one of the store's owners about Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air (after I overheard him comparing He Can Jog's music to that album), Steve Reich, and other stuff.  It was a free show, as all of these "An Evening Of Difficult Music" events are.  I dropped $3 in the musician's tip jar but stupidly didn't take a HCJ postcard which contains a download code for one of their recent albums.  Oh well.

Stopped by the Mushroom on my way home and talked to McCall (had incorrectly thought her name was Nicole) for a while.  She said she checked out the Polvo album I had told her about and liked it, but it was not really her thing.  She told me she has not been to many concerts lately, but did get to see Frank Ocean.  Filled out a survey she was doing for a business class.  Didn't buy anything; saw a great Faith No More shirt that I may return to get on Saturday, when I go to the fall Record Raid at Tulane.

Mon. Nov. 12: The Twilight Sad + Errors at the Spanish Moon in B.R.

Listened to a New Fast Automatic Daffodils CD on the drive over.  Stopped at Barnes & Noble, since they have an "arthouse" film sale every November; got Badlands for $6.  It was an incredibly cold*, grim night, and the crowd was very small.  (*About 45º, unheard-of here at this time of year.)  I guess the weather was apropos, considering that these two bands are from not-so-tropical Scotland.  Errors do a synth-enhanced post-rock / krautrock thing.  Some of their songs have vocals (in sort of an androgynous dream-pop style), but the main thing for this band is really dense rhythms.  The drummer is freaking amazing, like Jaki from CAN reincarnated.  They could sell out and do some dumb party-friendly shit like Yeasayer or Passion Pit, or go more highbrow like Tortoise and please the indie geeks, but they seem to be stuck in an uncomfortable place in between.  Their second-to-last song was a cover of Tristeza's "Halo Heads," or so I thought, but turned out not to be.  The chiming guitar part is 100% identical.  I almost asked them about this afterwards, but thought better of it.  Afterwards, I got a Guinness on draught upstairs and then went downstairs.  This redhead bumped into me, literally, and told me "You guys were great!"  "No, I'm not int he band."  "Oh, you have a ski hat on, so I thought you were the singer."  (Mine = green, his = white and tan, with ear flaps. And I look nothing like him.)  Then she leaned her rather prominent bosom onto me and asked me where I was from, then said she was from Mississippi.  I was kind of weirded out by how direct her come-ons were, since I never get this kind of thing directed at me, and I even wondered if she was trying to pick me to win a bet.  Wondered if she had stalked me here from this site, RYM, or last.fm.  My mind is wired in such a way that I was more offended by her intellectual dishonesty than I was happy to have a drunk, giddy woman leaning on me.  Perhaps this is why I never get laid.  (More on this story below.)

I went back upstairs because Errors were so loud that my hearing was probably permanently damaged.  And I just had to stand up close, as I generally do to make bands feel appreciated when there is low turnout.  Dumb.  Right before The Twilight Sad took the stage, I heard "Jeopardy" by The Sound, one of my all-time favorite bands, on the club's p.a. system, which really got me fired up.  TTS did their depressive, angsty Chameleons / Whipping Boy / Interpol gloom-rock for about an hour, with no encore.  The crowd was small but extremely appreciative.  The singer was quite charismatic, not unlike Future Islands' singer; they both did these punching movements in the air, stared up dramatically at the ceiling, roamed like caged animals across the tiny stage, etc.  I liked the last song a lot, called "Rabbit" on the setlist.  This word is not in any of their songs, so I dunno what it was.  Maybe a cover of a song by their friends / countrymen / onetime tourmates Frightened Rabbit?  Talked to guy about A Place To Bury Strangers after noticing his APTBS hoodie.

Now as for the girl whom I had sort of shot down, I felt bad about it, and came downstairs for TTS' final two songs.  (The band's singer had given her a shout out for driving 3 hours.)  We smiled at each other and then I noticed she had buddied up with another guy, so I was happy for her, and kind of relieved.  While driving home, it suddenly dawned on me that she had been trying to find a Baton Rouge dude or dudette (the crowd was 90% male) at whose house she could crash for the night rather than buying a hotel/motel room.  I started cracking up after realizing this.  She saw one of her favorite bands and got her free place to stay, and her boyfriend-for-the-night was none the wiser, so I had to tip my ski hat to her ingenuity.  After buying a TTS album on double vinyl and thanking their guitarist for selecting that song by The Sound, I got a blueberry yogurt at a gas station and embarked on the hour-long drive home.

