Books. Check 'em out. Books. Check 'em out.

I tend to read rock star autobiographies. I know there are better books to read in my spare time, but every time I think I'm over the predictable rags to riches tales of our musical forefathers, yet another one is released, I purchase, and then proceed to take an embarrassingly long time (more than 2 days) to finish it.

The lastest was "The Heroin Diaries" by Nikki Sixx, followed directly by Slash's writing debut, simply titled "Slash". He is a simple man. Now, what is interesting about these two is that they both hone in on the same time and space: 1987 Los Angeles, during the height of the glam metal scene. In fact, Slash and Nikki often appear in each other's books, copping heroin as a team, sharing women procured from the Rainbow Bar and Grill or Whiskey A Go Go, and sometimes even playing music together on tour. As you can imagine, even with the assistance of whomever helping them along with their storytelling, the writing never really gets beyond passable in either book, and most of the stories have already been told in other formats; VH1 specials, other books (most notably the classic Motley bible "The Dirt"). Still, its a great simulation of hanging out with these larger than life characters, and an even greater insight into the realm of "band psychology". I hope this becomes a legitimate field of study one day. Maybe I would go back to school.

Last night I entered the Barnes & Noble @Astor Place with the intention to purchase something remotely intelligent. I exited the store with "Conversations with Tom Petty". Shit!

Southland Tales

Last Saturday, against all prevailing logic, I went to see Richard Kelly's new 2.5 hour diasterpiece Southland Tales. Legend of its booing at Cannes had already soaked into my brain so, for the sake of full confession, I did not enter the theater expecting it to eclipse Donnie Darko in any way. "How bad could it be?" is the idea my friend and I were operating under.

Very bad. And I don't mean "strange", over the mainstream's head, outsider film, bad. I mean Axl Rose/Colonel Walter E. Kurtz-esque, narcissistic madman with way too much money sitting atop a throne made of human skulls and not enough people telling him no type of BAD. While the actual film, and Kelly's intentions, can be analyzed a thousand different ways, what I found myself preoccupied with most was that remaining, oh who knows, lets say 5% of people, who enjoyed, even adored, the film. I am going to go out on a limb and say the vast majority of these people are Donnie Darko fans (as was the one person I spoke to directly that felt this way).

Kelly goes to great pains to establish a relationship between Darko and Tales, and this is a clever insurance policy. Beyond the obvious overall themes of time travel, apocalypse, and a final chance at spiritual redemption from the hedonistic quicksand of modern living, actual Frank (the bunny from Darko) posters abound in the background, and T-Lake's music video sequence features him sexily taunting the camera while wearing a tee soaked in blood thats been dripped into the the infamous bunny ears silhouette. Wasn't aware Frank was a Killers fan! Its a wink to his size-able cult of fans; "There IS a secret message here folks, just keep looking". We want there to be meaning within the entertainment, and when you've invested so much adoration in someone's previous work, maybe its not too hard to piece together an imaginary satisfaction from the mess on the screen.

I remember having the same feeling after Radiohead released Kid A. While much of that record is certainly brilliant, the fact they had discounted even a ballpark approximation of what their audience expected of them, and their subsequent coming out of that experience on top and more respected then ever, meant that all future bets were off. Their next record could have been a toilet flushing for 72 minutes and that small percentage of die-hards would argue that critics were "not paying attention", that they "just don't get it".

Interestingly enough, I've since learned that many fans did not enjoy the director's cut Donnie Darko that came out 2 years ago. I never saw it, but apparently its jam packed with ornate explanations of the weird science that drives the movie, and squashes the mystery that makes the film so utterly unique and eventually moving. Heres to hoping for the right editing team for movie #3, due out sometime in 2015?

Van Halen @Madison Square Garden, 11/13/07

I had been looking forward to this show for months. Make no mistake, despite the absence of the golden pipes and Jack Daniels-fueled pulse of Michael Anthony, this current incarnation of Van Halen does not disappoint, in fact, they are absolutely fucking transcendent. Honestly, its kind of hard to point out any highlights when the entire face melter-laden set has your synapses firing on ten for two and a half hours straight.

