Month: September 2002

I picked up Beck’s new album, Sea Change, the other day and so far I like it a lot. I’ll do a proper review after I’ve listened to it a dozen times. I got it at Tunes in Marlton, NJ and every time I go there I like to go through their huge bargain bin. Everything is 2/$5 in the bin and you can find some great stuff. I like to pick out stuff I’ve never heard of before since you’re only out $2.50 if it sucks. The problem is how do you determine whether a CD is even worth $2.50? The only criteria I can think of is the CD artwork, the band name, and the song titles. The artwork and band name usually stand out the most to tell you if the CD has potential or not, but make sure you look at the song titles as well. Many times I have bought CDs without looking over what turned out to be pretentious, shitty songs without any idea that they just came from the $2.50 bargain bin. If a song think of itself as the best song ever and ends up in the bin you know it has failed. I only want to buy CDs that anticipate being cheap and aren’t afraid to be worth less than a six pack of Bud. Too many bands try to write the great American/British Rock/Folk/Pop/Rap song and fail miserably. I’d rather see a band shoot for the 427th greatest song ever and actually pull it off. I’m just venting because I bought an extremely bad CD from Tunes that seemed to have a lot of potential.

I’ve been trying to think of some good ideas, but these are the only ones in the running at the moment:

1. Willie Wonka
2. An Oompa Loompa
3. A Star Wars Nerd
4. The Taco Burglar (sort of like the Hamburglar, but wearing a sombrero)

Vote on your favorite choice or at least give me a new idea.

I participated in the Living Room’s open mic last Wednesday with little fanfare. I hadn’t planned on going because of all the work I wanted to get done on my current non-music related project, but I just put new strings on my guitar wanted to try them out. Girl Upstairs opened up the night as the featured artists. This isn’t usually done on Wednesday nights, but who cares when the place is empty? It seems to me most of the regulars have been featured at least once, so why not invite some people out who never come to the open mic? Anything to get some different artists. I probably sound like I don’t like the regulars, but that is definitely not true. I just like to hear new stuff once every 3 months. Girl Upstairs did a nice job especially their last song with the two guitars. I didn’t even realize they had a full band until I checked out their website. I feel bad because I left after Adrien and Greg’s first song (I caught all of Adrien and (bass player) Paul’s set and it was her standard awesome performance), but I had a lot of work to do. Host Jason Wheatley, James Collins, Keith Lewis, and Willie Tapps all kept the open mic going with some great stuff.

I played “Allison” by the Pixies, “The Genius of it All,” and “I Hope I Die on the Moon.” I didn’t really feel into it, but I think I was just in a bad mood that night. It happens.

I’ve been using the word “beyond” a lot lately, as in “I’m beyond tired,” “Beck’s new album is beyond mellow,” and “I was beyond drunk last night.” Hopefully this will be a new trend played out someday on SNL and Sunny Delight commercials (“Your mom has Sunny D? She’s beyond cool.”). Speaking of moms, happy birthday to mine.

Chris Comarato sent me an email with this picture attached of me playing at the GSP open mic last month. The picture is pretty cool, although my legs look kind of stumpy. I like how you can see my flyer on the floor.

5. Week #2 of the NFL schedule will not be played on week #18
4. Two new albums by Frank Black and the Catholics
3. New album by Beck
2. Comedy Central is showing very recent episodes of Late Night with Conan O’Brien at 7:00PM
1. There is serious discussion of shooting 1/5 of N’Sync into space

A while back Roz King told me about Adam Brodsky and the Antihoot (antifolk) open mic over at Fergie’s pub. I finally made it out to one and I’m glad I did. Initially I thought the night was going to suck because it was just me, Adam, and his manager, but some more people showed up and it turned out to be a blast. Adam, Butch, and Margaret all sounded great as well as Adam’s manager, Mary. A song of the antihoot genre comes across as either funny, irreverent, or an egg thrown at folk music itself. I’ve definitely seen artists do this kind of stuff before but it was never organized in one event. Adam hosts the antihoot every 2nd Wednesday of each month at Fergie’s Pub(1214 Sansom @ 10:00PM (9:30 sign up)).

