Found in the back seat of a tricked-out Delorean!

Yes, the above photo was in fact discovered recently by an anonymous source when detailing the interior of an exotic, 1980's sports car with major modifications including, but not limited to, a flux-capacitor and, inexplicably, one of those dash-mounted, disgusting, plastic spitoons popular among the "snuff-dippin" crowd. (I am aware that this is a probably a run-on sentence!) For those of you who have been spared from being intimately familiar with my face I can attest that this guy looks VERY MUCH like what I would look like with a simulated age-progression of 15 plus years. I hope I mutate in a slightly more pleasing manner, but the truth hurts, right?
In reality the photo is of some golfer who played at the Colonial or something featured in The Dallas Morning Snooze, I mean News.

As this is a limited topic I thought I'd make a quick mention about last weekends very enjoyable trip to Dinosaur Valley Park in Glenrose, Tx. Kara and I were invited to accompany our friends Matt, and Sharon Bagley along with their baby-girl Arabella. We met at their house and went to breakfast at Barbec's on Garland road. Barbecs is a popular greasy spoon famous for their beer-biscuits. We hit the road and about 1.5 hours later we were feasting our eyes on a town put on the map by the fact that there are honest to goodness, extremelly well-preserved Dinosaur tracks, as well as hiking/biking, swimming, and camping areas. The first thing you see when you pull into the park is two big statues. One is a T-Rex, and the other the dinosaur formerly known as the Brontosaurus, and now known as something else. The baby instinctually pointed and babbled repeatedly. We of course hit the gift shop right away. Then we went to the area with most of the tracks which is a shallowish creek. This was my first clue that this day might involve a lot of crossing over slippery, precarious rocks while carrying strollers and other baby gear.

We made the crossing unscathed and headed out on the trails. This was great fun, even with the necessity of carrying the baby-jogger over the harder to navigate sections which were plentiful. Matt, and Arrabella seem to be fairly fearless and I was impressed. In addition to being in contention for cutest baby of all time Arrabella is also brave. She's going to have to be to keep up with her father. Hanging out with Matt is always an adventure, largely due to the fact that he is very active, a free-thinker, and a bit eccentric. Most of the best memories of my college days involve him. We've both come a long way, but I like to think that we've maintained many of the traits and values that were so important to us then.

After hiking for at least 2 or 3 hours we decided to leave and grab some food. We had planned to swim originally but we were all tired, and hungry. Besides that we did all get our feet wet when we removed our shoes to cross the riverish part. Bare feet in contact with rocks that have been rounded off over the years still hurt. Who knew we were so tender? We headed back to Dallas and had dinner at The Lakewood Dixie House. We plan to go back to the park for more, and this time we're going to stop at the CREATION EVIDENCE MUSEUM for some laughs. From what I understand this is the "brainchild" of Dr. Carl E. Baugh who claims to have a master's degree in archeology and a Ph.D. in education from the mythical Pacific College of Graduate Studies. Youv'e got to give it to a guy that would devote a whole museum to debunking evolution in a town littered with evidence to the contrary. I hear they've got some hilariously bad art there. I can't wait. Here's the link, which even I haven't looked at yet:

http://www.creationevidence.org/

The Knights of the New Crusade!

Reviews by !#*$!*@! default!

I haven't been able to buy new music to the degree that I would like to for quite a piece now so I will review two "newish" albums I have been listening to. The first being MY GOD IS ALIVE! SORRY ABOUT YOURS! from The Knights of the New Crusade, and the second being BLACK FOREST from The A-Frames. The Knights are up to something, and what that is, is a topic of debate. On the surface they are an "accidentally" comical, right-wing, ultra-Christian/Fundamentalist garage-ish rock and roll band. They dress as medieval knights in chainmail with helmets made out of what appears to be strategically cut metal buckets. It's a great look. (Get ready to hear elements of zillions of record reviews featuring things that there are no better words to describe...) The sound is stripped-down, no frills, rock AND roll. The players are obviously well schooled on the history of raw, garage rock and they should be. The word on the street is that they are in reality a supergroup of sorts( at least to the relatively small world of garage/punk fans). At least one member of the legendary MUMMIES and/or a former member of the PHANTOM SURFERS are involved. The Mummies pretty much defined early '90's garage rock and were among the most true to the form of a handful of groups doing it at the time such as THE GORIES.

