Posted 11.10.08 at 10am.

I was told from this acquaintance of mine that November is National Solo Project month. It even has a website. The deal is that you have one  month to make a 29 minute solo recording of music because that's how long Road to Ruin was. The cut off is at the end of November and it's totally arbitrary but I'm doing it. I have a ton of songs that have always lived in my head that I'm working on articulating on guitar. I don't know how to play guitar or what frets equal what notes  and if someone asked me to "play something in E" it would be the same as asking me to fly but hopefully I'll use that to my advantage and make something worth while. I have two songs so far and am on the verge of three more. All my stuff is very much in the box with little funky things I throw in there. Singing and playing guitar is also the hardest thing in the world to do. Right now I'm in Berkley waiting for Amoeba records to open. Then I'm off to work on music. 

Posted 10.25.08 at 9am.

I just saw this documentary on the beginnings of the New York No Wave scene of the late 70's called Kill Your Idols.  I like a lot of those bands like Swans, Suicide, Sonic Youth, Mars, DNA, James Chance/White and the interviews were cool to see what they are up to now. Part of the documentary involved what was going on now in NYC and it had all these interviews with The Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Flux Information Sciences, Liars, and all of these new bands and it all just made me angry. Each new band interviewed could only talk shit about the other bands in it's own town and how much more deserving of money and fame than this band or that band. It makes me angry because it is a NYC version of what I see too often which is the case with groups that try to make it. They wind up resenting every article about any band that isn't their own and after a few years of this they get so jaded that the band breaks up and no one really cares. The fact that the Yeah Yeah Yeah's move more records than their band actually occupies space in these peoples brains? I just wonder how bad life must be for some of these bands. NYC breeds a lot of contempt among artists and it gets pretty hard to take for me when I'm back there. I'm not saying that everyone's like that there. There's pockets of cool communities all over that town but some parts get so irritating and annoying it makes you wish that they we're just as two dimensional in reality as they are in the Village Voice. 

Posted 10.9.08 at 6pm.

Last night I got to see Wire in the very cool Middle East venue in Boston. We were up front and Wire was good. Not just "good for those old guys" but they really were great live. They played a bunch of new stuff and a couple things off of Pink Flag and Chairs missing. The finished with 12XU which was a treat. After about four encores they said good bye and we left.

Today was pretty cool. I hung out at a school my friend Joe teaches at called the Boston Day and Evening Academy. It was cool to hang out with all of these high school kids and talk about books and whatnot. Some of these kids have some pretty rough stories. Class mate shooting victims, pregnant 15 year old girls, all of the stuff you can think of. The kids were rad and on point all the time. It was cool to see the eye to eye reverence they have for Joe. They all seem to look up to him a lot. We talked about the holocaust and took turns reading out of the Oscar Wao book I read on the plane. When it came to my turn I was struggling through some of the Spanish parts and phrases. A breath was not missed in correcting me in the proper way to say things and what they meant. I only know enough Spanish to embarrass myself and those near me so it was nice for them to hold my hand through some of the parts. Later on Junot Diaz, the guy who wrote the book, "The Brief and Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao" came up to the school to speak in the auditorium and the kids ate it up. We spoke briefly and he was cool. 

Posted 10.8.08 at 7am.

At Ula Cafe in JP. Doing some writing. We watched the debates last night and it was pretty lame to me. More and more when I see a debate it just makes me like each candidate less and less. Last night felt like listening to two car sales men trying to convince me to buy a car from them and not the other guy all while trying to be everyones buddy. The guy who lives next door to the place I'm staying at runs the Massachusetts leg of the  Obama campaign. This morning we spoke about it and he looked very tired. I went to my friend Rajs house last night and that was cool. It looks like he and I are going to start a music  project. We went over some music last night and hopefully we can get some tracks down before I jet back to the other side of this nation, indivisible. 

Posted 10.5.08 at 8pm.

