PaveMania

I’ve said….that… Pavement… is my favorite band (often sealed with the follow up: of all time) for about 10 years now. So when it comes to their putting out a Best-Of retrospective, it becomes an event both giddy and touchy – for my zealousness will refuse to disregard that I (and a close friend) have, in fact, traded our own versions of CD-R assembled “best of’s” over the years, that have mined and gutted the deepest caverns of their canon.

At the same time, I am fully aware that, for I and for many, many others, especially of the certain breed of 20-something scrawny white kids who spend 3-9 hours of their week blogging about their favorite music, this is at least a little close to the tinge of freaked up excitement and anticipation (particularly paired with their reunion tour) of that of longtime brown-robe-wearing hockey-haired Star Wars fans lining up for The Phantom Menace. I know, we’re a type – we’ve all gathered at the beacon of Pitchfork’s Pavement pews in a sanctimonious bow and reverent prayer to their 5 albums of the 1990s (4 of which have been re-released with bevies of b-sides with the 5^th on the way), their EPs (most of which get one-entry nods on this best-of) and to now, where their career-long home, Matador Records, offered fans a ‘Guest the Track List’ contest in run up to the Best-Of’s release.

That’s saying a lot. That Matador was able to key in on our distinctive dorkdom, resembling that of my and my friend’s trading of CD-Rs that we have, essentially, in the 11 years since the band “broke up” have been assembling our own best-ofs in our brains.

Well, what else were we supposed to do? They weren’t making new records…and Pavement leader Stephen Malkmus’ output with the Jicks was too 70’s psyche-rock heavy, while still appreciated, it didn’t feed our Pavement fix, nor did Pavement first mate and co-founder Scott Kanneberg’s admittedly Date-With-Ikea-flavored space-country twangs take us back completely. All we had were those records – those EPs and those 5 LPs. Perhaps that aided their steady and eventual deification in the eyes of the internet-hipstoids and those subtly apathetic and overly arty suburban-indie-rocker identifiers – that…like the Bible or the output of the Sex Pistols, Beatles, The Raincoats, Elliott Smith, take-your-pick – it, for the longest time, 11 years, had a definite end-point. You returned to the old records like home movies and you’d get to the point where there was no film left. You just had to keep returning to the same fluttering images of barbecues and skateboards and bow-and-arrow-slinging Santa’s – Pavement was, essentially, a fix.

You went through your Pavement phases twice a year, probably Spring and Autumn, where you would return to their records, drown yourself, gorge yourself, grin and sigh and move on to a new release by a new band, something else by someone else who was still putting some other things out. Pavement was dead.

But now they’re alive again. And the zombie has been ascribed a “Best-Of…” –whereas so many of us were ready to write our own eulogies for them, (clearly, as the Matador “contest” demonstrates). But…I didn’t want my essay to come to this…but in some ways, for the younger audiences, those still yet in their mid-20’s, the ones who only came to musical awareness after the Pixies broke up or after Pavement broke up…or in other cases, after Soundgarden broke up – and nonetheless nurtured an appreciation that quickly grew into a smitten fervor…now, these fans can live in a world where their savior has returned to earth, they can touch it, see it… I didn’t want it to come to this, as I said, but, yes, sometimes we get minor Christ-like returns each time this happens (and its been happening more and more lately) at least when you compare the record geek fawning over his record sleeves (be they reissues or not) at home to the priest who rereads/re-contemplates his Bible pages.

Shit, maybe that’s too intense.

But now ya’ll new Pitchfork priests gotta get used to a new world with Pavement and a world where you didn’t get to arrange your Best-Of sermon.

So what’s the verdict? How telling is it that their last proper release, 1999’s Terror Twilight appears considerably snubbed – with only one entry amongst the 23 tracks – whilst the often higher-touted first two releases (for fair reason) and even as late as 1997’s Brighten The Corners gets multiple, if-not-5 entries. I bring this up for two reasons – Terror Twilight was always seen as a swing for the “major leagues” fences of the mainstream – a cleaner, smoother, poppier record (save a few considerably dark and creepy moments), and secondly, because my close ally whom I traded those CD-R’s with would not only flag it as his favorite Pavement record, but also, possibly his favorite record of all-time!

So I have to wonder – after 11 years of Pavement purgatory, of its current and new fans “waiting” in that re-treaded void where “everything’s ending” back and forth and back again – have we, as a Pavement cult, not come to terms with this record and finally acknowledged it’s unappreciated gems – from the epic rock-n-roller “Speak See Remember” to the grinning sunny buoyancy of “..And Carrot Ropes” to my ally’s personal fav “You Are A Light”?

