3.30.2006

shows n stuff

To get back on top of the self-promotional thing:

We're playing tomorrow night at Roboto with The Drift. Come see. Maybe go see Lovers too if you want.

Then, next Thursday, April 6: Emperor X - Franklin Delano - Aydin - .isha&zetta. at Modernformations.

Here are some MP3s for you to listen to and get psyched for the show:

emperor x -
right to the rails
shut shut up
island long dirt dealership

franklin delano:
please remember me
sounds like rain

proposed reading list amendment

Whereas, this is the kind of weather in which I can sit outside and read a book and feel okay about myself and not like a waster of time, and,

Whereas, I'm not getting too far with the OED book because there are too many stodgy old white dudes with attitudes, and,

Whereas, I've heard that as a person interested in the writing of nonfiction I must read this book, therefore be it

Resolved that henceforth I will commence trying to read Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee and Walker Evans.

When I started it at lunch today I was sitting on a bench by the fountain and there was a man sitting on the next bench playing WDVE and occasionally bursting out yelling a chorus ("IIIIII DON'T WANNA WORK!!!!") or yelling at an unsuspecting passerby ("YOU'RE LATE!!!").

3.28.2006

kickin' balls. err . . .

I was alerted recently that some folks from the workplace might be getting together a kickball team to compete in the Pittsburgh league of the World Adult Kickball Association. You pay $65 per person and get the added bonus of a t-shirt.

A better idea is to lay down $8 (plus shipping I guess) and get "Huckleberry Eater," an album by a band/dude called Kickball. I've been jammin it hard lately, after being a jackass and missing the show here. What can I say? I don't remember what I did that night, but I was up to something, and I didn't really think I'd like them. They were touring with some permutation of Mt. Gigantic, who I generally find to be tolerable, and I thought they'd be some Plan-It-X style band that I'd not really care for. I was wrong. Q got the CD and it's really good and as my penance for missing the show, I'm telling you all to get your hands on it.

3.27.2006

get out of myspace, get into my car

A long post that hopefully comes off more as an analysis and commentary than as a rant.

As promised, a response to the discourse on MySpace, currently being thrown down by danah boyd and Abe and William from abstractdynamics, and surely many others. I know you’re on MySpace, and so is your dog and your cat and your favorite band. I’m not saying I don’t like people who are on MySpace, I’m not saying everyone on MySpace is a bunch of suckers, even. Just offering my criticism of the site, as I think a number of things about it that are worth thinking seriously about are often overlooked. Bear with me while I sound like my mom for a couple thousand words.

I think the foremost question regarding MySpace ought not to be whether it's a bottom-up, malleable internet community controlled by the youth who use it or a method by which “they” can perpetrate their power- and profit-driven schemes (because surely it's a mix of both); the question ought to be, how does MySpace and its architecture affect the way in which its users (and even to an extent its non-users) communicate, and is its effect positive or negative?

Much of boyd's essay explores critically the amount of control networking communities like MySpace and Friendster wield over the way their participants make use of the site – postulating that perhaps when a site tries to place strictures on the purposes for which it can be utilized, it flounders, whereas when a site adapts to fit the ways in which the users want to use it, it succeds.

She's probably right. I'm not so much concerned about the desires of the MySpace crowd and how to cater to them, though. My concern is more this: there are elements in the interface of MySpace (and other networking sites like LiveJournal, but perhaps they're most apparent in MySpace) that force users into a shallow discourse in which they reflect upon themselves as a conglomerate of consumer choices and empty descriptors and in which they market themselves as a commodity. To hold it up as a project of and by youth culture reduces youth culture, I think, to something completely superficial, based on social networking and devoid of serious thought and discourse. We already have parents, teachers, television and advertising of all sorts to make young people feel like they've got nothing real to say, that they're simply a bunch of preferences plastered onto a body.

To compare MySpace and LiveJournal to youth-based expressions of mass communication that I find to be more palatable: zine culture and blogging in the blogspot-typepad-etc. sense, which I (and others) would look at as a contemporary twist on zine culture in ways, while they can contain superficial personal-information wankery and reductive self-description, are much more conducive to permitting the user to express herself/himself in more complicated and self-directed ways, as their templates (literal and figurative) are more skeletal in nature. If the blog is related closely to the zine, we could perhaps say that the MySpace page is in the same way comparable to a business card. LiveJournal would fall somewhere in between on this scale in that, in its design, it privileges the complete written thoughts of the user (a user's main LiveJournal page is the blog section, which often includes a small photo) but also includes more traditional "networking" features -- communities based on shared interests, etc. -- and encourages users to augment their blog posts with superficial information that may or may not be pertinent to the post, such as what music they're currently listening to and what their "mood" is. ("Mood" can be made up by the user or chosen from a bunch of "presets" as it were. The presets come with funny faces.)

