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addendum to ‘gettin’ my goth on’.

June 4th, 2009

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.

gettin’ my goth on.

June 4th, 2009

i’m having a depeche mode morning.
it started late last night…
so technically, i’m having a depeche mode half day.

right now, i have all their CD reissues spread out in the kitchen.
i’m eating breakfast, listening to ‘black celebration’
and wondering how i let myself miss this music
the first time around…
i think i just had a narrow view of greatness at the time.
plus, if your thing is van halen and def leppard…
depeche mode just do not rock enough.
neither do the smiths.
or echo & the bunnymen.
or the cocteau twins…
and since i didn’t really understand the importance of
melody in songs until about a year and a half ago…
this kind of music held very little for me as a kid.

martin gore’s melodies are bananas.
they are all rhythm. like keyboard parts.
it is all about where the notes are placed.
how much they hang behind or ahead of the beat.
“blasphemous rumors”. “enjoy the silence”… fuck!
it is blowing my mind right now…
the production on their early records still isn’t my thing
for me, it was only after ‘violator’ that they started to get
some swagger and sexiness into the music..
but seriously, the record is called “violator!”
how rad is that?!
and the artwork kills. beautiful.
and the structure of the songs…perfect.
total craft

i like martin gore’s voice best.
and how it mixes with dave gahan’s.
the harmonies on ‘here is the house’ are crushing.
if i had had even the slightest connection to my own
emotions as a kid, this music would have been sewn
into me. into my fabric.

records are experiences.
things to submerge into.
cause then… they save you.
like connecting to the right person,
just when you are needing them most.

poetry

May 10th, 2009

fried.
dough.
is.
the.
greatest.
thing.
ever.
made.
by.
humans.

that’s my haiku.
a bit of liberty with the form, sure…
but i’m a maverick.
look out william carlos williams.

went to cafe du monde last night.
new orleans really knows their way
around the powdered sugar and
the deeply fried dough… yes they do.

we have to install a fry-o-lator on the bus….
i need it. i can’t go back.
a fry-o-lator… and a treadmill.
they should just sell them as a team.

we are in austin now.
a nice day of tiny bike riding, record
shopping, and whole foods-ing (new verb).
next stop rock.

ice cube’s got nothing on me.

May 1st, 2009

day off. franklin, tennessee.
spent 4 hours walking between
barnes and noble & whole foods.
rock and roll debauchery at it’s finest, my friends.
lock up your kids.

made a stop off at marble slab creamery
and got in good with some cinnamon
vanilla ice cream with heath bar.
which ruled.
whoever came up with the idea of iced cream
should have their own holiday.. cause that shit
is way more fun than passover. or 4th of july.
plus, those kids working there have got to be
building up to some serious forearm burnout…
and could probably use a day off.

hung out with friends tonight…
blu and aben.
blu is a singer/songwriter here in nash-vegas
aben used to play guitar for me, but he graduated
up a few flights to kelly clarkson.
SINCE HE’S BEEN GONE, we have had aaron
playing guitar… (hahaha, i kill myself!)
seriously though, it was a nice hang.
it is always great to see dear friends on tour.
not to be confused with deer friends… friends who
are actually deer… like in that fall out boy video…

and tennessee is beautiful right now.
it’s 1am, and i just came in from watching a lightning
storm… just sat in a field by myself behind the bus,
and watched the sky have a freak out.
it was amazing.
buffy time now. then sleep.

a good day.

waiting.

April 27th, 2009

how does paul simon get away with singing
words like ‘tucson, arizona’, and ‘bodyguard’,
and lines like ‘fat charlie the arc angel sloped
into the room…’??
it’s not fair.

these amazing, jagged, words.
like the everlasting gob stopper from willy wonka
different parts, colors and shapes, jutting out.
and he makes it work.
and as the listener, we take it in. without question.
without getting stabbed in the cheek, or breaking a tooth.

“a man walks down the street.
it’s a street in a strange world.
maybe it’s the third world,
maybe it’s his first time around
he doesn’t speak the language,
he holds no currency,
he is a foreign man,
he is surrounded by the sound,
the sound
of cattle in the market place,
scatterlings and orphanages
he looks around, around,
he sees angels in the architecture
spinning in infinity,
he says Amen!, and Hallelujah!”

are you fucking kidding me?! that’s the verse?!
orphanages? cattle? architecture?
ugh.

my new songs are slow to finish. strong start, then… phfff.
it’s the lyrics, mostly.
but melodies too.
every time i move towards them, they scatter…like deer.
toxic deer crossbred with fucking wolverines.
so you sit there, give space, and if you’re lucky they show up.
then when they do come, if you’re not careful, they maul you.
and so i wait. and try not to try.
try to not let their space get encroached on.
try and stay open.

i went to the rock and roll hall of fame twice last week.
i think that is for another entry, actually…
but my point here is, i went and i was blown open. again.
completely kicked in and re-ignited by the power of music.
of songs. of performances.
then i sit, with my guitar. my notebook, lit on fire,
trying SO HARD to get what i love so much to come through me.
trying to drag theses songs out.
and end up with nothing worth nothing.

i know, i know…  it’s not about trying.
i know it’s actually the opposite.
but that’s hard to remember when you’re burning.

big man/little bike.