Maybe not. Maybe it’s standard Pavement protocol to continue to only nod at this record.

At least all the records get their nod, by record’s end.

But one has to wonder if the fervor would have flared as strongly as it has, in the last few months of this Best-Of’s release, all the way back to the gestation of new fan’s appreciations in the 99-2009 window – had the band never broken up in the first place and kept on making records. Finiteness births preciousness, births a special kind of value and love. And, that does, in a small way, contribute to Pavement…

But, being a Pavement cult officer – I have to say that I definitely said hurray when the Cartoon Talk Show Host Space Ghost (Space Ghost Coast to Coast) jokingly introduced them as “…The Beatles.” That sums up how I and a lot of us felt…

But then, maybe you’re able to just take Pavement for what they were – a good band. And maybe you don’t think this hard about it – for that I envy you. Because it means you didn’t waste about an hour writing this…But, maybe you still wasted 10 minutes reading it…

“So much style that it’s wasting…”

Quarantine The Past - by Pavement - on Matador

1. Gold Soundz (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
2. Frontwards (WATERY, DOMESTIC EP)
3. Mellow Jazz Docent (PERFECT SOUND FOREVER EP)
4. Stereo (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
5. In The Mouth A Desert (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
6. Two States (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
7. Cut Your Hair (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
8. Shady Lane / J Vs. S (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
9. Here (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
10. Unfair (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
11. Grounded (WOWEE ZOWEE)
12. Summer Babe (Winter Version) (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
13. Range Life (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
14. Date w/ IKEA (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
15. Debris Slide (PERFECT SOUND FOREVER EP)
16. Shoot The Singer (1 Sick Verse) (WATERY, DOMESTIC EP)
17. Spit On A Stranger (TERROR TWILIGHT)
18. Heaven Is a Truck (CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN)
19. Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17 (SLANTED & ENCHANTED)
20. Embassy Row (BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS)
21. Box Elder (SLAY TRACKS 1933-1969 EP)
22. Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence (NO ALTERNATIVE COMP)
23. Fight This Generation (WOWEE ZOWEE)

Info:
Pavement
Matador

Quarantine The Past

Saturday

Dancing Shoes....for you...


















Happy Easter, from the Beggars (from last night at the Magic Bag in Ferndale, pics by Mike Milo)- more info on their 7" single release here (at their myspace) and here (from label, Loco Gnosis)

Looking for something tonight?

Why not go back to the Magic Bag - for Bump, Electric Fire Babies and James & The Rainbros...(the latter of which has a free album download if you click their site)

or...

there's also this - down at the Lager....

...looks spooky and Vampiric...

Deep Cutz' last "column" ; The Writers

For just about 2 ½ years, I contributed 200 words each week to the Real Detroit Weekly under the ambiguous banner of ‘Deep Cutz.’ This amounted to about 125 consecutive weekly write ups featuring a plethora of local artists and musicians and trying to spur some humble shred of excitement in the lead up to any number of special events, be they album premiers, reunion shows, benefit shows or maybe just up-and-coming/just-getting-started acts that I would spend afternoons listening to demos of on their humble makeshift myspace pages.

But now, or at least for about two months-now…it, the column, hasn’t run. It has ended.

And, that’s about it. That’s about all I can say for certain. Because it is not my place, nor would I want it to be, to appraise the column’s worth or contribution to…whatever, the ether, the innards and the populace of the Detroit music community.

What I appreciated most about it was that I could usually write about anything – which most often meant ‘-about-anyone or any-band’ and it would be given a modest pedestal on the pages of thousands of stapled issues throughout coffee shops and salons and restaurants and bars everywhere.

There didn’t need to be a hook, necessarily; this didn’t need to be a band that was connected, or cool, or attractive. Sometimes it didn’t need to be a band that played their instruments that well or sometimes it could be a band that didn’t even play instruments at all… No precedent. No hipster cred. No favors. Just coverage.

But. As I write this, I know that the old always makes way for the new. And while some bands still seem to get covered more than others – I would try to assure that change comes slowly – and the myriad make up of scenester cred and editorial politics shifts; new bands come to local prominence and popularity – but on top of that – new music writers come as well – as they have to the current roster of Real Detroit and to the administrative roles of various commendable blogs.

These writers are, in the end, exactly what I was --through my role-- with the Deep Cutz column – enthusiasts! Music lovers! Mixed and mingled into the rabble of drink swishers at the edges of stages throughout Detroit, listening and being excited by the new sounds, by the new faces, the new styles – then going home and writing about it. Championing it.