Look at someone's MySpace page. Preferably someone you don't know. Where do your eyes go first on the page? If you're like me, they go to the picture, then to the “General Info” section, then to the “Friend Space,” then to the “Comments.” Such is the design of the page – our eyes are drawn to things that stand out graphically, and thus on MySpace we follow a zig-zag down the page, skipping at first the user's contact information, “blurbs” and blog, then getting back to them on our second sweep.

These are the building blocks of our understanding of other people and of ourselves on MySpace, based on the interface we're given. Our appearance (first and foremost), the books we read, the records we listen to, the movies we watch, the people we think of as heroes. While they're things that surely inform the people we are, they're also dangerously one-dimensional. In life we often meet people who listen to music that isn't what we ourselves listen to, or read the same books as us, whom we still get along with wonderfully; using MySpace as a networking tool, we might easily discount such people as uninteresting to us based on those very aspects of them. Beyond that even, there aren't opportunities to posit opinions on things like politics and current events; entertainment is privileged as the definitive aspect of the MySpace user's life. (This seems to not take into account the fact that naming favorite books – or movies or music for that matter – can in some cases give a very clear view of one's politics, but I'm acutely aware of that; I think that it's more complicated than that, though, since we tend to pick and choose our tenets from others' works and few of us can seriously say that we agree 100% with our favorite writer or band or director.)

Where danah boyd says that MySpace allows personalization, which other similar sites don’t, I disagree to a great extent. It does allow for a certain amount of personalization, but only on the most shallow aesthetic level; changing the background of one’s main page to be polka-dotted doesn’t count as liberating as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think she fails to recognize this, but I think she doesn’t put the proper stress on it.

Moving on, we're directed to the user's “Top 8” friends, a fairly recent development in the design of the site that has/had some users in an uproar; as a MySpace user, you're essentially forced to rate who, among your online friends, are your favorites. This is another major aspect of your existence as interpreted by MySpace. Clearly in day to day life we're seen with our friends and judged to an extent on that basis, but I think few of us would, first of all, willingly rate our friends in that manner or, additionally, want people we're interacting with to base their opinions of us on who our friends are. Rating friends will of course end up causing some trouble in people's friendships, on or off the internet, and I question whether the decision to make the “Top 8” a standard feature was actually the result of user feedback or simply a misguided effort to allow for the very sort of user control/influence that boyd claims is the feature that distinguishes MySpace from other similar sites in a positive way.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of MySpace to me is the “comments” feature – a way of communicating with your MySpace “friends” that is public but at the same time ostensibly a communication between two people. There's a feature of MySpace that allows you to communicate privately with other members, analagous to emails or private messages on a message board. But then there are comments – messages you leave for your MySpace friends that show up on the front page of their profile as part of their online package – a way to say hi, to drop a line, and to get some attention from anyone who looks at your friend's MySpace page. It's kind of like approaching a friend while she/he is talking to a bunch of friends whom you don't know and just saying hello, so that those friends will notice you – then leaving them all a business card so they can “check you out.” It's not a simple facet of youth culture as far as I'm concerned – it's like a job fair, or a speed dating session, or something similarly uncomfortable and intrinsically self-promotional.

Another important aspect of MySpace, and one that hits close to home for me, is its use as a promotional tool for bands. In the interest of full disclosure, my band does have a MySpace page. We didn't for a long time, mostly because I was uncomfortable with it, but I'm okay with it because, from what I understand, it helps as a communication tool when you’re working on booking a tour for yourself. To be honest, the fact that everyone uses it and that’s what makes it such a useful tool turns me off to it even more, but that’s just my difficult personality showing through. Since I’m not the one doing most of the booking, I leave it to the bandmate who is doing that to make the decision on MySpace.

Despite the fact that it eases communication both between fans and bands and between promoters and bands, I don’t necessarily buy MySpace as a positive development for DIY music communities. I look at it as comparable to the rise of the CD-R and low-priced computer-based recording equipment and software: these are things that make it easier for bands to promote themselves, which is nice but as a result they’ve also clouded the field so far as bands are concerned. When every band with a month of practicing and no shows under their belt has a MySpace page (since it’s free) and a CD-R of poorly-recorded music (since Dad bought them a couple mics and they have Garage Band on their Ibook), people (labels, local music writers, promoters, potential fans) have that much more to wade through in order to get to the bands that actually care, have put considerable work into what they’re doing, and will be around in another month. (Note that I don’t mean to be an elitist asshole and discount those bands’ efforts – just to say that, while month-long high school bands are excellent formative experiences, so many won’t last enough to be worth a second look for most people.)