Though Eddie remained physically low key for most of the night, shredding beside his pedal board and occasionally swinging his hips to the beat, Dave more than made up for it by charming the audience with his Zeus-sized rock star persona, at once ridiculous, confounding, and totally love-able like only he can be. It was totally bizarre to see 16 year old Wolfgang Van Halen living out a fantasy I had when I was around his age. The "rooting for Wolfie" aspect of the tour seems to be paying off. His chops are certainly in order, and you can practically feel Eddie bursting with pride as they exchanged high fives on stage.

I heard 20,000 people scream the word "Panama" and it nearly brought me to tears. So what is it about this music that is so universally enjoyable, so longed for, so worth paying hundreds of dollars for? The energy, hooks, musicianship, the showmanship; they just do not seem to exist in the same way anymore, and we miss the actual music as much as we miss our old selves. If any new artist took this approach at this point it would seem silly, thus we must return to the source. Its that nostalgic connection that really makes the experience hit home for me. The pure teenage Americana. A dreamworld where frankenstein guitars scream pinch harmonics heavenward through a dozen Marshall stacks, drowning out the coming workday. Worth every goddamn penny.

Goonies Rocks on Oregon Coast

"Don't you realize? The next time you see sky, it'll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it'll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here."

My Portland photos.

Je Suis Morrissey

After returning last Monday from vacation in Portland, I proceeded directly to the Tuesday and Sunday shows of Morrissey's five night stand at the "Frankenstein Ballroom". I was standing outside the venue on Sunday when I heard a passerby say that Girl in a Coma was the new opening band for the remainder of the tour. HOLY SHIT! Their drummer Phanie first got in touch with me through myspace about two years ago to see if Isles were coming through Texas. We maintained a friendly email conversation and I finally got to see and briefly meet them while we were in Austin for SXSW. Its incredibly heartwarming to see fellow musicians, especially comrades, put in a ton of hard work and accomplish something that would have seemed a distant fantasy just a year earlier. Even on that wide and intimidating stage, they fired on all cylinders and melted the cold hearted NYC crowd.

Between the two shows I saw, the Moz and company banged out a steaming helping of songs I had been dying to sing along with for many years now. The band was tight, dynamic, and LOUD as all hell. No jingle jangle here, for these are the tools of heavy metal and Broadway. The highlight was the mesmerizing, ever-building dirge of "Death of a Disco Dancer". I had forgotten how great that evil, descending bass line was.

Russel-Lamb Wedding in Chester, NY

Raised by Wolves in a Barn

I went with a friend to see King Of California last night, a tiresome would-be "our family is so fucked up but we love each other" bore in the vein of similar atrocities like Garden State or Little Miss Sunshine. Michael Douglas has the experience and enthusiasm to pull off his maniacal character, but its squandered on droll cinematography, and muted by the chemistry-less drone of Evan Rachel Wood.

The real excitement happened in the theater itself. About halfway through, a guy sitting behind us began talking on his cell phone; his apparent logic being, "Its late, theres only seven people here, this movie sucks, I am going to push some limits." Given the fact I assume a healthy percentage of theater cell phone talkers are actually armed and looking for conflict, I remained quiet. Towards the end of the movie he started up again, and my friend stood up, faced him, and said "Could you not talk on your cell phone during the movie?" Squirming in his chair, he uttered a hushed, defeated and yet coolly measured response.

"Mind your own business."

Amazing. AMAZING. Mind your own business. Thats what the guy said. So, should you ever find yourself in this situation, don't make the hasty mistake we did. Do not intrude. Please respect the PRIVACY of the person talking on their cell phone in a theater.

We are headed towards Idiocracy.

2007 VMAs: The Britney Conspiracy Theory

Leave it to the spirit of 9/11 to put me in the mood for a juicy conspiracy theory. Did you see the 2007 VMAs on Sunday? Yes, the whole world is aflame over Britney's comatose show opening performance. Apparently, she admits to currently feeling something called "embarrasment". The rest of the show oozed down my tv screen like an exploded can of spaghettios. The off camera Kid Rock/Tommy Lee brawl, Justin Timberlake's repeated helium-voiced challenges to MTV to play more videos, Jaime Fox's wild "unscripted" intro speech for the People's Choice Video of the Year, and Jennifer Garner's subsequent shouting of "The winner is...Gym Class Fallout!", the various cameras planted in various hotel room private parties, capturing spontaneous band performances. As we all know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so if you don't blink something requiring secrecy may just happen!

