thanks to a last minute change in flights, im here in austin much earlier than expected and greeted with windy 30-degree weather. instead of escaping the lousy weather of the east coast, it followed me here.

i was spending the night at my friends house and after settling in, i hightailed it directly to parts & labour, this incredibly awesome store on south congress that sells only locally made clothing and other goodies. you may have seen me wear the “mudflap” tee courtesy of all dressed up and shy before. its pretty much my favorite thing, like, ever.

like any good tourist, also ogled the cowboy boots at allen’s but seriously how can you not? their boots are divine examples of leatherwork – much finer than anything kara saun could muster. if i had 600$ to blow i would have picked up the ones that looked like a gram parsons suit.

the key to tuesday night was to remain laid back, as the next week would be all heat whirlwind and flash. so i stayed in and watched camp with my friends wife and snuggled with their pets. i am not exactly a film buff, but camp was definately one of the worst things i’ve ever watched. at least there were plenty of things to laugh at in the film.

afterwards, the friend i was staying with and i went to the parish to check out drums & tuba for a bit. they were quite good and had lots of jam band / reformed raver types in the audience. we had other plans to hit up a show at the co-op but with the chilly weather, we wussed out and headed home. best to save our energy for insanity to follow!

» as of this weekend, im in love with ashlee’s show and power girls, which features lizzie grubman, PR uber-maven and the person most likely to run you over in a fit of rage. the ashlee thing, im having difficulty in explaining but power girls, what attracts me is the same thing that attracted me to project runway. its people doing stuff, a lot of the time, unglamorous. like, excel spreadsheets filled with guest list stuff, or threading needles. if they’re looking for the unboring boring, plain parade should have its own reality show. it will be shot upon shot of us sitting our respective homes writing email, with the occasional shot of us listening to material and working our shows.

» why friends suck, part one: when they give you a link to some incredibly mind-blowing mp3 and then go, “you cant share this with anyone”. dude, then why are you sending me this? let me just say this: fireball, a group of women in nyc, have formed an unholy union between the load records catalog and amon duul II and when this stuff is finally released, it will change your world.

» the new metropolitan album is excellent. i’ve got the nitelights ep & a couple others to listen to in the coming week.

» the final issue of the philadelphia independent out and matt schwartz talks about why its going away.

» mandy moore throwing the bible at jena osman in saved! just may be my favorite cinematic moment of 2004.

spring break couldnt arrive any sooner, as i’ve had it up to here with this town. one more moment and i’ll don boxing gloves to administer random beatdowns on the city’s denizens, a la the gangs around “the nickel” [5th & washington ave].

why is it that the moment anyone enters tritone they suddenly morph into an audiophile and feel the need to make comments about the club’s PA? [this is especially hilarious coming from people who can barely operate most electronic devices]

can’t people just enjoy themselves for one night or do they always have to find a way to rain on someone’s [plain] parade? [how i love to make that horrible pun.]

let me break it down to you / drop some science / whatevs: i am not a sound engineer by any stretch of the imagination but i have a good grasp on how to operate a PA system and general acoustics. [my biggest hurdle? dealing with cords.] tritone is small with lots of hard surfaces – sound bounces around so much there’s no need to blast the amps. we always ask for bands to turn their guitars down 3 notches to compensate. so if the band decides to ignore the requests and turn up their amps, they’re taking a risk in making themselves sound bad. we need to kick up the vocals higher, which makes everything louder and that puts stress on the system. at least in this case, its important to work within the given parameters. you wouldnt overload the board at an electric factory concert, why do it in a smaller space? if anyone actually paid attention to what was happening at last night’s dragon city / perfectionists record release show, they’d notice the only thing actually going through the system are vocals.

[for posterity’s sake, let it be noted that the perfectionists requested to have their microphone run through a guitar amp, distortion was intentional.]

not that i believe in 100% happy fun time good vibes [this here entry being a good example] but the incessant douchebaggery tires me – there’s useful criticism and then there’s useless commentary. this doesnt stop me from wanting to hear it. as it often goes in philadelphia, the more complaints, the more fun something actually was. mike guggino of this radiant boy sums it up nicely, “if everybody hates it / then it must be cool”.

the complaints often fuel me to do better, being fully aware that you can’t please everyone all of the time [only some of the people, some of the time – thanks abe!]. but you can try.

i am very proud of last night’s show, just slightly irritated by commentary at the moment. all the bands worked so hard to make this happen and it turned out surpassing our collective expectations. dragon city and the perfectionists, for whom the show was for [it was their record release party], made enough money from the door so that the cost of pressing their record is covered! when something so incredibly positive like that has happened, how could you possibly want to say anything bad?

thanks to ned for posting this.