April 11th, 2009

i bought a folding, travel bike last night in denver.
very eco-warrior of me, i know.
lugging my mountain bike out every tour sucks
and it costs too much to ship it back and forth from home.
so i bit the bullet and went to REI before the show.
the bike is wild. it has tiny tires, and hinges.
and it collapses to the size of a suitcase.
preferably not with me on it… but that remains to be seen.
i definitely have fears of eating one to many
Ho-Hos and having that shit clamp down on me, mid-ride.
i’m thinking i’ll take it gingerly until we become friends.

and it is not the coolest looking thing in the world,
but we on the cutting edge of hip… we are not vain.
we are revolutionaries. and revolution, my friends, ain’t pretty.

tiny, folding bikes unite…tonight we ride!

ny times.

March 7th, 2009

i have been writing lyrics for these new songs.
and pulling together things I’ve written.
i found this on my memo pad, on my phone.
and wanted to share.
maybe i’ll make it the album title…
take that, fiona apple!

“i was doing well. taking taxis. and
airplanes. music didn’t hurt anymore.
i remembered my first dream in years.
and then you snuck back in, quietly.
in between the words. through the pages
of the NY times.”

oh johnette.

February 27th, 2009

the band comes out to san francisco next week
to start work on the next record.
mark and marshall are coming up too.
the whole gang.
i can’t wait.
i am in love with some of the new songs…
but that’s how it should be, i guess.

i wish i had written ‘the scientist’.
i’m not the hugest coldplay fan, but that song crushes.
johnette napolitano, ex-concrete blonde,
does a version that just turns my insides out.
it decimates.
i listened to it on repeat last night while i fell asleep.
spooky dreams.

she has my most favorite of female voices.
her and pj harvey.
and ann wilson, from heart.

if i understood technology, i would post the song for you
… but i don’t.
so hop on over to itunes and give johnette your $.99
it’s worth it.
or check out ‘tomorrow wendy’ from the concrete blonde
record ‘bloodletting’. the third and fourth verses feel like
getting kicked by a horse…. if getting kicked by a horse
meant feeling glorious and majestic and hollowed out
and alive.
same with ‘joey’.
or ‘god is a bullet’

music is everything.
not this industry. not the artists. not the hype.
the music. the song. the performance. the voice!!
we are all so lucky.

what chew talkin’ bout?!!

February 26th, 2009

i am sitting in the denver airport.
i have had ‘goodbye earl’ by the dixie chicks stuck in my head all morning.
i just ate mexican food.
the kid sitting directly across from me is chewing his salad
with his mouth open.
i say kid, but he is my age.
his chewing is only part of the problem.
he also has an enormous face.
oh man, i am such a dick..
he is chewing like someone would chew big pieces of metal
if they were trying not to cut the inside of their mouth.
it is hard to watch, but i am drawn in
like a tractor beam.
there are birds flying in the terminal.
i half expect one of them to swoop down onto his lip
and start feeding from his open mouth.
yep. i know. gross.
he is with a beautiful red haired girl.
i imagine she is an actress. in plays.
who lives in brooklyn.
and she is drawn to men who eat like her dad…or something.
that’s the only way i can explain it.
he is also wearing one of those caps that someone named
‘pip’ would wear. or some kid in ‘newsies’.
i think i am grumpy.
this feels like a twitter post.
yuck.

dave.

February 11th, 2009

i’ve done it tons of times before…
catch a cab from my friend’s apartment on the upper west side.
i’ve been staying with him for 10+ years.
it’s my home base in NYC…
but never, ever, ever, in my life of getting taxi’s have i EVER dreamed
that i would say to the driver.. ’i need to go to the david letterman building.’
crazy!

by the time i post this, i’ll have already played.
hopefully we won’t suck.
hopefully we’ll look cool.
it airs friday.
he films two shows on monday, so he has a 4 day week.
the guest tonight is martha stewart…
but the guest could be the kid that kicked the shit out of me
on the playground in grade school, i could care less….
I AM PLAYING DAVID LETTERMAN!

we rehearsed and did camera blocking already.
the studio is just as cold as i have always heard.
and the building is tiny. and cramped.
but i would play on top of a glacier, in my underpants,
wedged into a happy meal box for dave.
letterman is my jam!
growing up, i was too young for carson…
conan wasn’t around yet.
so dave was everything. he had soul.
and, to me, he only gets more soulful.
like a blues singer.

a year ago, we left tour in athens’ georgia to play conan.
my head was SPINNING.
now i’m on letterman.
i feel calmer now, but even further out of my head… if that makes any sense.
im gonna shake his hand. and smile. and try not to puke.
this record is inexhaustible.
it keeps giving me things i can cross off my dream list.
i am beyond tired and burned out lately.
promo has been constant and kicking my ass.
but right now, none of that matters…
cause i am in new york city and
I AM PLAYING DAVID LETTERMAN!