Because there were so few performers I was able to play 5 songs. I started off with “I Hope I Die on the Moon,” “All My Dreams are in Cartoon,” and “The Genius of it All.” During “All My Dreams are in Cartoon” I broke the D on my brand new strings, so Adam kindly let me use his guitar. Strangely, I was playing at half my usual speed when the string broke. After everyone else played we sat in a circle (more of a curved row than a circle) and took turns playing songs. Most of the other performers were improvising on harmonicas or playing along with guitar, but I just sat there and waited patiently because I have little to add on the fly. In the curved row session I played “Why Now Satan” where I broke another f’ing string (this time my G). I decided I was pushing my luck and only played one more song. Anything more and I risked all my broken strings coming alive to strangle me. I ended my night with a song I can play with as little as three strings, Beck’s the “Cut in Half Blues,” and I think it was a good closer. Thanks again to Adam for letting me use his guitar and raising my net string loss to 1 instead of 2.

Once again no new artists last night at the Living Room, but that is typical. I think they should do a little more promotion of it online so people can find out about it. The upside to last night was that everyone was pretty good. I don’t think anyone had to pick up slack for anyone else unless people were picking up slack for me and to that I say “Thanks for being my slack slave.” The stand out performance of the night was from Jack Sparks who did a great version of Radiohead’s “Karma Police” with random profanity inserted here and there. I heard most of it from the bathroom, but the acoustics are decent enough in there. Adrien and her new partner Paul went on after me and they sounded great. Paul plays an huge upright bass and the two sounded good together, but let’s be honest: Adrien could be accompanied by a smoke alarm and still sound amazing.

I played “Why Now Satan” and a very old song that has gone by a few titles (“I Believe So” is the most frequent one I’ve used). I hadn’t played it since I opened for the American University battle of the bands where it was severely mangled. I thought the song sounded really good last night and I think I’ll play it more from now on. I’ll definitely add some more lyrics to it since it was originally a joke love song that had no words at all.

I picked up a few CD’s the other day. Among them are The Pixes’s “Tromp Le Monde” and Frank Black and the Catholics’s “Devil’s Workshop.” I’m in the heaven of an alternative universe. Could Frank Black and his various spinoffs be headed for my Personal Hall of Fame?

Everyone has a PHF for things like sports teams, movies, and definitely music. 10 years from now I know my Dad will still be playing John Prine tunes, my girlfriend will still love Madonna’s early stuff, and my brother will be buying “Back in Black” in the latest music format. Comparing different artists in your PHF is like comparing which team was better; the LA Lakers or the New York Yankees? You can do it, but does it really matter? My music PHF has two members that have been there for many years. Because they’re in my PHF I am required to say I’m both a Nirvana and Beck fan for life. Don’t let just anyone in your Personal Hall of Fame no matter how good you think they are. You might get stuck with something really embarrassing like the Proclaimers or Techno Tronic. The whole point of it is that no matter how embarressing it may be, you shouldn’t care because the music is so good. If you are the world’s biggest Wilson Phillips fan you need to stand up with your autographed Carnie Wilson picture (pre stomach stapling) and be who you are.

I also added a picture from my last Grape Street show to the images page.

It’s been a few months now, but “Dog in the Sand” by Frank Black and the Catholics is usually every 3rd or 4th CD played in my CD player these days. It’s definitely not a perfect album, but I like so many songs on it I can’t help listening to it all the time. We’ll see if that persists with Beck’s “Sea Change” coming out later this month. From what I’ve heard it sounds slow, depressing, and fantastic. I doubt many people will like it, though.

I caught “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” last weekend and I liked it a lot. The father’s faith in the healing powers of a household cleaning product is a great way to introduce an insane family.

Many states have weird laws about how “it is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church” or “having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal,” and people have them as well. One of mine was “never use a capo” and after reconsidering the idiocy of this law I’ve decided to go out and buy one. I think the reasoning behind the capo banning was the styles of music associated with typical capo users. I finally realized that through no fault of its own the capo was branded a tool of the hazy eyed folk singing establishment.

I watched my first episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants the other day and he lives up the hype. In the episode I saw Bob reads a curse word on the dumpster behind the restaurant he works at and begins to use it frequently. Every time the word is used it sounds like dolphin squeaks to the audience, but any character in ear shot of Bob is instantly offended and disgusted. Throughout the show he learns not to use this word, but not before he drops squeak-bombs all over the place in phrases like “How the #$!$@ are ya?” or “Our #@&!* special today is #@&!* #@&!*” etc. Here’s a better plot description.