» nice to see that people do pay attention to plain parade’s emails. we mentioned this. [p.s. there’s a more comprehensive list here.] they make it sound as if every philly band is hitting the road! its hard enough making the bands understand that they should play 1-2 local shows per month. how i wish they were taking those other weekends to tour!

» i attended the teenbeat 20th anniversary shows in DC a couple weekends ago, to catch unrest’s reunion. photos here and here. i would have taken more but the front row was filled with photographers, nor did i want to spend this special moment snapping away. allow me to join the greek chorus to say they were amazing. i hate jumping the gun like this, but i’m pretty certain i wont see a better show.

» i sprained my ankle nearly two weekends ago, dancing at silk city. to the beatles, natch! where the hell was i? a middle school dance? id like to believe that the power of rock and roll will heal me.

» this past saturday i went to space 1026 for a show. belegost was my friend josh’s new band. they did the quiet / loud / quiet / godspeed! thing, not that i minded. true if destroyed were up next. most people that know me well, know i think they’re probably one of the best bands in philadelphia. angular guitar rock that owes as much to 90’s harDCore as it does to mission of burma, with boy/girl vocals. their set was a little shaky but still light years better than most bands. amateur party played after them. i havent had the opportunity to catch the band before this because of some personal conflict [too busy, too broke, etc] and i’m glad i could finally catch them. political punk rock that sounded a bit like superchunk’s early, thorniest moments. if i hadnt sprained my ankle the weekend before, i would have pogoed. the last band was partyline, which featured allison wolfe of bratmobile. completely fun, high kick, riot grrrl-style rock that made me feel like a giddy teenage riot grrrl all over again. allison mentioned that her mom’s health clinic in olympia was burned down after 20 years of weathering the storms of anti-abortionists and assorted right-wingers, as a reminder that even when we think we’ve gotten really far, there’s still so much more work to do. rounding out the night where philadelphia’s radical cheerleaders. little shows like these make me so happy.

» after that a few friends and i went to moriarty’s to sing karaoke in front of lawyers, med students and various suburban drones. i think the last time i set foot in this establishment was 1997, when i went out drinking with friends and knew they served minors. if it werent for dj joe h and his awesome book, i wouldnt ever return. my rendition of annie’s “chewing gum” garnered no applause, which is not surprising.

» file under “typical indie rock douchebaggery”: hating on Y100’s format change. im just as thrilled as the next person that there’s one less station playing yarling, bloated alterna-rock that enforces homophobia and misogyny. jeez, are any of you actually paying attention? there’s one more station playing songs about jesus! kidding aside, yeah, sure, laugh at the goateed masses now but who’s going to be there to sop up the tears when “musically acceptable” places like WPRB or WKDU start shutting down? say what you will, at least alternarockers believe in some sort of community, even if it is a cliched one, but its certainly better than the bitterness and persistent hating that indie rockers perpetuate. [and… as much as the indie hipsters hate to admit it, they need meathead culture. it gives their us-against-them mentality a secure footing. where would they be otherwise?]

just a quick post about this site — i’ve moved over to wordpress because its not sucky like moveable type. plus, an MT upgrade for the entirety of hj.org would cost me 70$ big ones. since i dont make any money from this, there’s no point in paying for an upgrade.

furthermore, MT is lousy in terms of spam management, whereas WP is not. at least, not yet. thats one of the reasons i moved the directory of this blog. hopefully it will deter those folks. from now on, you’ll need to register to make comments. registering requires an email address and url [fake it if you dont got it]. trackbacks still work.

and speaking of commenting, go for it. i really would like to hear what you have to say, especially on the mp3 entries!

update: i tried using %category% as part of my permalink structure, and found that in the admin.manage section, my posts werent listed. so i switched to the following structure and all is kosher:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%post_id%

seems to be some sort of WP bug!

Red Skate Red “Monkey”

Words cannot express how much I adore this song and how much I love the people who created it. RSR features Axi Nue, a friend that passed away at the end of January. It’s also hard to talk about this without feeling as if I’m taking advantage of your sympathy. But this song is great and for it to go unheard would be a horrible thing. Imagine Erase Errata’s rhythmic attack being slowed down to molasses and finessed with some keys. Axi’s upward looking lyrics keep the song from becoming overly dark and brooding. I couldnt picture a finer song to capture a band at the height of their career, a band and a life cut unfairly short.

even though ive infrequently posted to here in the last 2 months, im planning on switching to a new CMS system within the next week or so and changing the url of this blog ever so slightly.

ill keep you posted.

holy shit is this new mary timony album good. for all of us who longed for her to return to the days of pirates and prudes, we’ve got it.

i am so happy right now.