Things change. Time goes on. Blah blah blah.

Deep Cutz was just 200 words by one guy. There are so many more outlets – new writers, heartfelt bloggers, all of them supporters, each uniquely talented.

So consider this the last proper/traditionally-perceived ‘deep cutz’ column (in the sense of the printed incarnation)... as a promotional rant not necessarily towards one band or many bands, but to all the other writers in this city, the words and the passions they bring, to support these bands.

~

And then of course, rest assured that – Deep Cutz isn’t over. It still continues – and I thank you greatly for reading. This way, too, we save paper.

And on that awkward note, I wrap up this post and head out to the next show……..well, that's not entirely true, but sounds dramatic... Eventualy, anyway, I'll be out at that next show. For now, I could use a nap. Maybe some dandelion tea to detoxify a bit. But, assuredly, I’ve got some shows to hit up.

See you there, hopefully.

Spitting Nickels - Stop Don't/Yes - release show - 4/10 - Majestic Cafe

Interview: (John Bissa)
Photos: Doug Coombe

Spitting Nickels bassist John Bissa opines that, sometimes, talking to Detroit players/scenesters who lived through the White Stripes era make indisputable decrees that nothing new could top it. But for this quintet, two of its current members not only lived through the White Stripes, they lived through the Hentchmen and the Gories “eras” too (not that we’re keeping hipster score).

The thing is, for Bissa and singer Dennis Miriani, despite their 40-something age, this, all this, the shows, the records, the scene, “…it’s still new for us,” Bissa said, “the idea of having a 12-song vinyl record is just the coolest thing in the world.”

Humble, heartening, earnest, and unabashed about their love for “the fun of” playing, Spitting Nickels formed when Bissa fatefully had a music-geek-rant with Eddie Baranek (of the Sights) that galvanized Bissa’s past growing up with fellow De La Salle class of 82 grad Tom Furtaw and sharing a passion for a wide variety of rock – from Brit Pop to Manchester punk to 70’s blues rock, to AM Gold to 80’s/90’s power-pop. In 2007, Bissa was ready to experiment and Baranek, similarly, wanted a chance to try out drumming – and, cosmically, Furtaw came around willing to finally try out this pie in the sky power pop band he and Bissa always mused about starting. Furtaw, tragically, passed away towards the end of a live set opening for Blue Oyster Cult in August 2008, suffering from a heart attack. The band had been together just over a year. That autumn they released their debut EP, 5 The Hard Way.

Baranek, ad-hoc guide to Bissa/Miriani’s (re)entry into Detroit music, moved on last summer to concentrate fully on the Sights – leading SN’s keyboardist Ben Borowiak inviting his friend Jamie Gawecki to take over. (The band also includes lead guitarist Chris Brosky). “It’s like a family member leaving you,” said Bissa. “There’s no doubt that none of this would exist without Eddie, so it’s bittersweet. Jamie’s got a great feel, the thing has moved from really straight 4-4 rock to a little more of a funky rock thing.”

Now, after a summer’s worth of writing and recording (and developing older songs, including one penned by Furtaw and another penned about Furtaw), they will release Stop Don’t / Yes(recorded by Baranek’s go-to engineer, Jim Diamond (the same guy who recorded the White Stripes…and, 5 The Hard Way, too). It features hard rolling rockers, smoky psychedelic blues, and some disarming softly brushed love-song waltzes. Saxophonist Brad Stern was brought in to add a bit of a melancholy to a Furtaw-inspired song aimed to capture “the madness of losing a friend.” Stern’s touch makes “the song into a real statement.”

“We worked very hard to sequence this thing for vinyl,” said Bissa. “As listeners of vinyl growing up, you always knew there were special places on records; the leading song is supposed to get you in and the final one is kind of the “Day In The Life”/”Super Gravity” type song.

“Our goal is to have this record be a calling card,” said Bissa, “to be able to open doors for playing where we want to play. We are completely up for going to Chicago, or doing Cleveland. We know New York City might not be calling Spitting Nickels, but we want to use this as an opportunity to meet great people. Because, it’s been this complete adventure into a whole new world of going to places where we wouldn’t go otherwise.” (The band heads to Toledo to open for the Sights this month). “And,” Bissa concludes, “just, having a lot of fun. Because, we really really enjoy doing it.”