As far as an exploration that isn't a full-fledged essay goes, I think I've covered the bases I hoped to. I think, as noted, boyd is correct technically in her assessment of why MySpace does better for itself than Friendster did and why MySpace will likely soldier on where other sites have failed. But I also think that she skims over the more important questions (which she brings up quickly then discounts as not mattering, because what matters in the context of her argument is what “kids” care about, and having a more complete palette of ways in which to express their existence isn't something “kids” care about.) I think the abstractdynamics guys bring a good point to the table in exploring what's done with all the data that's gathered on MySpace. But I also think they neglect to explore (in that post at least) what we as MySpace users do with that data ourselves, which is the biggest threat in my eyes.

I'm sure I've left things out of this, so ask questions/make points in the comments section if there's something important that you think I neglect or have wrong, of course. Also, I fully admit to being overly naive and idealistic and theoretical in ways.

3.26.2006

required reading

I'm working on/reworking something I wrote -- gosh, almost a year ago, about MySpace, and the qualms that I have with it. What I put together previously wasn't as well thought-out as I'd like for it to be, but now I have some prompts: witness posts by the abstractdynamics dudes and by hardcore blogger Danah Boyd about the phenomenon. I'll be responding shortly -- in brief, I think both arguments give the site more credit than is due, and ignore some inherent flaws and/or problems in the design and interface that make MySpace (and some other online networking communities) problematic. I'll try to point out those flaws.

After you've read those, and only after you've read them, your reward is this: "He Kicked Him . . ."

3.24.2006

someone's having a bad day!

I could barely move myself to get out of bed this morning, fighting a sick bug of some sort and dead from not enough sleep. I managed to get out and get to work only a little late, and was glad for my boss's sake that I hadn't called off sick because one of my co-workers did, and another was on a vacation day, and she was all by her lonesome until I showed up, and the phone wouldn't stop all morning. I slogged through the day, heavy on my feet, and as I walked home, fantasized about how I'd collapse on the floor upon re-entry to my house.

Then, as I headed down Bayard toward Craig and passed the gas station at the corner, I looked into the parking lot and saw, heading for his Cadillac, none other than Pittsburgh Celebrity Defense Attorney Jim Ecker, mentioned in these very pages before as an amusing bizarro celebrity sighting.

Jim Ecker (you may know him from such hits as, "Jeff Habay, Crazy Legislator;" "Ronald Taylor, Racially Motivated McDonald's Massacre Shooter;" and "Robert B. Winston, Jr., Funeral Director Who Kept Stillborn Infants In Boxes") is currently defending the horrible creepy psycho who kept a girl locked up in his room for ten years. Needless to say, he's had a lot of explaining to do to the press in the last two days.

I felt a great deal lighter and more energetic with this visual confirmation that there was someone around who surely had a much tougher day at work than I.

3.23.2006

book report

So, I actually finished a book for once, that being the one I alerted you earlier, The Bride and the Bachelors. I guess the last chapter, the one on Merce Cunningham, was added for the later edition that I had, and wasn't in the original run, and it sort of shows, like in the time between writing the first edition and writing the Cunningham piece, Tomkins lost his ability to write with any sense of tension whatsoever. The entire book was "eh-ok," methinks, and I wasn't blown away by the writing style the way I expected to be, but by the end it was really feeling like something a high schooler had written: lots of "this happened, and then that happened, and then . . . that was it!" No killer scenes that told me anything about Cunningham (the one person profiled whom I knew the least about), no rewarding endings.

Next on the docket: Lost for Words: The Hidden History of the Oxford English Dictionary. It was written by Lynda Mugglestone, who has a wonderful name.

woah, awesome thing:

Re: abortion in South Dakota, by way of herjazz:

Establishing Planned Parenthood on a reservation

time is tight.

I had planned, and even begun work on, a post about trees near work and their removal and the ensuing internet quarreling, but I've had zero time for writing lately, being busy at work and at home, so I'll finish it up later if it doesn't become ridiculously dated by the time I get to it.

