Month: September 2018

I am super-excited about tonight’s event at The Space Concert Club. It would be enough to get to participate in the #20stargarychallenge with Peggy’s vegan hot sauce. But we also have the very first live performance in 28 years by the post-punk / Noise legend, Problemist! On top of that, we’ll also have a live set by the very-excellent jazz combo Gamble / Previte / Rucker. This is an event you won’t want to miss. Wings plates will be available, as well as Peggy’s Sauce. Come on down! This will be an incredible night of music and fun!

A successful out-of-town adventure often requires the help of many, many people. Here’s a small effort to thank:

Anna for a ride to train station; Rachelle, Lee and Ryan for the radio hospitality at KPSU, Joe for audio reinforcement, Vicky & Joe for continued transportation assistance, Kiisu & Kim for the excellent hospitality, Michelle for lending a hand with the LP recovery mission, and Kelly and Dee for coordinating my ride back home.

I’m a better person for knowing all of you, and everything is a little more possible knowing all ya’ll. Let’s have a big holiday party this year where we all gather and have a great time. Deal?

Movie Meme Thingy:

Presented as a comedy, and framed by the device of a fictional documentary, “Spinal Tap,” presents itself as a film about an aging and unpopular metal band. But what the copy and the critics don’t say about this film is that it is a closely observed critique of male relationships, and walks through American Cultural Excess at a time when we were just starting down the road we are now desperately on. The improvisation is well executed and reveals the ludicrousness of Metal Bands with subtlety, understated attention to detail, and with the sense that these folks are too close to the source material to really be mean-spirited. Don’t let the comedy fool you: relationships, and how men treat each other is the subject of the entire film, with Metal and Comedy being the two intertwined leit motifs. There is no better film about this genre, with the possible exception of “Decline… of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years.” But don’t be surprised if you soon stop seeing the comedy and start seeing a deeper commentary on our world. It works just as well on either level.

No, this is the kind of talk of a Targeted Individual. This is conspiracy nonsense.

Fuck this guy.

“This whole two week effort has been a calculated, and orchestrated political hit. Fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of The Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus.”

Movie Meme thingy:

This is the perfect film. Adventure, romance, plenty of comedy, and a masterclass in editing and scene structure. The fun factor is what sells this movie, along with perfect casting and Casablanca vibes. There are no wasted scenes, no wasted dialog, and it holds up to multiple viewings. Say what you will about Harrison Ford’s acting ‘choices’ (he almost perfected the ‘I’m phoning it in’ style in the late ’70s), and yes, the sequels are largely reiterated forms of the original. (Not to mention the film is essentially an Alain Quartermain / Thief of Baghdad / Uncle Scrooge mash up.) But Raiders shines where many action / adventure films fall short, and holds up almost 40 years later. Essential to have seen it in the drive in as a youth, because how else would you see it?

If you want to jump right into being part of the Mutant Militia, then we have the deals for you. First, there’s the Tiny $10 Deal: A CD, A Patch, A Button and A Sticker. Then, if you want to double down with our $20 Twin Mutation Offer, you walk away with A DVD, two CDs, A Patch, A Button and A Sticker. And finally, there’s our Street Team Deal: if you show up with a home-made Mini-Mutations shirt, we’ll send you home with some gratis goods, for being a walking Mutation in public. Money is tight for all of us, so let’s make a deal!

And the final tour addition to the Merchanbox: Patches! Custom and locally made by Electric Mother Vintage, there’s a very limited number of these, and they’re the perfect way to support Mini-Mutations. There are three basic designs, and while we may do another run of this “image” someday in other colors, you will not see this particular run again. $5 and you can show off your mutant status to the normies who surround you. Thanks again Mickey Bare for making these incredible patches.

Happy 60th Birthday Darby Crash. He’s been dead for longer than he was alive, but let’s say you should watch the Decline films for the movie meme. The Decline films cover The Punk Scene, The Metal Scene, and the ‘90’s street punk Scene, and while the first two are amazing, the original has all the best performances and interviews. X, Black Flag, FEAR and more. The Darby interview is amazing, and it is clear how he could never have lived to be 60. At least we have his records. For someone almost 20 years older, he really had an incredible voice I connected with.