4/10 - with Old Empire and The Crooks - Majestic Cafe

City Center - 4 / 5 - PJs Lager House with High Places

City Center Blog

Stream a track from Spring St
- "Poolside" - from the Fader

Interview
Fred Thomas



"Maximized Sound Possibility"

Fred Thomas says he feels people are likely sick of bands that don’t throw them for loops. And that empowering climate is ideal for the wintery/summery blend of his (one of many) project(s), City Center – through which, paired with fellow Ann-Arbor-ite Ryan Howard, they stir up clattery bemusements of fried, fuzzy, acoustio-lectro pop songs that sound transmitted from sun-baked transistor radios left atop futuristic jet-cars languidly hovering over effervescent ponds of rippling reverb waves enveloping each other as synths and scraped guitars are ever present in the ether like the soft singe of setting sunrays.

Their 2009 debut shifted track-to-track, fuzz-layered 3-minute pop to more caustic dissertations, considerably less traversable then their past works – thus severing limitations of one genre and severing expectations from past works. “I’m not really concentrating on: ‘Okay, here’s the noisy part and here’s the sweet summer jam. I’ve always thought about music in terms of maximized sound possibility; whether it’s a full orchestra of strings or 17 different tones of noise at the same time. It’s all as many sounds as I can fit in there and still arrange and organize. If this song sounds like Wire and the next sounds like Beach Boys, fuck it, who cares! I like that.”

Thomas is the perennial Arbor/Ypsi sparkplug/collaborator/experimenter – best known for leading chamber-pop-collective Saturday Looks Good To Me; Howard played in folk-leaning A2 acts Canada and Drunken Barn Dance. City Center started somewhere in late 2007 in Thomas’ NY apartment (he moved back to A2 in spring 09) as a reaction to the strange and encouraging art energies sutured into that otherwise hectic environment. Howard became more and more involved through 08 and is now a full copilot.

“I was talking to a friend in Chicago, we’re both in bands, he was in Chin Up Chin Up and we’re reminiscing together, drunkenly albeit, about 2002-2004, this small window where we toured all the time and were in these mid-level bands that no one had really heard of but we also weren’t completely unknown; that was the era of the: ‘Well, what’s your band like? Well, we’re like…the Strokes! Oh, cool, we need another band that sounds like that…or that sounds like the Rapture. We need a band that sounds like this…’ I think that era is done. You can’t really describe anything right now…if it’s actually good.”

Rightly or wrongly, SLGTM was a band interpreted by means of journos or even listeners ticking off various palpable influences that seemed to be worn on each of its pop pleated songs: Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Belle & Sebastian, etc etc or what-have-you.

“I can’t honestly say that I didn’t think about influences or trends at the time," said Thomas.

"Being a band from the Detroit area in 2002 meant that you were very much conscious of your place in the garage-rock-schema. I did a tour playing bass for The Sights and came back from that and wanted our band to sound exactly like the Sights because I loved playing with them."

"But when it came time to make another record, I thought, well, I also like The Zombies a lot…maaaybe I wanna sound like that. Every single micro-second of most of the music I played in my mind is charted out as my various queues taken from other bands, because I am such a music fanatic. But, to answer your question succinctly, I don’t think I ever thought of it as: ‘Oh, because there’s a band that’s doing really well nationally, we have to be the Michigan or the Detroit answer to that band. Because, I never really felt like there were a lot of baroque-pop bands in Detroit in 2002…”

City Center released their self-titled debut full length in late 2008 – a collection of much of the subterranean serenities and kaleidoscope clangs and breathy fuzzed out vocals – songs mostly developed by Thomas with Howard’s augmentation. This month, via Quite Scientific (an Ann Arbor based label) they release the 4-song one-sided silk-screened vinyl record, Spring St.

“The music is four songs; I did two of them by myself, Ryan did one by himself and we collaborated on the last one; it came together seamlessly, almost like this dual-solo project. It was a very quiet, staid kind of rumination on our summer, because we recorded it this summer when I was living off of Spring Street (in Ann Arbor). Every day, I was walking around and Spring Street is actually the highest point in Ann Arbor, so you can kinda see a skyline from this park at the top of it and I was going there and looking out, thinking for hours and I’d be writing song ideas down and writing lyrics down and we just came up with this really meditative, sweet, thoughtful record as a result of it.”

Thus, the relationship with Howard and Thomas has strengthened considerably – through recording and rigorous touring. The two dudes pack their synths, drum machines and guitars into a van and wheel around the country—till now having self-booked everything. “At this point, if me and Ryan are in the same room, we make the same joke at the same time, we’re finishing each other’s sentences without really being that much alike. We’re actually extremely different people.”

“(Howard)’s presence is bigger than I could have imagined it to be. When it started, I kinda really pushed him, that, if we’re gonna do this I’d like it to be something where we’re both equal parts. I think this when this new record comes out, it will make itself really clear, it sounds a lot different than the last record, there’s so much more of Ryan in there.”