I have photos and show flyers from all of these, but I'm just gonna post the one Talk Normal pic, since I think people probably get annoyed by posts that have too many images / videos.  The October / November concert flurry is over, and there are basically no good shows coming up.  Time to get caught up on yardwork, reading, situps, and movie watching.  

To finish up what I was talking about in the previous post, I thought of another major category of concert conundrum: Who to see and who to skip at big festivals.  Do you stick around for the entire set by a performer that you like, or wander around and catch a few songs by something outside of your normal comfort zone?  A year or two ago at Jazz Fest, I made sure to hoof it over to catch the very end of Shawn Colvin's set, since I had recently gotten into her early single "Diamond In The Rough".  And sure enough, she played it as her last song, to an almost nonexistent crowd.  That was pretty cool.  Also caught the end of Fats Domino's performance at Jazz Fest '97, since I figured (correctly, it turned out) that it might be my only chance to ever see him.  All this thinking about concerts has been stimulated by my joining of last.fm, since I've been adding lots of listings for shows I've gone to over the years.  The excitement of reliving the ones I've been to slightly outweighs the disappointment of missing certain other shows.  Last.fm is very addictive if you're a serious music fan, so you might want to think twice before joining, since 4 or 5 hours can disappear in about half a nanosecond.  The upside is that you are contributing to a database of music that may aid some other rabid music fan in the future whom you will never meet.  

Planets with similar climates: I have no idea; probably some Das Racist, MC Paul Barman, Lonely Island, etc.

Blouse >> You're a strike of lightning

Blouse - "Into Black"

(Captured Tracks, 2011)

Note: I started writing this in June but never got around to posting it.  I noticed the outdated R.I.P.'s at the bottom and decided to keep them in.

As you have probably already gathered, most good band names are taken by now.  I mentioned in the last post that Portland is a hotbed of talent, and Blouse is another great example.  I think Johnny Marr or Robert Smith would be proud of this song's loping, serpentine guitar riff.  There's something sexy and funky and very New Orleans about that jazzy, off-beat stutter in it.  And the singer is the one who plays that guitar part, as you can see in the video clip embedded below.  This song is almost impossible for me to get out of my head.  If I heard the line "And you're a strike of lightning, making up a sky for the gods to kiss with" correctly, then I'd have to say that's one of the coolest lyrics I've heard in the past few years.  (You can actually hear the lyrics better in the live clip.)  There's some line about a stained glass window near the middle, and the intensity ramps up subtly in the song's final minute.

"Fade to black" is of course a cinematography term, and this song has a very cinematic feel.  A convenient way to describe Blouse would be "The XX meets Joy Division," and it wouldn't be far off from the truth.  The sound quality of this song is awfully murky and "dark" (bass-y), in production lingo, but I guess it suits the music well.  One expects this kind of jangle-pop stuff to be trebly and shimmery, so it sort of surprises the ears to hear something so sludgy.  The synth near the end of the song does brighten it up and adds some extra edge.  This song was released as a 7" single in early 2011, with striking cover art that was a clear homage to Joy Division's Closer.  It then appeared on their self-titled debut album near the end of the year.  Their song "They Always Fly Away" is their other clear standout, with a truly badass bassline, showing that this band is much more than a one-trick pony.  AllMusic Guide said "There's a tingling chill running through Blouse's self-titled debut album that suggests both erotic reverie and nervous foreboding.  Blouse seems to be a work in progress, but this provocative first effort shows the band is heading for fascinating territory."
I'd have to say Captured Tracks, also home of dreamy retro janglers Wild Nothing, is my favorite up-and-coming record label right now.

Amazingly, I just went and checked out the song on YouTube and noticed lots of people saying that the MTV teen ho dramedy Awkward. (yes, the show's name has a period at the end) "brought me here."  So I guess MTV scooped Blowtorch Baby for the first time, but only due to my procrastination.

Wed. Oct. 31: I went in to N.O. to see the Jezabels at Circle Bar.  I had a weird feeling that it would be cancelled, but I didn't call ahead of time for some reason.  Sure enough, I walk into the near-empty club in my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt and green wristbands only to find out they had cancelled, due to their singer's alleged throat problems.

