the frig blig

Shamelessly stolen from Jennifer Daniel via NYT of Jan 22.

32 seats full –
Oooh, see the pretty ponies!
Ruh-roh, no wifi.

1. I first heard Earth (Dylan Carlson’s band) when their CD A Beaurocratic Desire For Extra-Capsular Extraction was playing in Everyday Music on Capitol Hill. I had to ask the girl behind the counter what it was. I was intrigued even more upon learning that Carlson was a friend of Kurt Cobain’s from Olympia, and that the band was local.

Then a couple of months later my physical therapist mentioned he was a fan, and I decided to buy their recordings. I got The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull because the title and cover art is so cool.

Well, to an old fart like me this band basically sounds like heavy metal Eno. Slow, heavy riffs repeated endlessly. Nice ambiance, but not on my top ten list. OTOH they’re playing a new CD release gig at the Tractor on Thursday, and I’m sorely tempted — I bet they’re killer live!

If you do like this sort of thing, I suggest checking out Sunn O))) who do the same thing but are way more panoramic and less typical.

2. I wanted to scan one of Earth’s CD inserts and clip the band’s logo for illustrating this blog post, but couldn’t because my scanner is a Canon Pixma MP990 aka ‘piece of crap’. Anyone considering this multifunction printer/scanner/copier, beware! The only thing it does well is scan. But, if the printer runs low on ink, it won’t scan! Which is the height of stupidity because you don’t need ink for scanning. The paper feed mechanism the printer uses jams more often than not, and even when miraculously it doesn’t jam, it takes forever to print. Grrrr.

3. The server hosting this blog was running Ubuntu Server 6.06 LTS until a few hours ago, when I upgraded it to 8.04 LTS. Support for version 6.06 runs out in April so I got in gear, gritted my teeth and upgraded the distro. Happily, it took less than two hours and I had no major problems (YMMV). I figured jumping two major versions was safer than going all the way to 10.04 LTS in one leap. This should make it easier to upgrade Apache2, PHP, etc.

I can deny it ’til I’m blue in the face, and my standing may be open to question, but I most assuredly belong to the following families:

Seattleites, ex-Tallahasseans, musicians, sons of Jewish mothers who have renounced Judaism, U.S. white males, go players, pool players, geeks, freaks, coders, voters, married guys, homeowners, breathers, writers, composers, bloggers, sloggers, performers, workers, note-takers, list-makers, mammals, skeptics, smilers, pouters, doubters, losers, tip-toers, listeners, pluckers, fuckers, guys who say ‘wow’, sufferers, ecstaticats, questioners, shavers, bathers, distracted ones, dreamers, sleepers, weepers, insomniacs, cooks, lovers, the angry, the pissed, the clever, sneezers, wheezers, squeezers, schemers, the regular, eczemites, shitters, quitters, singers, whistlers, finger snappers, clippers, flippers, shouters, pooters, wankers, bicyclers, hikers, touch-typists, card makers, risk takers, jokers, and smokers.

To name a few. What families are you in, perchance?

BAD.

GOOD.

During a recent trip to Vancouver BC (no, I didn’t attend the winter Olympics) I saw posters for a concert by Canadian band Pointed Sticks. The blurb said they were an old punk rock band who had released a new recording in 2009 after a multi-year hiatus. I liked the album art and title — ‘Three Lefts Make a Right’.

Hard to find in the U.S., so I downloaded the MP3s from Amazon.

Long story short — don’t waste your time. I’d call it a cross between lukewarm Green Day and The Carpenters. These sticks are more like wet noodles.

While the musicianship is competent, the words are saccharine. If this band got a better songwriter perhaps they’d be more interesting.

You have been warned.

Somewhere in the Pacific Northwest…

De-gourded on the 31st, separated for drying on the mat.

Lovers Lookout is the new CD from local fellows Red Jacket Mine. Released just a couple of weeks ago, the timing is appropriate — autumn’s display of red gold and brown hues and shorter, darker days are a perfect compliment for RJM’s melancholy sound.

All the tunes are by songsmith and frontman Lincoln Barr, a moody bastard. His best songs are slow, arty, dark, and complex. Barr is a brooder, not a screamer. RJM’s music is like red wine rather than beer — to be savored. There’s a bit of a Ryan Adams feel, which Patrick Porter’s pedal steel helps along.

The love in this title is not ecstatic. But there is passion here — ironic, angry, disappointed passion. Even the rockers on this album, like opener Stay Golden, Childish Things and The Pose aren’t about having fun.

Stay Golden starts out upbeat but Barr can’t help himself — he ends up singing “You were so brave, but when they asked you to, you sold me out…”.

The Pose sounds a bit like The Posies…and since Ken Stringfellow helped with the production, who knows, maybe it’s alluding to that 90’s band, although it’s plainly expressive of the song’s meaning too. Can’t tell you, only the band knows for sure. Regardless, “Took a chance on an inside joke” is a great opening line.

The strongest tunes are soulful and anthemic, like Deseret News, Apricot Moon and So Long, Radiant Flower (which despite the bitterness has a sweetness too, as S points out).