The forthcoming full length was recorded with Chris Koltay, here in Detroit. “And I couldn’t be any happier,” said Thomas, “with the results. Chris, in particular, is one of the biggest gifts the band has gotten and he made it sound really incredible.” They’re aiming for a September/October release.

I prattle out a metaphor of Howard’s joining City Center, coming aboard his experimental pirate ship as a stowaway, working his way up to first-mate, eventually redecorating the galley a bit and then nudging the wheel and lurching the mast a bit more to starboard until finally being pinned as a co-pilot.

“Oh, definitely,” Thomas says, “or, more like, if I fell asleep he actually re-routed the ship.” We share a chuckle. “All the songs we’ve made as a duo have come out of chance-jams.” Howard, says Thomas, is more apt to fiddle around with myriad tones and melodies while he admits he has a more meticulous, abstract or even overwrought process. “Two completely different approaches have somehow resulted in a really good duo.”

Thomas said he can’t wait for people to hear how hard they worked with Koltay, when the record comes out in the fall. I poke at him that, by that time, they’ll probably sound even weirder or more varying now, then ever. “…probably!”

Spring St. is available now (limited copies) via Quite Scientific.

Serena Maneesh - Thursday - Majestic Cafe

Do you like noises made by guitars, guitar pedals, pick-ups, wah's, distortion, reverb,...sorcery?

Welcome our friends from Norway - Serena Maneesh - info here - and new album review here

and this:

Mission of Burma are coming 4/8 - Blind Pig, Ann Arbor - wanna go?

Listen: -Mission of Burma- "1,2,3 Partyy"

America's own post-punk aristocrats have slogged out hard hooking, meaty murky dark rocking slices of confrontational and enlivening rock-fired music for a quarter century. And they're making a visit to Ann Arbor on April 8th - paired with Detroit's own Chapstick.

The slight problem being - that, as most of you may be Detroit (or Metro-Detroit)-set and...thus, Ann Arbor seems like a long, gas-consuming trek for you, in these trying times of $2.80+ per gallon -

But what if, when you get there, you already have your ticket? What if you also had the chance to score a free copy of Mission of Burma's latest, The Sound, The Speed, The Light (dc review, here) - on vinyl + a 7" for their latest single: "Innermost." ???

Sounds nice enough right?

Contribute to the music dialogue - post your top 3 favorite MoB songs below and then send me an email (my contact's over there, to the left) and we'll get you situated.

More info here, from Mission of Burma and more info here - from Matador records. And, here too, take a look.

4/8 - Blind Pig -Mission of Burma + Chapstick

Chapter 3 of the some-what-zine-y rant thing: this is our life

(continued from here...and from here)

Chapter 3: Life and Fantasy

This is our life. There doesn’t need to be extra drama. Not if you don’t want it – There’s no need for hyper-scrutiny and there’s no need for exasperating insecurities.

There’s no need to prattle on about this or that – just come see it, hear it, call it what it is, have a drink, get to know someone and keep on living.

But anyway – as I said to my friend Asim, who plays in an ever-evolving “rock” based quartet that has wavered between sensibilities involving “psychedelic” rock, “shoegaze” rock and is now dabbling in “trip/hop” – we get to talking about genres, the incestuous blending of influences and whether certain styles can actually die.

I tell him what I’ve already told you –that if an idea is good enough, it always lives on beyond it’s “death.” Christ died 2000 years ago and people still think Christianity is a good idea. Lennon died 30 years ago and people still think infusing Brit-pop’s dynamic hooks into their present-day songwriting styles is a good idea. (People still say, “Give peace a chance” and still think Lennon might have been onto something when he posited his group’s popularity surpassing that of Christ) – if ideas are persuasive enough – and punk rock is persuasive, just as Detroit’s potential (and Detroit’s tragedy) is persuasive, if not provocative – then they live on…

The actual “thing” may be dead. But the idea, and our love of it, lives…and we embrace it, and we try to live that idea.

Asim wonders aloud if, by playing on stages under lights to crowds while 99% of the world carries on and seems to never know (or for some, still not properly care) about music, about the beauty of art, about the rich histories, about the power of music…its phantasmal influence on our everyday lives.

Well. The fantasy goes right back to the writer – the blogger, the scenester in the back, the misanthropic and insecure ego-inflamed hipster, the bitter-ain’t-like-it-usta-been curmudgeon, the ones who only see the two extremes: It’s not as good or it’s better than ever. It’s bleak…and here’s a poetic and gut-wrenching metaphor. Or it’s hopeful…and here’s a lyrical and soothingly encouraging depiction. Life’s not too sides of a coin – that’s the real fantasy…a delusional fantasy.