So this pic sums up my two dismal trips to the Circle Bar in late October... Two headlining bands, one of which played for 10 minutes and the other of which didn't show up.  When I took this pic next to the club's jukebox on the 24th, a few minutes before Exitmusic went on, things seemed so promising:

(Look at the size of the crowd in that Jezabels poster, and then think about the fact that the Circle Bar holds about 50 people.)

Thu., Nov. 1: Took a pic of some random CDs in my car:

I originally bought the N.W.A EP on cassingle in 1991 (at age 14... sorry, PMRC!), the PJ Harvey album on cassette in '95, and the MBV album on cassette in '96.  Sensing a trend?  Lesson to record industry: If people buy or obtain a musical item cheaply or for free, e.g. on cassette or as free mp3s, they will end up later buying it on CD if they like it enough.  So if you record labels sign good bands and put out good albums, people will continue to buy them in multiple formats over the years.  Anyway... I bought the Nudeswirl CD in '96 in Richmond, VA, and the Pale Saints and Six By Seven CDs in '02.  The Twin Peaks soundtrack was bought by one of my parents when it came out; I later borrowed it & decided to keep it.  I added a clear red tray to the Lush CD's case in order to match the cover art.  Those of you who don't own early Mercury Rev on CD are missing out, since the spines say STEREO PATHIC, STEREO PHOBIC, STEREO FUCKED, etc.

I was so bummed by the Circle Bar shows that I didn't go to see the Psychedelic Furs on Nov. 2 with my sister and Damion.  She said it was a great show, and they even played one of my favorites, "All Of This And Nothing."  (But no "Highwire Days" or "Dumb Waiters.")  And she said Richard Butler was dancing around as crazily as !!!'s singer, which is pretty impressive for a guy of his age.

So the promising month ended with a whimper, but I still saw over a dozen bands, the best of which were Godspeed You Black Emperor, Merchandise, MONO, and Meta The Man.  And locals Glish, the Tarik Hassan Group, Miss Mec, and I, Octopus.  The two songs that Exitmusic played before quitting were good.  In fact, the bands that I skipped last month would constitute a best-ever month of concertgoing for a normal Pitchfork-focused indie-vidual: Dinosaur Jr., M83, P-Furs, Silversun Pickups, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Kendrick Lamar, Dum Dum Girls, Cold Cave, Diamond Rings, Trust, etc.

I'm not bragging whatsoever, just trying to start a dialogue about how one decides which shows to attend and which shows to skip.  I've been wanting to do this for a long time now, so this seems like a good time to do it.  For me, going to a show a very complex form of calculus that factors in obvious things such as "Does the band kick ass?" with more nebulous ones like "Is their career on the downswing or is it still on the upswing?," "Have I missed them in concert before?," and "Could this be their last-ever tour?"  (If the band members hate each other, any show could be their last.)  Ticket cost, opening act(s), venue, etc. also factor in.  How many original members, or members from the band's "golden era," are still in the band?  It of course helps to find out whether or not the band is playing your favorite songs on this particular tour, or if they've decided to move on to "the new stuff," or if they're doing one of those stupid "Play an entire album all the way through" things.  However, this only applies to "song"-based bands & solo artists.  There's of course a whole other category of experimental music in which the avant-gardeness of the music is the only thing that matters, and you're surely not going to recognize anything in terms of a lyric or a melody.  You're going just to hear them try to play something you've never heard before and may never want to hear again.  Sometimes a band that hardly ever tours is hitting the road; in this case, it's more important to see them then to see some band that tours constantly.  If it's a hip hop or electronic / DJ act, how much of their music do they actually perform live and how much of it is pre-recorded samples?  Are you under the weather, and if so, just how devoted of a fan are you?  One of the toughest things for me to decide on is seeing a local band, since you can probably see them any old time, but what if they break up and you never got to see them, or only saw them once?  (E.g., the fact that I only saw my favorite-ever local band, The Universal Chrome, once.  And I never saw Falling Janus, Dead Hand System, Burnversion, Evil Nurse Sheila!, etc.)  When in doubt about seeing ANY concert, even if it's "just" a local band, it's always best to just go, because otherwise, you might be wondering for the rest of your life if you missed a great show.  If the show was mediocre, at least you saw it, and you know that you don't have to wonder for the next 50 years if it was great or not.  And you supported the band and supported the music club.  The turnout may influence the band's decision to come back to your town again, and may influence the club's decision to book the band again.  And you might meet an interesting person, or see a flyer at the club informing you about an upcoming concert that you didn't know about.

