When you were a kid, did you ever go see a movie that you enjoyed so much that it stuck with you for days? All your daydreams and make-believe centered around it. You almost ached to be in that movie.
If you are like me, this hasn't happened to you in years. Or if it has, it has been very infrequent. The film "Once" came awfully close last year.
Well, this weekend there was a show that hit that ancient, long-untouched bullseye. Not a movie, but music-- the long-awaited Reivers reunion at the Parish on 6th Street. These past two days I have been awash in the memories and emotions of that experience. Unshakeable, it fills my every idle moment.
The evening started in Roux, the restaurant on the ground floor of the Parish building, at a pre-show dinner put on by Rob Caldwell, the host of http://www.thereivers.net/ . Raf had gotten us in on this, and we were very surprised to find that, apart from Raf and us, everyone else was from out of town-- and mostly from out of state. It was very odd to be in the position of having people asking about the details of what life in Austin was like in the 80s and early 90s. We met lots of really nice folks and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
In short, the Reivers show was awesome, and I will leave off trying to describe it in much detail other than to say that it was immensely fulfilling on so many levels. The defining moment for me was when the band played "Dragonflies"-- a song that Mila and I consider "our" song for no other reason than that we loved it and listened to it during our courtship. So there we were, good friends all around us, many familiar faces in the audience from so long ago, that incredible band back together in a move that no one expected, and playing our song. We put our arms around each other and swayed gently.
Some cultures have envisioned Heaven as a wedding feast--- your best friends and dearest family members gathered around one table, beyond the scope of time, the act of completion, celebration, contentedness. I understand perfectly why that image was chosen. And as we swayed together in time to the music I thought of how much I love Mila, how much my friends mean to me, how lucky I was to be there that night, how lucky I am to be in this time and in this place, and I thought of something Fast Eddy once said: "The Universe sings lovesongs to me through the radio." I was surprised to feel a welling of tears, and then when two escaped I was surprised to find that I didn't mind.
Fast Eddy is right. The Universe does sing lovesongs to us through the radio.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Roots Rock
In the Fall of 1982 my oldest brother Deeb bought an electric guitar and a small amp. When he told me how much he had paid for the set I couldn't believe it. I had always figured that such things, being the accoutrement of demi-gods such as Hendrix and Clapton, were prohibitively expensive. Not so.
An invisible barrier had been breeched.
I was 16 and played tuba in the marching band, and my best friend Mookie played trumpet. We had both been into rock music for years, so it was natural that in our shared pipe dream of musical stardom he would play guitar and I would play bass.
That Christmas break I got ahold of a cheap Kay bass (that had black nylon strings!) and used Deeb's old 1977 Pioneer stereo to amplify it. Mookie got a guitar. The Toy, a good friend and drummer in the marching band, was a natural choice for drums, even though he didn't own any. A buddy from California rounded out the combo. We called him "BM" because those were his initials and they described his personality and we were rude and thoughtless teenagers.
At the time we were all totally into the 60's, and we were very thrilled when we had our first, uh, rehearsal at BM's house in Southridge. The house dated from that hallowed decade, which intrigued us to no end, and had a small detached building out under the trees in the backyard that had once served both as a storage shed and, as evidenced by the many psychedelic paintings and chalk drawings on the walls, as a sort of hang out for teenagers who had long-since grown up and moved away.
I vividly remember us all plugging in and noodling around individually and getting up the nerve to try something and, as noted, The Toy had no drums so he made do with what was available: a pot, a Sprite bottle, and his motorcycle helmet. The only legit part of his set up were his drumsticks! Still, he was musician enough to make that odd assortment of things work for him, and it was a real thrill to play with percussion. Mookie and I had fiddled around- just bass and guitar--- but the addition of the makeshift drumset added a whole new dimension. It started to sound "real".
Over the next several months the configuration of the band was this:
(Mookie = guitar) + (Po = bass) + (Toy = drums) + y
where y = any one of over a dozen people including, oddly enough, Pod!
At one point we played at a pretty big party in our neighborhood, at the home of a schoolmate who was sort of in the band. He had a Jim Morrison fixation and we would jolly him by letting him moan away incoherently as we struggled through "The End". He is now a plastic surgeon living in Dallas.
The house where the party was held was infamous for having to be kept up like a museum-- don't sit on the sofas lest you mess up the pillows, don't walk on the carpets lest they become worn, and don't even look at the paintings too hard. They might fade. The under 20 crowd understood perfectly well that they were fundamentally unwelcome in that home and were under constant suspicion of being potential sources of disarray. Just imagine our horror, that parentless evening, when we discovered that the bass drum pedal had left a big greasy stain right smack dab in the middle of an expensive Scandinavian carpet. To make matters worse, when our teenage host was kneeling down to assess the damage to Exhibit A, another friend grabbed a tall columnar candle that had been burning for hours and had accumulated a goodly quanitity of molten wax and poured it down the host's back.
We were rude and thoughtless teenagers.
At some point we finally found a permanent 'y' in the person of Jimmy Fred, who was much older than the rest of us (25 or 26, which now seems so very young) and had stage presence and a more-than-passable singing voice.
With a real singer, a growing songlist, and, by this time, real amps and drums, we counted this as our first real band. We called ourselved The Paisley Ascot.