Life’s back to that tire. The rolling wheel. The tilt-o-whirl. Cycles and circles. We’re just living. And we come back around. We fall out sometimes, or we get dizzy and throw up – but often we’re rolling too fast to notice or care.

And all of that, that I’ve just spewed out, may or may not apply to Detroit… or to music…in general. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, I’m trying not to be absolutist and get comfy in the middle.

Again, this blog is not about punk rock, or about beating dead horses, or about cows who quote Plato; it is not about Chuck Klosterman or trip/hop, it is not about the Beatles; this zine is sort of about Detroit and definitely concerned with music and also with the people who read it; but this zine is manipulated, unabashedly, by its creators, as a reminder.

But this blog is not exclusively preoccupied with this “comfy in the middle” nonsense. It will be all over the place.

This zine/blog is not better than you.

This blog/zine is glad you read it.

End for now.

Restated Mission/Vision - blah blah - Chapter 2: Circles

(continuing from here... the rest of the limited print zine thing - and just...a pondering look-around at idiosyncracies of music scenes at various levels - and preocupations with genre...social connections...revivalism... and whatever baseball-card mp3 type trip blogs might keep perpetuating...best not to get to wound up - cuz we'll all whirl around again...and then again...and it keeps goin...)

Chapter 2: Circles

...Everything is dead after while – but…hmm, how can I put this without coming off exhaustively placid-egghead-asshole – If you could picture an empty tire rolling down a steadily slanting hill, roughly 30 degrees all the way down, enough to keep it rolling – well,....life, society, culture, seems to be, like a screaming laughing child propped up inside, inside this giant empty tire absent from some imagined monster truck, rolling down the hill, getting mixed around and steadily disoriented, always – we are progressing in some manner, yes, (and in my austere metaphor, downhill) but we continually come-back-around—to retreaded ideas and feelings and trends.

Picture whatever works best for you – a carnival’s rusty tilt-o-whirl, a tumble-cycling rickety dryer, a spinning vinyl record having its grooves widened and its form morphed with an endless, purgatory-esque rotation.

When I was young and naïve (instead of old and naïve), I asked Dan Kroha -(alternately known around Detroit as co-founder of the most sanctified band of the modern garage rock/neo-punk-rock music scene – the Gories and respected for his unmatched live dynamism, passionate, guttural musicality, and sharp wisdom and reverence for music history that’ll spin you off your stool)-- anyway…(sheesh)…I asked him, five years ago, what he thought of Detroit’s music scene – a question that can always only be applied to “what’s going on” within a six-ish month window...

…one gets asked this question and they think back to shows they’ve seen in the last four or five months and then they think in their head, quickly, about what they know their friends in the scene will be doing later on in a month, if they have big shows or if anyone’s recording a new record in their basement – who’s popular within our humble borders, who’s losing it, who’s beating dead horses, etc etc etc, ...all this flashes through one’s mind…at least, I think it does for me, when I get asked this question….

That said, when I asked Dan Kroha, he started into the distance (the distance-being the men’s room a dozen feet away from our standing positions at the side of a bar during a show), looked back at me and shrugged – which would have been an answer on its own – but then he said, “Scenes, ya know, they just go in circles.” And then he shrugged again.

Circles.

Déjà Vu, again – like Groundhogs Day – you can get to one point in the circle and you can decide to feel frustration about something someone’s doing and about how that something is dead or how that someone doesn’t really know what they’re talking about –

Eventually, the wheel goes around – and that thing that you were mad about becomes popular again, or least conceded and shrugged off, because, damn it, we incorrigibly reproduce the things that inspire us –

If punk rock inspired us, then we’re gonna keep waving that flag or beating that dead horse. And the wheel goes around again – and that person who didn’t know what they were talking about – knows now, certainly, what they’re talking about and might even know more, now, than you, you who were so certain you had the answer to all things, by saying, simply, that this or that or this other thing or that next thing ...is/was dead.

Now, what are we doing here? We’re just living.

Being a writer, or, at least being referred to as one, has lead to my becoming completely alienated with the middle-ground, the even-keel, the bland and the realist, the part that just shrugs and calls it what it is – the same muscle flexed by Kroha when he diagnosed the runaround ballyhoo of “scenes.”