As examples, here are some recent & upcoming concert dilemmas spanning early October to early November:
1.) The P-Furs only had two original members, the Butler brothers.  But they are the main driving forces of the band, and the lineup also has fiery saxophonist Mars Williams, who joined ca. 1983.  (Did not go, and regret it.)
2.) In a few days a fairly lame synth-pop band called Future Islands is playing at the Spanish Moon.  I have no desire to see them, but the opening act is an uncompromisingly brutal female noise-rock band called Talk Normal.  Do I go just to see the opening act?  What if the opening act cancels or is replaced?  (Will probably go.)
3.) Voodoo Fest every October: Lots of bands, but most are lame or washed-up, and tickets are like $90 per day.  (Solution: Went to the free local band festival Houmapalooza.)
4.) MONO at the Spanish Moon.  Yes, they're great live, but I had already seen them there 3 times.  Do I go yet again?  (Went & was glad I did.)
5.) Mercurial band Merchandise playing at a club with barely any air conditioning, right as I was getting over a cold and hence was pretty feverish.  (Went, because they could be legitimate stars soon, and I had missed them in April at an even smaller club called United Bakery.)

If you have anything to add about concert dilemmas you have valiantly faced and overcome, let Blowtorch Baby know.  I'm currently wrestling over whether to see DJ Shadow next month at Republic...  The dude's first album kinda changed my life in 1997, but do I owe him the favor of buying a ticket to one of his shows 15 years later?  He played at House Of Blues as the opening act for rapper Jeru The Damaja in '97, and I bet tons of underground music heads went to that show just to see Shadow do his magic.  Then again, what if he still "has it" in 2012?  The interesting thing about a DJ is that his music never "ages," since he's spinning samples, and those samples will still sound literally identical to how they sounded x amount of years ago, and you're not gonna see some aging guy on guitar.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury, a genius.
R.I.P. Tim Mooney of American Music Club, Sun Kil Moon, and other San Fran bands.

Brilliant retort I observed on June 23, in the AOL chatroom The Crash Pad:

Murrican:  i've got a nickname among a certain group of females.

SpudMakenzie:  heart attack while havin sex with a hooker/?

Why Romney's not talking about Benghazi anymore

Atlantic City faces long recovery before it can start destroying lives again

Planets with similar climates: The Organ - "Brother" (2004), Sonic Youth - "Becuz" (1995), Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Christine" (1980), The Cure - "Lullaby" (1989), Bell Hollow - "Eyes Like Planets" (2007), The Lucy Show - "Ephemeral (This Is No Heaven)" (1985), Tamaryn - "Love Fade" (2010), Lush - "Take" (1992).

LAKE >> A falling leaf doesn't know where it goes

LAKE - "Don't Give Up"

(K Records, 2009)

I saw LAKE at the AllWays Lounge in April last year on a whim, after checking out their songs on iTunes and being struck by the simple, heartfelt beauty of "Don't Give Up." (Note: It's not a Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush cover.)  Why is LAKE able to pull off this kind of song when so many bands fail at it?  How does a 5-person band create enough space between notes for the song to breathe and have that elusive, magical, "breezy" feeling?  If the word LAKE were an acronym for something, what would it be?  Late August Kumbaya Echoes?  Love Always Kills Evil?  Low Altitude Kite Enjoyment?  Exactly.

It's one of those songs that you just have to love, no matter what type of music you're into.  And you'll want to tell everyone, even your parents, if only to show them that hey, you do actually listen to some "normal" music.  LAKE did indeed play this song at the show, so I was glad I went.  I got some mediocre pics, so I won't post them.  I believe they also did their haunting, autumnal, rather stunning song "Gravel".  The small crowd was very loud, and the band kept having to shush them.  They even had to stop playing a particularly quiet song, and went onto another one instead.  Mild-mannered lead singer Ashley Eriksson was really peeved when that happened.  Drummer / keyboardist / backing vocalist Lindsay Schieff coolly stepped to the mic near the end and sang a song or two.  (I believe she sings "Gravel.")  They did lots of instrument-swapping throughout their set; in fact, the only bands I've ever seen do as much swapping during a performance were ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead ('98), Indian Jewelry ('08 & '10) and Tortoise ('98).  Portland seems to be a really talented area when it comes to music, and I would in fact call it a hotbed of music.  Coincidentally, I had seen another Portland band, YACHT, earlier that same day; they played for free at Tulane's main outdoor quad.  See a synth-tastic clip here.  I mentioned this to a LAKE member and he was surprised that he hadn't known about that show, and said "We're good friends with them."  In summary, there's no logical reason why LAKE is not one of the biggest bands in indie pop.  According to K Records' website, LAKE have "recorded 12 full length albums (only 3 of which have seen proper release)."