Whether or not they are serious about the "message" they are spreading is obviously a joke in itself. The lyrical content of the album is almost entirely straight-forward, consistent with the Christian image, and seemingly serious other than one use of the word FUCK. The approach and ideology are however WAY over the top, which is a signifier of irony, or social commentary. On this level it seems like a big middle-finger to what is apparently the mentality of the majority of the United States, particularly the Bush supporters. There is the slight possibility that the Knights are employing a brilliant display of double-speak. That is to say that at heart they do have some kind of Christian values and they're pulling the wool over everyones' eyes. They've got the Christian kids listening to good old rock and roll (with punk undertones), and they've got the more open-minded garage rock fans listening to songs about God. They actually played at what is supposedly the most popular Christian teen club in the U.S., THE DOOR, which is here in the Deep Ellum Area of Dallas. Unfortunatley this was a few days before I caught wind, and though I am not a Christian or even particularly religious I wouldn't have missed it for all the SUV's in Dallas. (which I would sell and/or destroy) Either way this is one of the best albums of the year. They've really beat the odds, but by combining a controversial "gimmick", rehashed, and in some cases appropriated(stolen) classic "garage" classics, with a great sense of humour and love of good music these cats have created something new in a genre that is both underappreciated, and overdone at the same time.

http://crusadenow.com/

The A-Frames are rehashing some ideas too but not quite so much with the stealing. I just mean that they sometimes wear their excellent influences on their sleeves. These guys have been embraced by many garage/punk fans and I guess that's because of their minimal, mid-paced, and agressive approach, but I think they would be bigger with the indie/eighties people. It's like a droning, robotic, ominous kinda thing with vocals that sometimes recall early Joy Division. I'll admit that I bought this because I kept seeing their name mentioned amongst other bands that I enjoy, or might enjoy and I found a new copy on Amazon.om for a few bucks. If I had paid $12-16 or so for this I would have been slightly dissappointed as I like to own albums that are at least 90% (oh what word to choose...?) listenable. That's not to say that nearly every track on this disc isn't, but I'm attempting to make a point. The obvious standout song being EXPERIMENT, I wish they were all more in that direction. I'm all for variety in a band or even a album that genre-hops like mad but I tended to like the louder, more tense songs the most. There even were some good ones that had backup vocals by the girl-person in the group but I liked the less "indie" sounding material best. They're on Subpop records(who seem to have gone soft, but in an o.k. way) but played at the HORIZONTAL ACTION MAGAZINE BLACKOUT in Chicago, which is the like the punkest of the punk amongst modern garage-punker types. They're kind of between two worlds and thats a good place to make interesting music.

http://www.subpop.com/scripts/main/bands_page.php?id=442

Hasil Adkins performs, while who I think is writer/director/producer Caleb Emerson does his best "Alan Lomax" field-recording thing.

Underdogs and gutter-punks

The Fringe Media Film and Music Blah-blah was last night and it was perhaps the most well attended of the recent shows. This was due in no small part to the many "friends of the band" Sleezus Fist and the Latter-Day Taints brought in. Some of them were funny too! Like the drunk-rocker girl who tripped in the dark and tried to play it off by remaining on the grimy floor of the Redblood Club, and having what I'm sure was a very important conversation on her cellphone. This was done quite loudly I might add! The short film was forgettable and I didn't stick around to see the band, having gotten my fill via their website, but the feature film made it all worth it. DIE YOU ZOMBIE BASTARDS was great, not perfect but very entertaining. If it were perfect I wouldn't be wasting my time writing about it here for all you fine folks(!?!). Perfect films/music/art/books are pretty much covered by many other more capable writers. I love the underdog, and even the most brain-washed and undiscerning of you probably have or will at one time or another. It's that phenomenon that occurs when a creative person or group still has the rough edges, a fire in their belly, and hunger to do it for the right reasons. This doesn't mean they won't, or don't want to sell out it just means they're nowhere near it yet.

I think the guys that made it are out of Rhode Island, and they have had some stuff at Tromadance, and a big movie festival in Berlin. The story involves a loveable, eloquent, homicidal maniac in search of his wife who is kidnapped during an idyllic picnic of a decapitated head and champagne. The evil Dr. Nefarious has seen her own depraved, and cannibalistic acts via his remote viewing technology and must have her for his own. Conflict firmly in place, our "hero" scours the globe visiting different locals on a seemingly aimless quest for her. This does allow for the insertion of many colorful characters, the most entertaining and legendary of which is the recently deceased rockabilly, one-man-band Hasil Adkins who I kind of eulogized in a previous post. As a fan even I was suprised at just how genuinely eccentric, backwoods, and brilliant "The Haze" was, and I kick myself for missing him at last years Las Vegas Rockaround. The film is entertaining, absurd, and funny enough to satisfy those that are already familiar with what comes with watching a low-budget, independent, undergound movie like this one. If you're only used to watching Hollywood mind-rot then stear clear, OR try it out, maybe you'll be converted.
Almost forgot about the gutter-punks. Not much to say but as they are often around when Justin is involved I just think it's funny that they are oblivious to the fact that they and most of the other varieties of "hard-core" punkers have a stricly regimented uniform that smacks of mindless conformity. As I've often heard those that were around before punk broke big the first time (in late '76/early '77) say(approximately) "...the minute you saw mohawks and the standard leather jacket everywhere it was nothing but posers...", and that was a LONG time ago. Or as I used to say in high school, "Everyones trying so hard to be different that they're all the same". I know it's been said before, but what hasn't.