Doesn't this all seem a bit in line with reality television, celebrity scandal, and the hollywood gossip industry that has sprung up to help us interpret and eventually consume what all this conflict means? Britney was acting weird, man. Really weird. You're telling me those lame outfits, the lazy choreography, and off time slip synching, and Sarah Silverman's follow up dissing don't add up to some serious evidence? Maybe she wasn't losing the fight against the world, but simply throwing it for what any artist with a new album needs...press. You think her label plans on moving units based on quality songwriting? Its Britney, bitch! Despite his handful of acting credits, I didn't pick up too much sincerity in Justin's beef with the brand that feeds either. Nonetheless, you could practically hear the entire nation gasp a collective "Oh snap!" every time he got riled up.

Is pop culture really eating itself this fast? Are we really such inarticulate apes that the only type of programming we're continually interested in orchestrates the crucifixion of those we love to feel superior to? MTV is no longer in a position where they must craft the illusion to the point of, well, believability. As exemplified by recent "cut to the chase" reality shows like Rock of Love and Two Coreys, the cameras simply swoop in from the get go to reveal implausible conflict, humiliation, and failure. Without any contextual development to make them authentic, its like we devolve into a wild crowd screaming at roman gladiators and bloodthirsty lions.

Naturally, I googled. I am not alone in this theory.

Battles Featuring the Amazing John Stanier

I Saw Battles at Southstreet Seaport on Friday. They were cerebral and brutal in all the right ways, and total masters at working the crowd into an anticipated frenzy. After 10 minutes of tape loopy sound effects you're just dying for outrageously talented drummer John Stanier to reach for that towering crash and deliver something along the lines of a mosh part. I ran into a drummer friend, Tim, and we traded pleased looks as the band eased into the demented shuffle of "Atlas", the highlight of the set, and a song that seemed to actually intensify the swaying of the docked ship directly behind them. I normally am put off by artists that operate in the experimental/electronic prog genre, but watching Battles you got the feeling this is one of the bands of our time.

That Was England

On a lonely and mildly humid August Sunday, I went to the movies by myself. I've always scoffed at this activity. Staring at solo patrons in various Manhattan theatres, I would think "You loser. We all know you don't want to be here alone. You should have stayed home and avoided our judgemental gaze. You. Have. Failed." Counterarguments have made sense. It can be quite a stressful chore to organize a group of New Yorkers who have different commuting, eating, working, blah blah situations, perhaps because its an activity where the shared experience is abstracted by the fact we don't communicate during the actual THING. And do I really need to listen to the fading chirps of relationship bickering as the lights dim?

The last time I had gone to a movie alone was 10 years previous at the Crossgates Mall Multiplex in Albany, NY. It was Contact starring Jodie Foster. There were aliens. Jake Busey. I am sure you're familiar. Somehow my friends wound up in the auditorium showing Spawn and stayed there. This time around it was This Is England by Shane Meadows, currently playing on an itsy bitsy screen at the IFC Center on 6th Ave. An Englishman two seats to my right began talking to me as soon as I sat down. Looking like a summery micro-version of the male lead in the Princess Bride, he mentioned he had been in a much larger theater the day before; a screening room in a Hamptons mansion where he had attended an all weekend party. Naturally, he was not unaccompanied. His female companion stared into the slate floor as we wondered aloud how this film would compare to the gloriously disturbing Romper Stomper.

The seat directly to my right remained empty until the opening seconds, when a woman, dark-haired and attractive, entered alone and grabbed the spot. She laughed and cringed at all the right moments, but after twiddling about with some texts, left about 15 minutes before the conclusion. Somehow her experience was more akin to watching TV on the couch at home; a passing of time activity easily disregarded when something better comes up. OK cool, it really is not a big deal to be here alone. It initially struck me as strange because the film was excellent in just about every respect. Sharp, doubtless performances and a heartbreaking story shot gorgeously around industrial ruin and claustrophobic, suburban malaise. Dare I say, a modern classic.

Oh and not to name drop, but a close friend of mine is credited as the Script Advisor. Stay for the credits.

All We Have to Blog is...Blog Itself

I suppose its only natural in the fetal stages of a blog to go through some existential questioning. Why are we here? "We" being "me", and "here" being at this particular URL transposing my inner dialogue into a medium which is alleged to infuse with it more permanence than the folds of my brain.