In honor of the band's name, here's a(n uncropped) photo that I took recently right behind NOMA (New Orleans Museum of Art):

If you know my love of swans, you'll know that I immediately made this my computer's desktop image.  A similar photo of two swans taken here in City Park has been my cellphone's "desktop" pic for around 5 years.

I was actually planning on posting a song called "The Sea" by the band I'm about to talk about, but you'll see why I'm not gonna.  However, you can download it for free here.

Wed. Oct. 24: I decided to go see Brooklyn band EXITMUSIC at Circle Bar in NOLA, even though I was not blown away by them when they opened for School Of Seven Bells in April in Baton Rouge.  (I will spell their name Exitmusic from here on out, just because.)  I wanted to see them as headliners, especially since they have a new, well-received album under their belt.

Detailed chalkboard marquee outside the bar

I hadn't been to this place in two years, and it had been shut down for most of that time for renovations and for not having a valid music license.  Anyway, it now finally has air conditioning, and the ceiling has been raised, but it's still the size of a large living room.  The opening act, local singer Miss Mec, was good in an old-fashioned, laid-back, Cat Power kind of way.  Her music is often described as "Cajun reggae."  She and a guy played for a while at low volume with no drummer, and got a good response from the crowd.  They did a cover of "Moody River," and ended with a cover of "A Change Is Gonna Come."

Mec did a slight faux-pas by telling us "Exit Wounds are up next, you guys. They're awesome!"  She quickly caught her error and corrected it, and made a quip about Samuel L. Jackson.  (I just looked up that movie and he's actually not in it, meaning it's one of about 6 movies from the last two decades that he has not been in.)  So everything was just dandy so far.  I'm chilling out in NOLA at one of its coziest, coolest little bars, about to see an up and coming band (whom I generally describe as "a darker Beach House") for 5 bucks, and there's even A/C now.  Little did I know that I was about to see the biggest meltdown I had ever seen from a band...

Exitmusic tried to do a soundcheck for a good while (I found out afterwards that their van had broken down), and the guitarist was getting a bit irked.  I should mention that back in April, they had a live drummer, but this time they didn't.  The walls were rattling, and there was a problem with the vocal mic'ing.  It didn't help that there was a very enthusiastic heckler bellowing obnoxious things when the singer was trying to warm up.  He finally said loudly "This isn't a sound system, this is a shit system!"  This was after he had said something like "This place is a joke."  The bartender shot back "Thanks for choosing Circle Bar!"  The guitarist growled back "Did someone just say something?"  I don't know if he knew that it was the bartender who had said that to him.  I took a brief video clip, but didn't want him to smash my camera or something, plus I was still holding out hope for some more songs, so I stopped filming.  Here's a verbatim quote from my clip: "I don't know why we got booked here to play a fuckin' show that we can't play... It just, uh... It doesn't fuckin' work."   Anyway, the guitarist announced to his bandmates that they would try to play 2 or 3 songs and then leave.  This was apparently news to said bandmates.  After several uncomfortable minutes, they played the beginning of "The Sea," then restarted it and played it all the way through.  Everything was rattling in the building, but at least they finished it, and the crowd cheered louder than you would think such a small crowd could.