I’ll get diary-esque again, and let you know, that while I type this, I have a copy of a fairly recent Chuck Klosterman book. Klosterman’s a writer that I’ve been told, every few months or so—by a different friend each time –that I, being a “music writer,” should read. He is a master at suturing musical tidbits and hipster knowledge into an everyday-man’s surreal travels through a world of people seeming unknowing of music’s influence upon their own everyday lives. It’s something I haven’t tried yet – because I haven’t gotten out of Detroit yet. But, that said, I just read a sentence that stuck in my craw –

Whilst writing about a macabre pilgrimage to the scene of a tragic fire that destroyed a hundred lives and an entire building in Rhode Island, Klosterman writes that the tavern had, now, become an “ad hoc cemetery,” immediately quipping that that’s pretty much the role most taverns play anyhow, in small towns. This is only after he wrote that each day on earth is like purgatory.

That’s the thing, (my longwinded point, apologies), about writers – is that we are tennis balls that can only bounce/land on (or near) the two extremes of the court– it’s a fault if we hit the (middle) net.

It's like...either: - Life is tragic; we, quite poetically, lay it out as a perversion or horror – bars are cemeteries…or American Idol watchers are zombies…or scenester assholes with big egos are smeared because they are defined exclusively by their on-stage behavior and not by their softer sides where they go visit their grandmas on weekends… or the scene is dead and we are tapping an empty keg and bands aren’t as good as they usedta-been…

Either that, or: - Life is glorious: it is flowery and inspiring and there is hope and reassurance…the spotlights present this soft, fuzzy hue upon the glistening eyes and pale skin of the passionate performer as the not-as-think-as-you-drunk-they-are crowd all stands rapt and quiet, swaying together in unity for this local band pouring their heart out on a Thursday while we all lighten our moods in this Michigan winter and look at each other, realizing how great the scene is and what a great community this is because there are five other shows going on somewhere else in the metro area with as many different genres on display and …we are in love with each other.

To hit the melodramatic extremes means we (writers)... are, hopefully, securing your interest, twisting it, manipulating it, leading it away like a pied piper. That’s why, as writers, it’s hard not to just sit in the middle and realize – hey – we’re just living.

We are living.

And in Detroit – that means that on weekends and a few weeknights, we pour into the local watering hole (most of ours have stages) to see and hear any variety of the army’s worth of local bands (there are likely more than 1000 in the tri-county area) …or, as is often the case, when “we” pour into the bars, “we” are probably amongst the musicians and we are plugging in, to play the songs we wrote back at our humble shacks, after days spent in offices or behind cash registers or in cubicles. We’re just living.

This is our life. There doesn’t need to be extra drama. Not if you don’t want it – There’s no need for hyper-scrutiny and there’s no need for exasperating insecurities.

There’s no need to prattle on about this or that – just come see it, hear it, call it what it is, have a drink, get to know someone and keep on living.

Spoon - Deerhunter - Strange Boys - Mar 30 - Royal Oak

This should be a nice show for an early Spring's eve...

Spoon
Deerhunter
The Strange Boys

Two Texans and one Atlanta art rocker

Videos! (so you know what you're getting into...for their show togeter, Mar 30th, Tuesday, around 7pm, at the Royal Oak Music Theatre)... First up: The Strange Boys with "Be Brave"

Followed by Deerhunter's "Strange Lights":

And then, this interesting offering from Spoon - where they learn "Ted Leo's Version of 'Don't You Evah'" :

Spoon learns the Ted Leo version of Don't You Evah from Spoon on Vimeo.

Dead Horses Rant - Chapter 1 - or - Restated Vision and Mission

Ed. - ...what follows is the hurried and scattered scrawl I wrote and printed-in considerably limited quantity- as an experimental "zine..." (which, I'm still interested in starting one day, in a still-as-of-yet-pie-in-the-sky-type view) - but...this is chapter 1, (with 2 and 3 to follow)...

Fill-in-the-blank –is dead.

Zines are probably dead. (Blogs can be dead) Irony’s definitely dead.

Saying, conversationally, as some head-shaking, case-closer, feigning regret, that “...punk rock is dead…”…is dead.

Whatever awkwardly attempted, dorkily-projected ideas spring forth from these soon to be thrown away pages, will be dead, after a while.

And overly-esoteric, grandiose slop spewed in some late 70’s New York gutter-stuck art punk manner of pitiable poetics – is also dead, so I should stop.

