records are dead.
record stores are dead.
everyone’s been falling all over
themselves for years to talk about this.
‘the future is downloading’, ‘people don’t have the attention span’
‘no one cares’… and blah. blah. blah.
we ARE moving to a new frontier, sure…
but apparently no one told my wallet.
making up for lost time in australia,
i went extra ape shit at ameoba on tuesday…
here’s a list.
some are new, some are old…
all are very much mine now.
erin mckeown- hundreds of lions
nellie mckay- normal as blueberry pie (a tribute to doris day!)
gossip- music for men
morrissey- swords (bought for B, truth told… but always worth having)
arctic monkeys- humbug
fun- aim and ignite
INXS- X
tegan and sara- sainthood
crowded house- crowded house
talking heads- naked
erykah badu- baduizm (which i once owned, then sold back. this happens a lot)
roxy music- avalon (which i only have on cassette… oh, for shame)
noah and the whole- first day of spring
REM- live at olympia/dublin.
train- save me, san francisco
drivin n’ cryin- fly me courageous (another hold over from cassette)
7 worlds collide- the sun came out
sly and the family stone- there’s a riot going on’
(on vinyl, btw. like it was intended)
this is a new concept for me.
i have to keep reminding myself that i’m not leaving.
it feels very indulgent.
i think i’m gonna start wearing satin pajamas all day.
and smoking a pipe.
then i’m gonna let my beard grow….
and pay people to come to my house to shave me.
oh the glory!
i’m drunk on the sweet nectar of freedom’s kiss!
my only focus now is the new songs. and the new record.
mark flies up on monday for the week to write.
then, the plan is a first round of recording in december…
but plans change. so we’ll see.
plus, it isn’t super easy scheduling shit between spa treatments.
these shoulders ain’t gonna massage themselves, godammit!
in hollywood, the bad guys always get their comeuppance.
rocky kicks the shit out of mr. T.
james bond drops that guy into the smoke stack.
james spader’s left alone to wallow in his own douche-y-ness…
while molly ringwald and blaine get to go make out in the parking lot.
oh man… and that scene in ‘dead poets society’, when the kids all
stand on their desks and clap, one by one… that kills me.
i count on those moments in real life.
that kind of karmic payback.
i waste years waiting for it….
and you know what…. it never shows up.
the whole cafeteria never abandons the bully’s table,
one by one, to join mine.
instead life just fucking rolls on. YEARS roll on…
and the only one left holding the past is me.
the dalai lama’s big thing is…. “fact is fact.”
as in… “what has happened is over. stop worrying about it,
and figure out how you are gonna move forward from here”
i have been doing that well lately. took 36 years, but it’s happening.
i narrow my focus to the crucial things and the world just cracks open.
it feels like plugging into a wall socket with the right voltage.
the petty shit is petty shit.
and i just glide…
right now though, not so much.
right now, my side of the world is asleep.
and i’m wide awake.
listening to an old creeper lagoon EP
and letting my brain kick me around.
i switched to a hippy deodorant about a week ago.
not AS hippy as rubbing those crystals on your pits…
but pretty hippy.
it has no fragrance, no mercury… or whatever the shit
is that the big bad deodorant companies put in their stuff.
anyway..
it does NOT work.
and by ‘not’ i mean, like, at all…
i think it is actually doing the opposite of it’s job.
it’s activating funk.
it makes me smell like the floor of the forest.
i think aaron described it best:
“with the hippy deodorant, you put it on in the morning
and by 10 or 11am, you smell like a sandwich.”
yep.
a sandwich.
wow.
deodorant doing it’s job is one of the few things in life i count on.
it’s right up there with automatic toll booths working.
now that absolute is being challenged….
and while i’m in a foreign country, no less.
oh the humanity.
i just reapplied. thick.
i’m hoping it holds.
i don’t want to offend any folks tonight at the australian radio awards.
that would be a total bummer.
maybe it’s my pheromones?