They then played "The Modern Age" and got another big cheer.  I was actually a bit irked that the crowd was cheering so loudly after the club had just been disrespected, but I was happy that the show was getting underway.  But then things took a drastic turn for the worse as the guitarist literally screamed "My wife has the most beautiful voice in the world and you can't even fucking hear it!"  (I know that's a verbatim quote from "My" up to "world," and the rest is probably verbatim too.)  The club's booker, a really nice, mild-mannered guy named Jason Songe, walked up to him in a friendly way and talked with him.  He must've thought Songe was the soundman because he argued with him about the acoustics.  The singer appeared to be on the verge of tears, and she was definitely trying to keep the show going, but her husband was clearly on the warpath.   (I did not film any of this part.) I was wearing an Unwound shirt, and the word on my shirt felt pretty appropriate for what was going on.  I mentioned to the singer that I had seen them recently, and that I liked their final song at that concert a lot ("Sparks Of Light"), and asked if they could maybe just play it acoustically or something.  She seemed agreeable with that concept, and said "Yeah, we always finish with that song."  And they started both shows with "The Sea," for what it's worth.  But it never happened, and the band slowly took down its gear.  The bartender (I talked with her afterwards but didn't get her name) eventually found the band members when they were on this side porch area and said "You guys have got to leave."  She later told me "We were really excited about this show!  We promoted the hell out of it."  She said how much she loves her club and that she was not gonna let anyone disparage it.  So yeah, Exitmusic lived up to their name.  It was easily the biggest meltdown I had ever seen.  I had been chatting with this genial older couple next to me at the bar who said it was their first time ever coming to this place.  I really doubt they'll ever come back.

If a tree falls in a small forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?  If no one hears about what happened on this night and the band gets off scot-free, would that be right?  On the other hand, do I want their career to be destroyed because of one dismal night?  Well, no.  What I have a problem with is the fact that this incident was kind of like if you went to see Wham! and Andrew Ridgely was being a dick, while George Michael was being professional and trying to get things back on track.  What I'm saying is, a person can destroy an artist's career by giving a biased summary of what happened, but in this case, the thing that would kill this band's career would be if someone had simply filmed the entire event from start to finish, with no narration or anything else.  In other words, with no critical opinion or bias involved.  The simple, unedited footage would simply stun club bookers across the country/world.  But as far as I know, no such footage exists, so the band's career is in no jeopardy.  To play devil's advocate, imagine you are in the band Exitmusic on the night of October 24, 2012.  You have van problems, then arrive at a club with that has an admittedly non-amazing sound system and lacks a soundman, then you get accidentally introduced as Exit Wounds by the opening act, then you get heckled while warming up, and you realize only a few dozen people have even shown up.  Would you be in a bit of a bad mood?  Of course.  But the first concert I ever saw at Circle Bar was Lubricated Goat, in March '04.  Including the bartender, there were FOUR people in the building, but the band played a set for us and didn't complain one bit.  That's called being professional.

I should mention that right when Exitmusic decided not to play any more songs, the jukebox began blasting David Bowie's "Let's Dance" at a much louder volume than I had ever heard any jukebox ever play before.  I cracked up at this song choice, and assumed the bartender had selected it, but she said it was just the next song up in the queue.  But it was still great to have a dour band chased offstage by such a bouncy, kinetic song, sung by someone who is presumably one of their idols.

Anyway, I'm glad I got to see two songs, and I commiserated with Miss Mec afterwards.  She is seriously one of the nicest, realest people ever, and I predict big things for her.  She told me she was singing with a Black Keys-ish band called Strange Roux the following week at the Carousel Bar.

Look at the body language in this poster and ask yourself which band member was probably the self-absorbed one and which was probably the sweet and apologetic one:

Hint: The nice one had a side gig acting on HBO's series Boardwalk Empire.

So, I very sarcastically dedicate LAKE's "Don't Give Up" to Exitmusic on several levels:
1.) Both bands are fronted by a married couple.
2.) Both have capitalized, one-word names.
3.) Both played shows in small clubs to approximately the same size crowd (~20 people) in New Orleans.
4.) Exitmusic gave up on their show, whereas LAKE did not, even though LAKE's lead singer was sick and Exitmusic seemed to be in perfect health.
5.) LAKE don't need extreme volume to get their songs across, because they are so meticulously sculpted that they'd sound good with loud amplification, acoustically, or anywhere in between.  Perhaps Exitmusic's songs are too, but I doubt we'll ever find out.

By the way, the bartender told me that Exitmusic donated the entirety of their cut of the money to the opening act.

Thu. Oct. 25: I went to Euclid Records.  Amazingly, the only other customer in there was a girl who had been at the show last night, but I didn't say anything to her.  I got a spare copy of The Lucy Show's awesome LP ...Undone for only a dollar.

