So, you mean like a letter opener, right?

In the mid-80s MTV had a show called The Cutting Edge, which starred Peter Zaremba traveling around the country and trying to find interesting things to broadcast, hopefully relating to music. Perhaps not surprisingly, the results were mixed; one of the show's highlights featured Daniel Johnston showing up unannounced at a sponsored barbecue and pushing his new tape, Hi, How Are You to a national audience.

Fig 1.1



More often the show became an theater of the contrived bizzarre, as best exemplified by the following interview with Dexter Romweber of the Flat Duo Jets, who lived in a dilapitated shack full of the collected cultural debris of the past hundred years.

Fig 1.2


I stumbled across this a few days ago, and I still can't decide if its ultimately a good thing or not. It's one of those cases where you have someone who's clearly not mentally alright pretending to be not mentally alright, with the entertainment value deriving from the tension between the two and the fact that anyone could live that way, regardless of whether its an act or not. Uncomfortable. (Though I suppose the same applies to Johnston's appearance as well, which I feel weirdly okay with. Hmm.)

The Daredevil Christopher Wright.

Written yesterday:
After an afternoon of laboring over French conjugations, H and myself drifted over the Kitty Kat Klub, where we arrived just in time to have The Daredevil Christopher Wright explode whatever preconceptions about male vocal chords we may have had:



It was quite a good show, though as is often the case when you get more than two high-voiced men in a confined space, they couldn't entirely escape the danger of castrati-chipmunkism. But no matter; the staggeringly hirsute leading men more than compensated for whatever loses they may have sustained in the masculinity department.

P.S.
In the future I will omit more unneccessary words, I swear by God.

How to Play Guitar Correctly.

Step 1: Don't play guitar. Play fiddle, then switch to guitar when it's no longer economically viable.

Step 2: Allegedly meet Charley Patton.

Step 3: Syncopate.

If you're succeeding, you'll sound like this:



(This is Bukka White, for any curious parties.)

And while I'm at it...

I figure I may as well review last night's excellent concert by Roma di Luna at the Mill City Ruins. Suffice it to say, they are very good and put on a very solid show despite being forced indoors due to threatening weather that never materialized. There was a secret part of me that was very happy about this; as much as I love outdoor music, the acoustics in the museum's courtyard are, uh, less than ideal and the interior, though unseasonably warm, is much much better suited to big, awesome Americana harmonizing. Which we got in droves, particularly towards the end of the show, when they busted out the driving "Bury me Beneath the Killing Fields," a song which, despite its totally death metal title owes more to the gospel-country tradition of "Down by the Riverside" or the better tracks off Will the Circle be Unbroken.

Here's a less than ideal video of said song that I wouldn't be posting if the band hadn't endorsed it by sticking it on their myspace. It does get better than its beginning would suggest:

Studs in G-Strings

What could be better than a cold beer, hot pizza, and a prepared piano after a long and often exhausting bike ride, I ask you?



Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Wait a minute, that's an Adorno reference! I'm going to think poorly of the author!

For anyone who may be a regular reader of this monstrousity, my dear friend K is launching a new music blog of her own, The Curves of the Needle,, which will likely be vastly more interesting than this one has been recently. Go look at it. You'll feel better.

I'm back! (And check out this Hat!)

Dear anyone who may be a regular reader of this blog,

I apologize for the last two week's absence. In penance, I offer you this amazing video with music by the Tin Hat Trio. It's a bit slow at the beginning, but it's well worth your while.



Sincerely,
John