maybe i’m too much man?
yeah, i’m gonna go with that angle…
i’m too much man, and the hippies do not have enough
chakra and firepower in their patchoulli arsenal to squelch me.
they cannot handle my man-ness.
yeah, that feels right.
my hotel here is modern.
well, modern-ish.
the toilet doesn’t flush, so much as it floods.
you know the kind i am talking about…
small button for pee, big button for deuce.
very progressive.
unfortunately, one of the many perks of coming half way
around the world was to watch the toilet flush backwards.
progressive toilet has robbed me of this thrill.
or, it has delayed it.
i’m working on overcoming the disappointment.
it is beautiful here.
in a rainy, fall-like-in-spring kinda way.
which is weirdly fitting as i am missing fall in the states.
i am listening to the national.
which also seems to fit.
aaron and i walked the streets around our hotel.
surry hill. very hip.
piles and piles of devastatingly beautiful people.
we drank tea, and watched them stream by.
we had big plans. botanical garden plans.
if the weather clears, we still might go.
very un-rock and roll, i know.
to make up for it though, tomorrow the plan is to do
a ton of drugs and just punch old people in the face…
so fuck off!
oh… and here’s a travel tip for those of you thinking
about flying to australia the day before your birthday.
DON’T DO IT!
cause you lose that day.
so your birthday just vanishes into the time/space
vortex between your world and australia world.
harsh, i know.. but this shit is for real.
i bet stephen hawking has a book about it.
Fall is in full swing, and I’m sure this finds you enjoying
the change of season, as well as pulling together your
Hannah Montana costumes for Halloween…
I am finally finishing up 2 1/2 years of promotion and touring behind ‘Some Mad Hope’.
Spent the summer crisscrossing the US with my friends O.A.R., Indigo Girls and Sugarland…
As well as headlining my biggest shows yet in Canada.
Lots of great shows, great people…and, oh yeah…
I got to play a benefit for, and be blessed by, The Dalai Lama in Memphis last week!!!
It was a pretty mind blowing way to spend a Wednesday.
Very surreal!
I will post more photos and a write more about it on the website/myspace/facebook soon…
I am a very fortunate human..
And speaking of fortunate, I’ll be heading “down under” for most of this month
to promote “Some Mad Hope” in Australia…I have never been and am super psyched!!
The dates are below…
If you happen to be around Sydney, Perth or Melbourne, come on out.
If not, spread the word to all your Aussie peeps! We are gonna get crazy in the land
of reverse flushing toilets!
just got back home last night
after a triple of shows in the midwest.
1 in peoria, IL
2 in oh to the hi to the oh.
chrissie hynde, from the pretenders, has vegetarian restaurant
in akron. it was pretty rad.
aaron, a man who is not one with eating the animals, was over the tofu moon…
he had crispy gnocchi. and vichyssoise.
paul, a devout carnivore, rocked the non-burger.
and fries. (which were fucking awesome)
here he is making the-this is what soy does to me before i destroy the toilet-face.
and i had a faux cheese caprese salad.
with some sweet/spicy broccoli
and some asparagus.
oh hells yes stinky pee!
there were pictures of famous vegetarians lining the walls.
my fav was paul mccartney bottle feeding a goat…
go macca!
and who knew alec baldwin was a veggie?
i guess when he called his daughter a pig that time, that was a term
of endearment… cause he respects her enough to not eat her.
R.E.L.I.E.F.
the place looked very dwell magazine.
exposed air-ducts. steel table tops…
sexy stuff.
and ice in the urinals.
which must be so old school that it’s modern again.
i like peeing on ice.
it feels primal, like…
.. i was about to say, ‘like hunting your own dinner’
but that would go against the PETA spirit of this….
so i’ll just say primal… like fire.
unfortunately, no sign of chrissie.
she is probably on tour.
i was singing ‘my city is gone’ the whole time we were there.
aaron was hoping she would be waiting tables when we walked in.
like she did in the ‘brass in pocket’ video.
no go.
but i did pick up the menu, and point to it and sing ’special’ to the waiter.
and he sang it back.
on the bus.
post show. post shower.
watching the elvis ‘68 comeback special.