Watch the trailer, and look at the purty pictures:

http://www.dieyouzombiebastards.com/dyzblobby.html

X. They Rock!

X-The Unheard Music

If you've never heard the great, L.A. band X do yourself a favor and pick some up. It's a crime that they aren't more well known, thus the title of the excellent documentary about them. The Unheard Music is without a doubt one of the best rock and roll movies of all time. This is the kind of movie that I think could be appreciated even if you weren't crazy about the band. The band is comprised of Exene Cervenka on vocals, John Doe on vocals and bass, Billy Zoom on lead guitar, and D.J. Bonebrake on drums. If you've seen the film The Decline of Western Civilization then you already know that they left the other the L.A. punk bands at the time in the dust, musically at least. Maybe they couldn't match Black Flag, or The Germs for sheer sonic-attack, or attitude but they made up for it with VERY catchy, well-written and well-executed songs and originality. They also had more charisma than a hundred Erik Estradas on top of musical chops for days.
They took the idea of cowpunk to such a level that it evolved into a rare and listenable mix of punk, early rock and roll/rockabilly, and country with some kind of previously unknown, mutant harmony. Exene who handles most of the lead vocals is backed up by John Doe who knows just how to compliment her often atonal, beautifully droning voice. I know bow down to the blonde god of guitar, Billy Zoom. To say he makes it look easy is a great understatement as he looks straight ahead with a huge, childlike grin on his face never once looking down at the fretboard while he tears off blazing licks and solos like a punk-rock greaser with soul to spare. The whole thing is held together with the steady pounding of Mr. Doe's bass but the real secret weapon is drummer Bonebrake. He has found that perfect balance between keeping it simple and playing his technically superior little ass off. He says something in the film about trying to make up for the lack of other orchestral type instruments. He does manage to work some original beats into what would normally be by-the-numbers rock and roll drumming.
John and Exene met in a poetry workshop and that sentiment is a common thread throughout their music. Emotional without a hint of sappiness, serious without pretension, and "party" music without overt stupidity, X stands the test of time again, and again.

Hasil "The Haze" Adkins R.I.P. 

Bad month for Good Music.

It is with a great sadness that I report the death of one of rock and rolls largely unsung heroes, HASIL ADKINS. Hasil was making tapes in his bedroom throughout the 50's and 60's, eventually making some "proper" recordings. He was one of the prime originators of what has become an underground craze; the one-man band. The story goes that when he first heard Hank Williams on the radio as a teen he thought old Hank was playing all the instruments himself, and singing at the same time. This encouraged Hasil to figure out how to do it, and boy did he ever. He developed a raw, humorous, and often scary rockabilly style heavily influenced by Jerry Lee Lewis. Hasil gained a lot of exposure when the Cramps covered his song "She Said", which became a concert staple for the band. He had been enjoying a resurgence in popularity in the last decade, still living in his "hunchin' shack" in some West Virginia swamp. Apparently Mr. Adkins was on the porch of said shack petting his dogs when some deranged, teenage redneck in a monster truck pulled up and rammed him. This caused him to fly some distance which caused enough injury to land him in the hospital. From what I have been able to determine he passed away in his sleep after a few days. Supposedly this little scumbag went and rammed somebody else directly after this. He deserves some kind of nasty torture. No motive is known. This comes almost a month after Billy "Bass Wolf" of Japanese garage-rock band Guitar Wolf passed away in his mid-thirties and supposedly of natural causes. The world of primitive rock and roll/garage/punk/what-have-you has lost two of it's greatest contributors.

http://www.hasiladkins.com/

http://members.tripod.com/~Hasil_Adkins/

The bare necessities! 

Dallas-APATHY CITY!