I've made the following argument before and I suppose now I will make it again. Unless you were lucky enough to get your memoirs published, tenacious enough to pump out a zine read by a handful of people, or famous enough to have use of press releases in your life, the closest phenomenon to blogging before the rise of internet culture in terms of efficiency was the suicide note. Yes, this handy little patriot missile of personal thought has many of the same benefits of blogging; a built in audience, a predictable time table for the dispersion of content, potential for overnight celebrity, and the default sympathy of your readers. It even beats blogging on the last one! But you have to earn this mighty bullhorn by actually doing something legitimately wild like putting a .45 in your mouth and pulling the trigger, as opposed to logging in to blogger after the guy from Band of Horses upset you by giving you the finger during the performance of their monster ballad hit. Internet communication is now an inalienable right, similar to having a conversation with two friends at a party that another person might overhear. And why not listen? They might be talking about you.

"But theres great stuff out there!" you say. Its true, but if you're looking for something timeless and poured over, well, heaps of information has to be sorted through to find something relevant or quality. The relativity of it all is overwhelming, and brings up another issue. Even with filtering systems pointing readers in the direction of decent stuff, when is all this "choice" going to be become more of a problem than it's worth? And does the convenience, accessibility, and variety advantages make us happier than reading a newspaper or book? Obviously those are different mediums, though if you check back in 25 years I think we'll find them looking very much the same.

Are we losing our ability to patiently craft and nurture something beyond the immediately gratifying? I know thats the point I seem to be missing each time I've tried to maintain a blog since 2001; it does not need to be that good. I believe it was Yoda who described the dark side as "Quicker, easier, more seductive". And really, that perception is my fundamental problem with blogging that I need to get over. Its too easy. Anyone can do it so why not do it? But that doesn't mean it is evil or even disposable. Slam poetry on the other hand...

Ted Leo/Pharmacists @McCarren Pool 8/12/07

Having turned the big THREE OH the day before, I was in pretty desperate need of a hot will to live injection this past Sunday. The McCarren Pool Party shows have become a sort of ritual for me and about 3000 other regulars this summer, though after a late arrival and subsequent shunning at Blonde Redhead the week before, I had little hopes of painlessly getting in after 5pm. Low and behold, at 5:10 there was essentially no line and I entered to the decaying barre chords of The Thermals' last song, meaning Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were up next.

Little background here. In 2001 I could not stop raving about Ted and company. Best record/shows of the year for me. But the following five years of inferior records and flabbier incarnations of the live band left me hollow and reminiscing over one magical night at Brownies where I saw one of the best rock shows of my life. I knew James Canty (The Make Up) had rejoined the band on second guitar for this tour, so I was psyched.

First off, Ted comes out wearing a fucking Econochrist tee shirt. YES! Econochrist was an amazing hardcore band from the late 80s early 90s Gilman scene in California. I'm a sucker for Ted's not so subliminal nods to the hardcore scene of old, and in the context of such a hipster ground zero it was a pretty rad gesture. The band killed it, ripping through an excellently paced set list pulling equally from each record. Even the newer, more cruising numbers were played ferocious, hungry, and desperate; the way Ted's songs sound best. Canty's kinetic guitar was certainly the secret ingredient that had been missing of late, and their combined crunch was at times a little more AC/DC than Clash. Which is fine with me. About halfway in the drummer de-layered revealing a classic Dead Kennedy's shirt underneath. YES! I thought the integrity-meter was going to bust. At one point a bikini clad girl ran out from sidestage, hellbent on grinding a few Pharms. Ted obliged.

In the outro to that "its alright, its alright, its alright" song Ted busts into a soulful vocal from Daft Punk's "One More Time" that underscored the sunshine and beach ball vibe of the day. Ted announced that it was bassman Dave Lerner's final show with the band and suddenly the fever pitch of the set made a new kind of sense. The last song of the set was a hypnotic verse/explosive chorus anthem I did not recognize, but later learned was a Chumbawamba cover. My heart swelled as the entire entire pool chanted in unison, "I never gave up! I never gave up! I crawled in the mud but I never gave up!" The band encored with two of the best tunes from Tyranny; the seminal "Biomusicology" followed by the bombastic dropped D crusher "Stove By A Whale". Absolutely sick and inspiring.