Aloha tonight at Garfield Artworks, HTML is playing as an added bonus (freak out the hip indie kids!). Gribenas is in town for a few days starting tonight, so drop by and give him noogies. Pittsburgh expats will be representin' hard over the next few days. Also, check out this preview Manny wrote: Maryanne Amacher lecturing at CMU next week. Sounds eminently interesting. I hope to make it.

3.20.2006

equinoxin' at the door

Ways to make it actually feel like spring:

- Listen to Dino Jr.
- Drink Lipton Original Green Tea with Honey.
- Observe the sun being out (okay it's gone now, but it was out earlier, I promise).
- Play a show tomorrow night at Roboto with A Day in Black and White. I'm cheating now, I totally could've done this in the winter. But they're really good. And they remind me of Navies (the Petillo connection being in effect), and Navies are a spring/summer thing for me, so it works. Regardless, tomorrow (Tuesday) at 7 at Roboto. Be there. Massif is also playing. That's Deadly Nate's new band that I haven't seen yet.

3.16.2006

did i tell you?

We're playing a show May 31 at Roboto with The Drift, who are on Temporary Residence and are related to Tarentel and are very good. But also, if you're more into the acoustic side of things, the most amazing songwriter is playing that night at ModernFormations. Her name is Cubby, she's in a band called Lovers. She's touring with one other person. I might be that uncouth dunderhead who leaves the show early to go see the other show, just because she writes the most beautiful songs imaginable and I've been unable to catch her the last THREE TIMES she's played here. I forget what the issue was the first time, then the second time I didn't find out about the show till the day after it happened and the most recent time we were playing a set on WPTS. I think it's reasonable. Although I'd prefer to pull off catching The Drift as well if possible.

Also, that show will be the closing night of Beth Steidle's show at ModernFormations, which is absolutely precious and wonderful and probably my favorite show there. Even if you don't go that night, check it out while it's up. It's something to take your time and inspect.

3.15.2006

shootin' blanks, 1877

Someone yesterday brought up on the message board the long-defunct Project 1877, the physical embodiment of Revolution Summer 2003 in Pittsburgh. I've come to regard that space and that summer as the time when a lot of my idealism withered and gave way to somewhat bitter realism. I actually became overly cranky about all things related to activism and organizing around the time it all ended, and only recently have I begun to recover and feel a little more positive about things (though there'll never be another winter of 2002/03 for me).

The ultimate undoing of 1877 was of course a huge plan (community center, show space, resource center, host to organizations, messy-ass free store) without the resources to sustain it. There was a lot of theoretical planning but not enough human power and momentum to keep the place afloat. On a more abstract plane, it felt like all the energy we gathered during the year or so leading up to it losing its direction and careening all about the scene like a drunk driver. There was plenty of downright bad stuff happening that summer, like the resistance gods were smiting our spirit for having gotten so far so fast the previous fall and winter. The winter was our 1968, but 1877 was our Altamont.

It bugs me the way so many people remember 1877 as "a pretty great venue." It's a misconception that keeps coming back and kicking my ass. There were LOTS of good things about 1877, yes. But it was meant to be, and was, a lot more than a venue, and its development into something that was primarily being used as a venue and not nurtured as a community space was a very big part of what eventually was its undoing. I wished at the time people would've taken more stake in it than just going to shows there (though admittedly the structure really wasn't well established for doing so), and in retrospect I wish people would understand what happened.

Another part of its undoing, in my opinion, was its very opennness -- obviously an important facet of its existence, but also the reason the energy being put into it wasn't able to be harnessed. Keeping the doors open all day so that kids from the neighborhood can come in is fine; letting said kids run roughshod over the place and make other people feel uncomfortable or annoyed to be there is not. Hosting events of all sorts wherein the people in charge care about the space and are interested in the community (geographical and ideological) is good; letting shady rave promoters come in and take over for a night, exploit the place and the people there, potentially attract police attention, make some money and leave is not.

(As an aside, one of my most surreal memories of the place, and possibly ever, is of watching the Anti-Flag IMC benefit show there while the rave promoter and his shady crew of kids came in to set up for the late night's activities. The space wasn't double booked per se, but kind of one-and-a-half booked. The result was Anti-Flag playing whatever their songs are, plus weird big pink stuffed things and shit hanging from the walls, and ravers trying to teach punk girls how to do the invisible globe thing.)