‘a glorious mess’… to quote aaron.
he said they shot something like 19 hours of footage.
elvis is an engine.
sweating and karate kicking his way through every song.
i mean, the production value of this is awful….
‘lawrence welk’ meets ‘hair’ meets adam west ‘batman.’
cheesy camera moves, skits, belly dancers, jean tuxedos, ascots,
full on dance numbers…
and the whole time, elvis just digs in and delivers.
smiling, laughing and throwing black leather shapes.
literally every woman in the audience is ready
to devour his sweaty, greasy ass.
they look possessed.
and he just owns all of it.
our friend jessie is riding with us for a few days,
and i have never seen her so transfixed.
she’s just sitting on the couch, quiet and grinning,
eyes pinned to the t.v.
it’s wild.
41 years later, elvis still makes the ladies go all melty melts.
tonight was the second show of o.a.r. tour.
it was great.
nice to be back out with them again after about 5 years.
such good guys.
and it’s real fun to play amphitheaters with the band.
big stages… nice outdoor, summertime sheds.
this is gonna be a good few weeks….
but back to the elvis special…
this must have been a total revolution.
watching this when it was first broadcast in 1968.
people must have FLIPPED THEIR SHIT!
after 30-something mostly unwatchable movies,
and having been out of the performing loop for 7 years…
elvis shows up on everyones TV and decimates.
approachable. and untouchable.
trends are cyclical. we know this.
we have a new britney to replace the old britney
a new n’sync to replace the old n’sync.
bands are constantly being celebrated for ripping
off joy division, springsteen, u2…
and people who sing karaoke on TV, and are lauded as
the next great hope.
but we haven’t seen another frank sinatra.
and we will never see another michael jackson.
and no one, in 4 decades, has ever been able to come within
spitting distance of the king. no one.
elvis is effortless.
no pretension.
i mean, he hams it up for sure….
but he performs and sings with such ease. and confidence.
it’s just an extension of who he is.
pure.
like breathing.
being home for more than three days at a time
takes some getting used to.
like space shuttle re-entry.
yesterday was a fix-it visit to the apple store.
today is a dentist appointment.
tomorrow=haircut.
one event a day is about my limit.
over the last 2 weeks, in between our shows,
mark has come up from LA to work on new songs.
and along with an unhealthy amount of disney
channel watching.. don’t ask.. we got some really
great shit done. no lyrics yet, but we have about
7 or 8 songs dialed in….
the lyrics are always the last ones to the party.
and until they come, i’m just chipping away.
accumulating bits and pieces. stealing.
oh, i did write what i think are the final lyrics for
the middle 8 of one of the new songs…
it’s currently my favorite lyric ever, but i’m sure that
will change…
the song has the working title, ‘alison krauss/robert plant’
the lyrics are:
‘it’s warm enough to trick the birds into singing,
it’s warm enough to give ‘em hope.
but we both know, it’s dead winter
and that season’s change… but we don’t’
can you dig on that sad shit?!
oh yes!
alright, that’s it for me..
i’m off to have my teeth scrubbed to a radiant
ivory… if you happen to be in downtown SF
this afternoon, look for the beacon that is my mouth.
the second sun. like they have on superman’s planet.
man, there have been some awesome
responses to my ‘goth’ blog…
thank you all!
but, it is clarification time…
i didn’t JUST discover depeche mode
i have been listening to them for 20 years.
i was just stating that i didn’t listen to them
as a kid…i wrote the blog in a moment of
appreciating their greatness. not discovering it.
cause as much as i would like it to be different,
it was definitely more than 20 years ago when
i could safely be considered a kid…
cool…
i just had to defend my music nerd credibility
there for a second.
