Monday, April 05, 2010

4.3 and 4.4.2010, ftw

the li'l stoogeband played at the grotto on saturday night for shiny princess linda's 27th birthday. it was supposed to be a going away party for roderick dove, as well, but rod decided against going back in the army. hooray! prophets of rage played first.

i got off work at 7:30p and needed to get some chow and physically/mentally/physically prepare myself for stooge action, so we missed out on the dfw punk doco at 1919 hemphill, but i understand they had a good turnout -- about 60 folks, although i'm not sure how many of them donated. bittersweet, as jamie shipman has decided to pull the plug on the "conscientious projector" film series at 1919 due to low turnouts. can totally understand (i still remember PFFFFT! -- futility can be demoralizing), and feel bad because i never made it to a showing. look forward to buying jamie a beer at a show sometime.

mike haskins and bob childress from the nervebreakers were at the movie, though, and mike and his bride miss patti came to the stoogeshow afterward. mike brought me a dvd of the film, which they were giving out at the showing, and later on, it was good to see t. tex, barry, and paul quigg being interviewed, the nb's and the telefones playing (the 'fones played my fave song of theirs and i was reminded that they were my future ex-wife's fave band back in the day -- those dirkx boyzzz sure were purty).

while i also dug seeing quincy holloway (also in the house for the stoogeshow) and carey blackwell in some lickity split footage that was included (need to re-read blackwell's memoir home fire now), it highlighted how the doc was kind of all over the map, more a fan's compendium of stuff than an actual narrative of events. from the '70s to the '90s, there are actually enough different stories for three or four different films. but, i'm glad the document exists.

the stoogeband was loud and loose (hear hembree's recording here). soundguy kept telling the guitars to turn down, but when i did to where he was happy, my tone evaporated, and so after awhile i turned back up, which just caused an imbalance with richard, who stayed at the agreed upon level -- my bad, and perhaps indicative that more power can make a guitar player act like...well, a guitar player. we broke the seal on blue cheer's "come and get it" and tried out a new, slower tempo for "johanna." hembree was hyped and started a few songs before i was ready, which was fine. i always feed off his energy onstage.

i unplugged myself a couple of times, busted the epi's D string on "tv eye," and inadvertently soaked the tele in beer trying to play slide with a bottle during the "chaos meltdown" portion of "30 seconds over tokyo." not elegant, but mr. haskins said nice things afterward, so mission accomplished. my sweetie 'n' i had a ball hanging outside with him and miss patti before we played; will have to do it again sometime. maybe in dallas. the latest run of stoogeshows continues 4.17 at the moon.

roused myself early on easter sunday morning for HIO field recording/athletics. after timely pause, mr. horn came to pick me up and we met hickey (whose new joe and the sonic dirt from madagascar manifestation a to e are ex, why, and z is a quantum leap forward from match of the day and richly deserves your attention; review to follow) at the modern art museum, where we planned to record inside the vortex. terry and i discussed whether it'd be better to record before or after our walk/jog; in the event, we decided to "run" first, to test the effect of endorphins on our performance, and not worry about the after-church crowd showing up at the museum if we recorded later -- a fortuitous choice, it turned out.

we took the trinity trails to downtown, up the hill on taylor street and around by heritage park, then back via belknap and summit to west 7th an through "the curmudgeon zone." i provided a running commentary of tornado memories, which hickey and terry insisted was fabricated. (i'm not that imaginative, fellas!) arriving back at the museum, we found that not only was the museum open, but there were lots of folks there. we elected to play anyway, using two cbg's (i quickly fucked up the tuning on the 6-string, which terry managed to repair), hickey's gopichand, and a battery of percussion instruments that included bottles, cans, a variety of beaters, and the handheld fans and body massager that i used at the kessler on 3.28. terry set up the video camera, and away we went.

during our performance, a few folks peered into the vortex (ha!) to see what was making all that noise. i don't know that i agree with terry's assessment that this was the largest crowd we've played to, but my field of view was limited by my position; maybe he's right. we were joined by three small children, who came running into the vortex while we were playing. i handed them instruments and soon they were joining in on our performance. i talked to their dad later and he said he'd seen us drinking at the bull & bush, and seen me at the market (humbling/mortifying moment of the week: coming offstage at the grotto and having a girl walk up and tell me, "you sold me my vitamins!"), so i guess we didn't seem like creepy strangers to him. haven't heard the results yet, but it felt like a successful session, with some moments of good communication and the "naive" approach that we go for.

trying to book some HIO dates with the austin/dfw aggro clear spot in june. we'll host them at 1919 here in ftw and at the phoenix project in dallas; hoping to secure dates at super happy fun land in houston and the church of the friendly ghost in austin. film, as they say, at 11.

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