In retrospect, there are simple things to take away from the experience: dream big but start small, don't rely too heavily on already-taxed individuals for a great deal of volunteer work, have someone clean out the food piles regularly when you're constantly getting food that's coming from dumpsters anyway or else things will start to smell pretty rank. There are plenty of other ways to chalk it up in the end -- bad timing, bad vibes -- but more than anything it was a big learning experience for a lot of people. A lot of the same issues that came up there have come up in other collective organizations I've been a part of or have been close to. I've been planning for a while to put together a zine of people's collective organizing experiences in Pittsburgh -- Toni B and I came perilously close to actually doing it last fall but then things got crazy. Perhaps I'll get back to work on that.

3.13.2006

reading right now

I'm currently starting:

The Bride and the Bachelors, published in 1976, profiling Marcel Duchamp, Jean Tinguely, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Merce Cunningham. Obviously interesting subject matter, and reputedly very well-written from a reader's standpoint. I'm about to find out.

Rauschenberg is a favorite of mine, and I didn't know too much about him when they last had some of his stuff up at the Warhol (a couple years ago) but I enjoyed it immensely then and want another chance now. It's a little bit like when I was four and my family went to see Bo Diddley at the Rib Fest and I was a whiner because I was cold and tired and I didn't end up enjoying Bo that much (despite liking his name a lot). Now I'd be all over seeing Bo live, especially for free. Please, world. Give Andy a second chance or two.

3.12.2006

droney tony and rhys's pieces

I found myself looking forward to last night's Table of the Elements show at the Warhol with a giddy nervousness the likes of which I had only felt once in the past couple years (that being the Mountain Goats show).

Tony Conrad opened the show, and put me in a special place. He really ought to have been last -- while he was the least loud of the three acts, his intensity level was through the roof. How can you have been doing this stuff for 40 years and still have that in you? How has it not gotten old? That only makes it that much better. It's hard to describe in writing what some of those moments in the middle of that repetitive violin screaming did to me. I found myself thinking a lot about dreams, and feeling inspired to do much more important and interesting things than I have been.

Jonathan Kane is an astounding drummer, while his current band ("Jonathan Kane's February") doesn't really seem to feature it that much. They had some good moments for sure, but on the whole I mostly just felt like their set could've been a bit shorter.

Seeing Rhys Chatham in person, a couple feet from me, was fairly religious in nature even before he picked up a cheap Ibanez and closed out the set with "Guitar Trio," arranged for SEVEN GUITARS. Here was me, second row, with a bunch of awesome people I know, watching Rhys Chatham and 8 other guys total performing "Guitar Trio," in Pittsburgh. When will this happen again? Possibly never. Totally worth my money. I was sorry to have missed the other shows (I just presumed I wouldn't be able to get into the Brillobox at midnight, though I hear in retrospect that it wasn't sold out), but I definitely don't regret having made the decision I did.

3.09.2006

an interesting pointer

There's a special election next week for the city council seat for District 3, which Gene "More Bike Traffic In the City Is Dangerous To Cyclists" Ricciardi vacated in order to become a judge (*gulp*). THe district covers the South Side and those hilltop neighborhoods to the south as well as much of the student ghettos of Oakland. There are a couple interesting/amusing things about this race:

1. The P-G endorsed candidate, who opposes the Mon-Fayette coming into the city and seems pretty okay as local politicians are concerned, is named Bruce Kraus. There is another candidate named Bruce Krane. Is this going to confuse voters? You can count on it.

2. The guitarist late of Jumbo, more recently of the on-hiatus grind band Commit Suicide, is running as a Republican. He's a pretty libertarian dude, I disagree with him on a lot of issues and I think a lot of his views aren't well thought-out or are based on faulty logic, but the point is -- there's a Republican running for office who's in a grind band called Commit Suicide. Woah.

3.08.2006

this is happenin!

What am I amped on this week?

1. Spring break. Okay, for me all that really means is Friday off. But it's better than Friday at work. I'll appreciate what little they give me. (I hope it's nice enough outside for tennis, but I'm starting to think maybe that won't be the case.)

2. Tony Conrad and Rhys Chatham and Jonathan Kane at the Warhol Friday night. Woah.

3. Assuming I make it and don't fall asleep or fail to make it on time, Oxford Collapse, Part Chimp and Centipede E'est at the Brillobox Friday night.

4. Secret things upcoming.

What am I not amped on?

1. Missing the Phil Boyd solo release featuring Mikey C Friday night at Modernformations.

2. Spending so much on shows coming up Friday that I probably won't go see Mi & Lau tonight at Garfield Artworks.

3.06.2006

okay chorale

I wrote this email to a friend this morning and it sums up most of the thoughts I've really had time to think today, so I thought I'd share it with y'all. Otherwise, today has been all work (no student workers as it's spring break, but lots of requesting done by faculty) and business (getting practice space stuff ironed out) and rice pudding.