Movie Meme Thingy. (Thanks Devin.)

This Bogart / Bacall / Hawks / Chandler Noir from 1946 is full of plot holes and problematic elements by the standards of modern filmmaking. But what it looses in a lack of modernity it makes up for in snappy dialog, beautiful editing and music, and is a very excellent adaptation of the novel for a Hollywood flick. (Duh, Howard Hawks is in full brilliant form in this one.) This feels like what the phrase “old Hollywood” is referring to. I really can’t get enough of this film, and I’m shocked that it keeps working on me after so many repeated viewings. Don’t really dig too deeply into the plot. It’s just mood and atmosphere and wisecracks, which is perfect. This one is a little seedier than The Maltese Falcon, but they make an excellent double feature. (End with Big Sleep.) Bonus points if you follow this up with the ’90’s remake The Big Lebowski the next day.

A few times in the last several years I have turned down work, money, and creative opportunities because friends have revealed to me that someone I was about to work with was a shitty person.

Then I saw this going around, and I feel like I need to step up my game. There’s a lot of FB that is political, and I know a lot of people who keep large friends lists and don’t care much about the quality of that friend. I’m ready to start deleting and unfriending. I’m more than happy to have fewer of those friends.

How do I improve the way I handle being wrong? This has happened a few times recently, where I was embarrassingly wrong and kept digging for irony. I feel like I’m fairly sensitive and I try to comport myself with a certain amount of decency in life, but if you want to see me become petty and awful, find something I’m wrong about and start hammering on it.

I want to get better. Being wrong is not terrible; it’s how we learn and how we become better in general. I just wish I didn’t handle being wrong so poorly. It feels like a defect.

Tips on self improvement? Or is it okay to be petty and difficult now that we’re past the Trump-rubicon.

Lady Liberty took a tumble today at the Puppet Parade, crumbling around us when everything looked like it was going to be okay. We did our best to take action, but no amount of duct tape was keeping her together, after the assault she sustained by our current government. In the end, we had to call it quits, and moved her to a neutral location where she will get help and attention. It remains to be seen what will happen to Lady Liberty. She might need all the help she can get. #message #puppetparade

There’s a few new additions to the tour schedule, with almost 17 stops so far, and playing with some quality acts all up and down the west coast. There’s now an Olympia show, as well as a Live Streaming performance from PDX, and a few other things. Check it out! We’re coming to a place near you.

There are two holes in the Oregon Leg of the Mini-Mutations tour: October 15th and October 18th, when I’ll be in Portland. Portland Friends: while a show might be out of the question, anyone wanna get together and jam while I’m in town? Might be fun to make some noise and see what happens.

As for the 15th: it would be excellent to visit some other town in Oregon, either to jam or to play a show. Anyone game?

We decided to go for a walk, but when we got outside she started bawling, saying she didn’t want to go. She does that a lot now, crying to get her way, so I waited. She kept crying. Finally she says that she’s scared of the dogs. (One day we got approached by some loud dogs, and I had to pick her up and carry her away.)

I hugged her tight and told her that I would pick her up if the dogs came. She calmed down, we finished our walk without any dogs.

On the way in, she looked at me, sincerely, and said, “You will keep the dogs away because you are my best friend.”

I started bawling. Taking care of children is a rollercoaster of feelings, for sure.

Hive Mind: let’s say I have a video file. I also have an audio track that I would like to add (two different audio tracks), and while I’m at it, maybe add chapter markers. There’s probably a Linux App that could do this easily from the command line. I spent a while googling, with only mixed results. Any nerds out there know what I’m talking about, and if there’s a free solution?

Field recordings are a unique way to process and make sense of the world around us. By reducing experiential reality to merely the audio dimension, we force ourselves to consider familiar sounds divorced of their context. “You Are There” is Mini-Mutations first venture into this territory, with an immersive, hour-long sound experience that really puts you somewhere else. $7 for a disc with bonus tracks that are different than the bonus tracks you get with the $5 digital version. Get ready to go from Beach ’til Calm. The intersection of field recordings and collage is Mini-Mutations.