michael played piano down on the floor and we switched for "perfect flames," and the whole thing sounded tight, together, of a piece. a unit... we had finally gelled. after we played, a band called "the dagger" took the stage, and they played music trying to scare the crowd i think. the lead singer's brother was wandering around the sidestage, cackling and pretending to be a scary person... he had glow stick necklaces wrapped around his neck... he bragged of "the dagger's" fearsome aesthetic. "they're gonna frighten everybody into submission." he let out a vincent price-ish laugh... i think he was joking around, but it wasn't very funny. i stole one of his glowsticks from a full water bottle (what was it doing in there?) and went upstairs for the "zombie" dance party. lameness ruled the place, though, and i went back downstairs... the dagger had just hung a white banner behind them that said "the dagger" really large in that cheap fake-typewriter font that's supposed to look gritty. the band all wore matching suits and had started this strange chanting song called "say your prayers" which i'm sure was intended to be ominous but didn't scare me much. i laughed for a minute at the work put into the production of this show: the banner, matching suits, monigrammed kick drum head, the glowsticks... it seemed kind of sad and maybe delusional and i thought they should stop trying to act like they were already famous and maybe write songs that people enjoy listening to, but maybe i'm just too critical and jaded. either way, i wasn't drawn in by "the dagger" and retired to the bar for some gin and tonics.
next band handed out tambourines to the whole crowd and when the singer started crawling across the stage, i started spanking him with might force, using the tambourine, and hitting him in rhythm of course. then i dumped a huge box of tambourines all over him... 50 or so, brought just in case a huge crowd was there. i wondered where they'd gotten hold of so many tambourines... ebay perhaps? there were 100 or more.
next night we played the trash bar in brooklyn... stopped by bar down the street for free beers. had spent the day wandering all about manhattan... looked up la monte young's "dream house" but it's only open three days a week now... i'd been once before and found it amazing. zev, the dude who came along with me, said it felt like he was a prisoner at guantanemo -- huge buzzing drone, purple dim lights, and no furniture. i took some field recordings while there, but that was two years earlier.
this particular day, no dream house, so we wandered about and bain, will and i hit the russian and turkish baths... total relaxation, but without picking teeth or spitting, a the sign outside the russian bath so kindly reminded us.
that evening, the trash bar felt great, sounded great, but cut-throat NYC clubs force door people to tally audience members according to whom they came primarily to see.... which left us SOL, having failed to draw the requisite number of audience to get paid. aw well, these experiences put hair on your chest.... my chest is getting nice and matted by now.... if only i had sold as many records as i have hairs on my chest, i would be playing holiday inn lounges all over the midwest...
had some drinks with cousin liz and joel and their friend mark, an ace bartender and film buff who's something of a brooklyn community beacon and is doing his best to fight off the forces of mediocrity and lameness. keep fighting the fight, mark... i will do the same.
next morning, several coffees and headed up the FDR through connecticut, up to newton, a suburb of boston, where we were to play on boston college radio. jim, aka ning nong, works at forced exposure distro and has really dug "bright blue dream) (out latest c.d.), so we made a point of stopping by and giving the full live force. we set up in their small studio and threw frisbee in the front lawn and hung out in the nearly vacant campus. the boston college campus didn't impress me much; lots of tidy red brick and overly clean and corporate looking buildings. not much boston personality here. so we hung by the station.
i opened a can of chili with a pair of scissors and much determination. chili juice sprayed all over the wzbc station desk and my shirt. i still have the stains to prove it.
i ate my veggie chili and then we set up and got going... did a full 7 minute ambient song called "diamond deserts"... with my rented 16second delay and an ebow and the rest of the band tapping out some delicate improvisations... after seven or so minutes i'd loaded my 16 second dealy with samples set to infinite mode... then we kicked in with woody guthrie's "this land is your land." both of these are available here for download:
Diamond Deserts
This Land is Your Land
these tracks are meant to run continuous....
we loved the show and laughed and played as hard as we could to no physical audience... ended the set with some slap-bass samples which had inexplicably ended up on my sampler...
here's a photo jim took on his cell phone...
and jim was super cool and enthusiastic. afterwards, he played "dolphins," the first track off will's new tape. he put out a tape under the "sleep good" moniker that's really really cool... tape's called "jungle box."
after the show, we drove with jim back to his place in south boston... neighborhood where they filmed "the departed..." met jim's super cool wife and dug his awesome apartment and his insane record collection...
next morning headed to insane cheap diner for eggs, potatoes, toast, and several coffee refills for under three bucks... headed downtown to boston common, smoked spliff in the van and wandered shoeless through the park... other guys played frisbee but i quickly grew bored and restless...
so we split up, them heading to find their fortunes in central boston, me heading out of town a bit.. i made the 20 or so mile drive out to walden pond. and what a place...
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