This town never ceases to amaze me, and it's not generally in a pleasant manner. The Fringe Media movie/music thingamabob was last night and the turnout was even worse than the last one. O.K., it was on a Sunday night. O.K., it was raining a bit. O.K., it did feature a movie that has been shown in town a few times already. O.K., Nomeansno was playing the same night. O.K., it did feature a rather pointless, short opening film, and a relatively unknown(but pretty good) band. That doesn't explain or forgive the fact that LOTS of people said they were going to be there and didn't show. What's it going to take to get people to try something different?

This town has a reputation for having lame crowds/audiences and deservedly so. A lot of bands and other "creative" types skip Dallas for this very reason. Besides being one of the most conservative places in the country, Dallas is also one of the most superficial, status-obsessed bergs this side of L.A. If Austin weren't so crowded with young folks, and uber-hipsters I would have moved there years ago. I need a vacation, NOW! I need to remind myself that there is life out there. So as not to be a complete bummer, here's a cool link to a page about optical illusions:

http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/index.html

This album helped restore my faith in humanity. This other thing was never in my nose! 

Convenient Hitler moustaches and extreme generosity!

I had a great experience recently that was one of those that renews your faith in an increasingly dissapointing human race. As I was perusing garagepunk.com, as I am prone to do I saw a "thread", I guess you would call it, titled "Do you like the Rolling Stones?". As I do I decided to see what all the fuss was and I'm very glad I did. A gentleman known only as Soundog had started this "thread" with the goal of distributing, at no charge to those interested, a mystery prize that he described as "vintage-ish" relating to the Stones. His only request was a short statement (preferably of 75 words or less) elaborating on the subject. He gave examples such as "They turned me on to Bo Diddley.", and something about the coolest mellotron sound of all time amongst others. He got a variety of good responses with differing levels of effort put into them. After a half-dozen or so of these he declared all to be winners and requested that the particpants "PM", or "private message" him with their mailing address. I'll have to admit that as I am not used to such selfless generosity, especially from total strangers , I was at first wondering what, if any scams, or repercussions could result from this. I threw caution to the wind and in a couple of days I was graced with a 2-cd set of live, early(good) Rolling Stones. I was, how you say, stoked! I just want to express my gratitude for the kindness of Soundog, and also say that it was nothing short of inspirational. As an interesting side-note, the cds smelled like brown sugar, though the song of the same name was not on them.

In totally unrelated news I noticed that this weird, little attachment that we have at work that goes to the vacuum cleaner would make a great Hitler moustache in a pinch. I would have tried it out, but I'm trying to get away from putting filthy things in my nose.

The Culprit as a younger fool.

My own worst enemy!

I have been my own worst enemy at times in the past. This is no longer the case. This is not to say I don't sometimes engage in self-defeating behavior. With my last post I have engaged in something that I consider to be one of my pet peeves when others are involved: I've become a bit of what I refer to as a COAT-TAIL RIDER. You know these people. You may even BE one of these people. They are often the "hangers on" that are always on the scene with a band or some other group that is actually accomplishing or producing something. The defining characteristic of this type is the constant reference to this nebulous "We" when referring to the activities of said group. For example, "We're going down to Austin for a show with The Meaningless Molecules. They love us down there!". Now I don't believe I am as guilty as most in this case as I was 50% of the intial inception of this production company, for lack of a better word, . But I will admit that Justin Powers deserves most of the credit for putting on consistently fine events. I simply help out by providing artwork, promotional materials, support, and a fool to brainstorm with. If I ever let this happen again in relation to any other group or activity of which I am not truly a part of please shoot me!

"New Archetypes"(modified detail) -Scott Krakowski 1996

Fringe Media

Fringe media is by definition(at least the type I'm referring to):

Fringe- A marginal, peripheral, or secondary part: “They like to hang out on the geographical fringes, the seedy outposts” (James Atlas).
Those members of a group or political party holding extreme views: the lunatic fringe.

Media- A means of mass communication, such as newpapers, magazines, radio, or television.
media (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The group of journalists and others who constitute the communications industry and profession.
A surrounding environment in which something functions and thrives.
The substance in which a specific organism lives and thrives.
A culture medium.
A specific kind of artistic technique or means of expression as determined by the materials used or the creative methods involved: the medium of lithography.
The materials used in a specific artistic technique: oils as a medium.