Dear XXXXXX,

Do you know the Elton John song "All the Nasties"? It's the
next-to-last song on "Madman Across the Water." The one that sounds a
little like a church song or something -- like it was the first step
on the road toward "The Lion King." There's the first part, the main
body of the song, then it gets real quiet and this choral part with a
full choir builds, and they're all going "Do-do-do-do-do doooo doo do
. . ." and he comes in and keeps saying "Ohhhh my sooouuuul . . .
Ohhhh my sooouuul . . ."

And then, the drums kick in . . . the bass drum drops like fucking
cannonfire, HUGE . . . there's so much reverb on that track it should
probably be illegal.

That's how drums should sound. Next time we record, that's how my
drums are going to sound.

If you have that record, or if you get that record, or if you're in
someone's house and they have it, and you listen to that song, listen
close and think about that.

That's my thought for the morning.

How was your weekend?

xo
andy

3.05.2006

rock and snacktivism

Two-show weekends are exhausting, and while we've theoretically sworn them off, we did it this weekend and it was smoov, with the exception of the fact that I left my cymbals at Gooski's last night and Doug has them so I need to do something about that. Elsewise, two wonderful shows with awesome friends -- Flotilla Way were cute and great (Jai is an excellent drummer!) Friday night. Last night at Gooski's we had by far our best bar performance ever -- when the quiet parts came, you could hear a pin drop over the guitar parts. No one was talking, no one was laughing, no one was yelling. Everyone was listening. Amazing.

A few quick shout-outs to things that I'm thinking about lately: Jude mentioned the Steve Kurtz case the other day because she's done organizing surrounding that situation, and I hadn't heard much about it lately. Motions for dismissal were denied in January and the case is headed for a full trial. Read up on it at that link if you're not familiar -- Steve is a professor and a member of the Critical Art Ensemble who was swept up in a truly Kafkaesque nightmare in the name of homeland security. I'll keep tabs and update you in the future hopefully.

Ben Folds is playing Bigelow Bash at Pitt this year, which is sweet. I will never go back on my contention that this dude rules, even if I think he crossed the line from bittersweet and awesome to plain depressing when he started playing solo. I will be there.

I've been offered a show in May that will be stoketacular if it pans out -- I'll announce it as soon as I'm sure of the situation. Get ready for something really good though.

Last but not least, after receiving a coupon for them through campus mail from the generous Law Library staff, I purchased new Cheez-it Crisps (so new they don't even have a web page!) the other night. The verdict: not as good as the original, because original Cheez-its can do no wrong in my eyes. But, if looked at as something that's not trying to be a Cheez-it, not bad. The cheezy powder stuff on them is a little bit addictive, and gets all up on your hands like Dorito powder. The texture is the real sweet point of these -- reminiscent of those flaky, delectable Munch 'Ems. On the snack scale of 1-10, I'll give them a 7.

3.03.2006

quick-like!

Two shows this weekend that I am playing: tonight (Friday) at Roboto, a benefit for the Big Idea, with Fuckedupmess and Flotilla Way, and tomorrow night at Gooski's, with Young Men's Dept. and Warzone Womyn. Come watch us get crunk yet remain solemn and brooding.

Remora ruled the other night, and if he's coming to your town, with or without The Czars, you should check him. His music is like a weird mix of Joy Division, maybe the Microphones, maybe a little Beat Happening, and some heavy sedation. He covered the Journey song "Faithfully" for us, which was wondrous.

It's cold out but sunny. Bundle up but keep your eyes on the skies. Good things are on the horizon.

3.01.2006

show announcement, 2 of 2

April 21 at Roboto, 7pm, $5

Slingshot Dakota
Sweet pop like Rainer Maria but less pretentious
Allies
Loved local rock
Flotilla Way
Local lady-flavored pop
.isha&zetta.
Outerspace guitar + hockey drums

Do it!

show announcement (1 of 2)

I'm doing this show next month:

April 6 at Modernformations - 7pm, $7

The return of
Emperor X
(Brilliant quirky lo-fi pop with electronic synthy parts)
with
Franklin Delano
Beautiful weird pop and rock from Italy
Aydin
Squeezy local shoegaze
.isha&zetta.
Debut show - featuring Emma (my roommate!) and Charissa (a darling awesome friend!)