I don't want to go into too much detail on it, but that night I had to call 911 for the first time in my life after an incident of road rage was directed at me.  Maybe more on this after I decide what kind of legal action to pursue or not pursue...  Another example of a simple unedited video clip being all that is needed to settle a dispute, and in this case, I do have a video clip of the incident.  The police officer to whom I showed the clip told me he'd "tear this guy a new one" if he ever got a hold of him.  Which, considering the extreme and violent stuff that cops see in their daily line of work, should tell you something about what happened.

Sat. Oct. 27: A severe cold front moved in, dropping the temperature from about 85º to about 60º. Rather than going to the ludicrously expensive Voodoo Fest in N.O., I went to a free festival called Houmapalooza.  ("HOE-muh-pah-LOO-zuh.")  The bands played on the steps of the Terrebone Parish Courthouse.  I skipped the first 4 bands but saw the others.

The first band I saw was a Houma pop/rock band called Autumn High.  They could become sort of Cranberries-esque or Sundays-esque if they develop more dreamy melodies.  Their singer has a ridiculously pretty, operatic voice, as can be heard in their new single "Jester".  If she can rein it in a bit, she could become literally the voice of Terrebone Parish.  They closed their set with that song.  Ocean Of Storms played a riff-heavy set.  Meta The Man were the undisputed highlight, and I got several video clips of them.  They were the main reason I went.  I had never heard of them until that afternoon, and after checking out their album on Bandcamp, I decided they were worth seeing.  They seem to be influenced by the overall aesthetic of At The Drive-In, with the addition of some progressive, artsy stuff.  But don't worry, they sound nothing like The Mars Volta.  Their keyboardist even played some noise cello (really) at one or two points.  I bought their CD afterwards for $5, and found out they're from the small town of Norco.  Outpost 11 were a full-on '80s metal band from down the road in Cut Off, home of the Cajun cannon, Bobby Hebert.  They had a drum riser and an underdeveloped fog show.  After allowing myself to let go of the pretentious music snob in me, I was able to enjoy them for what they are.  In true James Hetfield fashion, the singer began each with an enthusiastic "This next song is called ___!"  An old lady next to me lent me her Saints blanket after seeing I was shivering.  She exclaimed about one of Outpost 11's songs, after the singer announced that it has been getting play on 92.3 FM: "I liked that one.  Reminded me of Nickelback."   The only New Orleans band on the bill was next.  I, Octopus played an energetic instrumental set, with the Jazzmaster-wielding guitarist introducing each track by saying "This song is about sports," "This song is about bees," This song is about flowers," and so on.  I think he was antagonizing the crowd a bit.  It was very cold, and Voodoo had sucked away most of the music fans in the region, so the turnout was low.  The final band, Chaos Of The Cosmos (yes, lots of cool band names at this event) churned out some mediocre party rock.  They had two go-go dancers in front of the stage who also did some hula-hooping, and lots of little girls from the crowd joined in on the hula-ing.  It was pretty entertaining.  I should also point out I met a tremendous lady who is directing a documentary called Art On The Bayou, about local bands and artists who exist outside the sphere of Louisiana influence.  I'll be first in line to see it whenever it comes out.  And I wandered into a new art gallery and talked to a lady there who seemed interested in showing some of my art.  I also met I, Octopus' drummer and his girlfriend (wife?).  I've long thought of them as the Brangelina of the N.O. post-rock / indie rock scene, since if you don't see them at a show, you know it's not a cool show to be at.  He also drums for some other local bands.  So it was a pretty interesting day.  I stopped in at the only cool Houma music club, The Boxer & The Barrel, but a local band that I don't like was playing, so I bailed and drove home.  I have to say I can't believe I almost missed out this crazy day just so I could go see Silversun Pickups and Justice at Voodoo... Not that it would've sucked, but it would not have surpassed the peripheral things that I experienced at Houmapalooza.

Mon. Oct. 29: "Frankenstorm" hit the New England area, and conspiracy theories abound as to whether or not it was engineered by the gov't to give Obama a boost in the polls right before the election.  (See: HAARP.)  Sorry, but a snowstorm and a hurricane intersecting in late October, one week before the election?  The gov't. allowed Pearl Harbor (this is 100% fact) and 9/11 (about 90% sure) to happen, so this Frankenstorm thing doesn't surprise me at all.

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Planets with similar climates: Papas Fritas - "Way You Walk" (2000), Ben Folds Five - "Smoke" (1996), Velour 100 - "Stare Into Light" (1996), The American Analog Set - "Gone To Earth" (1996).