So to cobble together my own definition I may say that Fringe media is the expression or communication of culture by those with extreme, sometimes seedy views. Back in 2000 my friend Justin and I started doing events under the name Fringe Media. It was generic, yet specific. By specific I mean that it referred to culture that is widely marginalized. It wasn't meant to say "Whoah, look at us! We're SOO out there!", it was merely stating a fact. It took many years of immersion in what I considered to be essential pop culture to realize that in general any type of expression that is pure, raw, full strength as opposed to watered down, quirky, passionate, wildly original, controversial, or just a bit left of center is forced to the fringes. I didn't ask for the kinds of art, and entertainment I and others of my ilk enjoy to be deemed "underground", "punk", "independent", or "avant-garde". It's there and will be there to an ever-increasing degree primarily because of the "dumbing down of America". If you don't believe that this is being done as part of some larger, sinister agenda then you haven't dug very deeply below the surface. For a concrete, black and white example for the disbelievers just compare an older,English-language dictionary to a more modern one. The definitions not only get shorter, and therefore more simplistic but they also seem to promote a type of "neo-conservatism". Here's an article that sums it up extremely well:

http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/thought_control.htm

The reason for my tangent is the new Film and music series we are doing at The RedBlood Club in Deep Ellum, here in Dallas. Every other Sunday evening from about 7 to 10:30 we will show one short film, a feature film, and have a band play afterwards. The films are often of unusually high quality and are always independently produced. Bands will vary in style but will most often be local folks. Last night we showed local films The Portal, and A four course meal, which were followed up by an acoustic performance of The Bobby Weaver band. Come out to support truly independent culture.

http://www.redbloodclub.net/

Sometimes originality is over-rated.

MVPA's!

This is about the Most Valuable Pathetic Assholes I've either encountered or heard about lately. They are "valuable" in that they tell us which direction NOT to go in. First off there's a clip that I think is on EBaums's World but since I hate that site here's a link that has it (scroll down to "self-involved much":

http://www.gordonkeith.com/wordpress/

It's a 911 phone call from a woman in line at some fast-food place trying to get the cops to do something about her order that has been made wrong 3 times. Now I agree, these guys screw up a lot of orders, BUT when does it start to make sense to you to involve the police. This soccer mom needs to dipped in the deep-fryer one limb at a time until she comes to. Now on to the warm up rant...

I found these two twerps through Gordon's site as well. I think I understand people that are into body modification, I jokingly call them Future Primitives after the name of an old skateboarding video. They feel an overwhelming desire to set themselves apart from the pack. The "underground music", dyed hair and wacky clothes weren't doing it. Tatoos sufficed for a bit, but then everybody got them, often with full sleeves/facial tattoos, etc. What do we do now?
I know, I'll have earlobes like my 90 year-old granny, get a nasty brand seared into my flesh and if I'm really desperate some kind of implants like little beads or horns under my skin. I've seen even more extreme projections of this way of thinking but this one seems the most ridiculous to me. These fuckers cut off their ring fingers rather than get wedding rings:

http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20050401.html

Call me conservative. Call me "old-fashioned", boring, closed-minded or what you will but all I can muster is a big "WHO CARES?!!". I'll bet these "fringe-dwellers" are still religious about watching Desperate Housewives or some such drivel. Read the article if you want the particulars. This BMEzine seems to be a haven for the body-mod. folks. Let me reiterate, NOBODY CARES!

My new enemies, the cheerleaders of THE DALLAS MARATHON, and I met last Sunday morning after they woke me at 7 a.m. from a wonderful rest. To make what I would love to make a long story, short, I went down to see what all the fuss was, after hearing various "Woo!"'s, "Woo-Hoo!"'s and "You can do it!"'s for about an hour with a pillow over my head and my girlfriend starting to get irritated as well. I went up to the loudest and most distinctly voiced twentyish, sorority type and said "Where do YOU live? I live right back there and I've been listening to you scream for about an hour now, etc. etc." I gave her the "my only day to sleep in" thing, and asked her if this was for charity (which would have made me a smidgen more sympathetic). She said it was just a race and gave me a sheepish, "sorry..". I then went up to one of the cops blocking traffic for three blocks and asked him if their permit included all-the-noise-they-could-make as well. He said "They have a permit, that's all I know." And to cap it all off as I slithered back into my hole looking like I just crawled out of one, I actually wondered whether I was an asshole for doing this. Well, the answer is an emphatic NO! Pandering to neurotic joggers, and middle-aged goobers (Though I might fit that description) that have to prove that they can "Do It!" is not justification for using tax-payer money to have cops re-direct traffic. Not to mention the gall and poor planning of the "organizers" of the event who decided to have their noisy, watergirls right in the middle of a residential block rather than in many of the less populated areas nearby. Thankfully my girlfriend, Kara has bigger balls than everyone else in this neighborhood. When we left a few hours later and they were still at it she yelled, "GIVE IT A REST, YOU FUCKING CATTLE!!", which was heard for miles around. And another thing, "You kids stay the hell outta my yard!!"...

This is my happening and it FREAKS me out!!