An invisible barrier had been breeched.
I was 16 and played tuba in the marching band, and my best friend Mookie played trumpet. We had both been into rock music for years, so it was natural that in our shared pipe dream of musical stardom he would play guitar and I would play bass.
That Christmas break I got ahold of a cheap Kay bass (that had black nylon strings!) and used Deeb's old 1977 Pioneer stereo to amplify it. Mookie got a guitar. The Toy, a good friend and drummer in the marching band, was a natural choice for drums, even though he didn't own any. A buddy from California rounded out the combo. We called him "BM" because those were his initials and they described his personality and we were rude and thoughtless teenagers.
At the time we were all totally into the 60's, and we were very thrilled when we had our first, uh, rehearsal at BM's house in Southridge. The house dated from that hallowed decade, which intrigued us to no end, and had a small detached building out under the trees in the backyard that had once served both as a storage shed and, as evidenced by the many psychedelic paintings and chalk drawings on the walls, as a sort of hang out for teenagers who had long-since grown up and moved away.
I vividly remember us all plugging in and noodling around individually and getting up the nerve to try something and, as noted, The Toy had no drums so he made do with what was available: a pot, a Sprite bottle, and his motorcycle helmet. The only legit part of his set up were his drumsticks! Still, he was musician enough to make that odd assortment of things work for him, and it was a real thrill to play with percussion. Mookie and I had fiddled around- just bass and guitar--- but the addition of the makeshift drumset added a whole new dimension. It started to sound "real".
Over the next several months the configuration of the band was this:
(Mookie = guitar) + (Po = bass) + (Toy = drums) + y
where y = any one of over a dozen people including, oddly enough, Pod!
At one point we played at a pretty big party in our neighborhood, at the home of a schoolmate who was sort of in the band. He had a Jim Morrison fixation and we would jolly him by letting him moan away incoherently as we struggled through "The End". He is now a plastic surgeon living in Dallas.
The house where the party was held was infamous for having to be kept up like a museum-- don't sit on the sofas lest you mess up the pillows, don't walk on the carpets lest they become worn, and don't even look at the paintings too hard. They might fade. The under 20 crowd understood perfectly well that they were fundamentally unwelcome in that home and were under constant suspicion of being potential sources of disarray. Just imagine our horror, that parentless evening, when we discovered that the bass drum pedal had left a big greasy stain right smack dab in the middle of an expensive Scandinavian carpet. To make matters worse, when our teenage host was kneeling down to assess the damage to Exhibit A, another friend grabbed a tall columnar candle that had been burning for hours and had accumulated a goodly quanitity of molten wax and poured it down the host's back.
We were rude and thoughtless teenagers.
At some point we finally found a permanent 'y' in the person of Jimmy Fred, who was much older than the rest of us (25 or 26, which now seems so very young) and had stage presence and a more-than-passable singing voice.
With a real singer, a growing songlist, and, by this time, real amps and drums, we counted this as our first real band. We called ourselved The Paisley Ascot.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Genius that is Satsy
Last month the Dentones made a "forget music for once, let's do the friend thing" outing at the soon-to-meet-the-fate-of-all-cool-things-in-Austin pub the Gingerman. A camera phone documented the event, and within a day Satsy had surprised and delighted us all by producing a mock album cover. 
Satsy knocked that out in 4 or 5 minutes. Here, by contrast, is my own feeble effort.
Now, which one would you buy? Honestly.
I'll just shut up and play bass.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Chemical Dave
Chemical DaveChemical Dave can't abstain, he craves chimerical scenes--
"Moksha, let me off this crazy machine!"
When you were down did you wait for me to take you away?
Deus ex machina cabriolet
It burns and freezes all at the same time.
Its sting will never go away.
We say we'll meet again in some springtime.
I don't know. I don't even remember your name.
Cigarette burns, coffee stains and paint splatter array--
this constellation points to some other day.
Linger alone-- midnight-- woozy-- cringe-- alarm at the dawn,
the world is paper thin ever since you've been gone.
It burns and freezes all at the same time.
Its sting will never go away.
We say we'll meet again in some springtime.
I don't know. I don't even remember your name.
Chemical Dave...Chemical Dave... Chemical Dave.........
Saturday, February 2, 2008
There Was a Time
If anyone has any information about this photo (When was it taken? Who are the people in it? What song was the guy in the middle dancing to when he injured his knee?) any information would be greatly appreciated. I mean, the world deserves to know.
(click image to enlarge)
Bohemia and Moravia
Friends, turn on your speakers and enjoy a short tour of the lovely gem that is the Czech Republic. I had the good fortune to travel there again last summer with my sweet Mila and her daddy the good Doktor Pheasant-- the greatest father-in-law one could ever wish for. This vacation marked the second with the three of us buzzing about a small European country in a small European car for days on end. What a testament that a cross word was never uttered between us. Very cool.
It is a beautiful country and we could learn a lot from the Czechs about land usage and the concept of public space which, by the way, does not exist in order to provide a medium for commercial advertisement.
And did I mention that the pivo there is excellent and outrageously cheap?
It is a beautiful country and we could learn a lot from the Czechs about land usage and the concept of public space which, by the way, does not exist in order to provide a medium for commercial advertisement.
And did I mention that the pivo there is excellent and outrageously cheap?
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