Went to a record swap today that was good. I picked up a Gang Of Four bootleg LP from 1980, Ohio Players, a Scientist maxi single, and a Martha Reeves and the Vandellas 45 that I haven't seen before. All the good record stores here have large psych rock sections and I see that I know very little of it which is exciting to me. Been into a lot of Os Mutantes and Love lately. Other than that had some good food and got a little writing done. Tomorrow Reno Carolyn and I go to the arboritum and then Boston Joe and Nan have a tandem bicycle that is way out of commission and they don't really have the time or know how to fix it so I'm going to secretly get the thing going again and suprise them with it. 

Posted 10.4.08 at 3pm.

In Boston now. I love it here and the Jamaica Plain district is a special place to me. If Reno burned down I would probably move here. Today has found me hanging out bumming around the town with my dear friends Joe, Nan, Raj and Carolyn. Good food, decent coffee and epic conversation. Looking forward to getting some good writing done while here. I killed that Ocsar Wao book on the flight here and apparently I am schedualed to meet the author next weekend. that should be cool. I will try to read up about him because as of now I know nothing about him. While here Raj and I are going to make some music and see what happens. 

Posted 10.2.08 at 9am.

Reading a book right now that I think is everywhere called The  Brief wonderful Life of Oscar Wao. So Far it's pretty good. I fly out to Boston tomorrow will be talking about it with a friend of mines book club. Got some good writing done last night and working on some upcoming shows. This year it looks like I'm doing the Halloween show in Reno this year where local bands will cover non local bands and the line up sounds pretty good this year.
I got the new iTunes in my computer with the new genius feature that will give you recommendations on other bands that sound like the bands that you like. This is nice for people like me who live for new music to get switched onto like being thirsty all the time. I just thought it would be cool if they could add a variation to the genius feature that would add a twinge of sarcasm and one up manship to the recommendations. Like

  • "Oh, you have THAT in your library. wow. I used to listen to that too when I was a 14 year old girl." 
  •  "I can't believe you have ______(x)____ but don't have _____(y)______!  Don't you know that ____(x)____ is just doing things that ______(y)______ was doing in the 80's? Jeeez...
  •  "My name may be genius bus after looking into your library I wish I was deaf."
  • "Look, lets be honest: Your library just full of things pitchfork has been telling you to buy and Metallica. can you please have an opinion of your own?

I think that would make for a more realistic new music experience like a regular independent record store. At least make iTunes seem less like HAL and more like what all your friends are probably thinking. 

 

Posted 9.30.08 at 5pm.

At the coffee shop. There's this lady who comes in that is obviously not quite right in the head. She's cool but she talks to herself all the time. She isn't overly polite and you can hear her mumble and talk to herself but she's all right as far as things go. It's often that she will come in for eight hours and just drink coffee which she pays for. Her clothes are usually dirty and I'm guessing she gets money from the government because it looks like she has a hard time getting through life. The coffee shop exists in a large financial building in downtown Reno and the security just tried to kick her out. There she is staring out the window talking to herself and these two people in uniforms come up and do the "Hey it's time to move along." gig to her. I had my ass out of my seat to come to her defense but before I even left my table she came back at them and explained to them eloquently that she was a paying customer and would not be pushed around by them and that it was time for them to move along with more eloquence than ten Barak Obamas. It's inspiring to me to see someone who probably has a much harder situation than I do not allow herself to be pushed around.  

Posted 9.21.08 at 9am.

Da Capo played with Surrender last night and they were great. It was nice to have a two band show and we we're all looking forward to it. Today I build a trellis in the back of Slander House that's been going well. I learned to not get wood from the likes of Home Depot/Lowes etc. as all of their wood is warped. We play a free show at UNR on Monday with Shearing Pinx and Panic Opera and that should be a good time. Hopefully people will show up and act cool and show the powers that be at UNR that having a University run all ages space is a viable idea. I'm not betting on it but hey, show up and dream a little dream with me. 

Posted 9.12.08 at 11pm.

A lot has been up since my last entry. Just got back from tour and that went well. One week that involved all the ups and downs a real tour has. Picked up some good books and music. A collection of Ralph Ellisons short stoires and a copy of Moss Icon's Lybernum record for eight bucks. not bad. Been frantically painting to get ready for and art show I'm going to be part of. 

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