But it all goes on – punk rock, the idea, goes on, because people are still quite smitten with the idea. Say “punk rock” and what do you see in your head? Torn, unwashed jeans, bandanas around your ankles, Doc Martens, green hair, sneers, saliva, pogo-ing, slam-dancing, fighting, yelling, blood-shot-eyes – well, yes, all of that, but also, a primal bravado, a tougher, broker, patchouli-free take on the original (and sadly buried) Haight-Ashbury-born Hippie-ethos of being one’s own hero, you see guys selling records out of their trunk for cheap, you see, amongst the gnashing teeth, sweat, blood and cathartic self-destruction, a democratization of rock n roll glory.

It still seems like a good idea, sorta – even when I rehash it; yes, rehash it the same way you hear it all day long on junk-food chomping hang-over-recovering Sunday afternoons where you’re half-passed-out with VH1-Classic left on…

And what do you hear? Music played…not very well…but with passion. It’s fucking romantic.

The salacious and lecherous soap opera of society will never be off the air – the show goes on – punk rock, psychedelic-rock, indie-rock – we can go down the list. No case ever gets closed. You can say blogs are dead. You can say music is dead. You can keep upping the ante. These things are still going to be here until the metal cages we pilot spew enough smoke to finally offset the ecosystem enough to fry us or drown us – all of this will still keep going. It all depends on which thing, which idea – be it a newspaper, the internet, a CD, vinyl, mp3 whatever whatever whatever – grabs you, inspires you, best fits you and feels closest to your true voice, regardless of what anyone else thinks... If zines/blogs are also dead, well, here’s another one, anyway. Enjoy.

*

Now, to continue. This zine is not about punk rock, exclusively. It’s about whatever it needs to be about; but, it is, inevitably, bound by the whims of its creators. And those whims are connected to the human limitations (faults) of said-creators: judgmental whims, philosophical whims and geographical whims.

I stress that last whim because I, like so many otherwise hearty and guileless day jobbing show-goers, noise-makers and music writers, am still, forgive the indulged melodrama of the word, stuck... quote-un-quote, in the metro Detroit area. Or maybe, I can’t bring myself to leave. Such is our characteristic paradox.

It’s not about Detroit, this zine/blog/thing ...here, but, it’ll certainly be thinking about it, often.

~

I would say, er, that...it goes without saying, ...only as prelude -to the same hyperbolic diatribe and impassioned speech that we, the underwritten, the masochistic day jobbers, the Detroiters, the show goers, will often shout to each other when we’re either trying to bring ourselves up or just trying to look smart in front of each other – that Detroit is…Detroit is… Detroit is…Detroit’s, well, how about this, Detroit is sort of the reason we’re all here. On various levels, exaggerated or otherwise.

French missionaries traipsed through here not long after the English settled on the coast in the mid 1600’s. Detroit, then, just a fort, acted as a gateway, (not to get too preachy on you), for settlers, (whose ancestors would, yes, kill off lots of the natives, but, eventually, wound up building what we now drive through and live in) and for trade (the profits of which, beaver pelts or whatever else, helped fund, ya know, the vital pillars of society).

Detroit’s like a mouth, also, maybe. Well, it’s like dirt, too. A gateway and/or a breeding ground. It’s both a portal and a petri dish. But, on the dirt metaphor, it’s deceptively fertile dirt; so many things bloom from its muddy porous conditions.

Well, maybe we’re more like a mouth, after all. Because a lot of the great things that uh, went through us, or came out of us, went off into the world and spread various influences.

Trend-setting vomit. Brilliant vomit.

I’m getting way off topic – but…if this zine/blog is, at all, concerned both with music and with Detroit – then I can't avoid rattling off, as we fellow showgoers sometimes do, to/at each other, all the various inventions you can find, either born here or evolved here – jazz, blues, funk, psychedelic rock, punk rock, house, techno…and…no disco. And you can attach various names to all of those genres – If we’re talking about blues, then we’re also talking about the booming auto industry – because that’s what attracted all the Delta blues players like John Lee Hooker, and we’d thus have to also emphasize the dirty/mouthy/peetree dish’s overly obvious engineering contributions to the world – but we’ll move right back to music.

We were dabbling in psychedelic rock right along with the rest of the world in 1966 with The Frost and the Mysterians and many more – while our own style of quirky swirling smoky rock went comparatively unnoticed by most of the squares throughout the world who just spent time gossiping over the Beatles and Paul’s admittance to dropping acid – my word, good golly – regardless, the psych-energy was here – and it lead to the founding of various culture hubs (and counterculture movements) like CREEM magazine and the Detroit Artist Workshop.

We also, if you believe the legends, birthed punk rock – with our Ann Arbor-nurtured “garage” rock bands: The Stooges and MC5 respectively. I’ll hurry it up since this is turning into a rambled and tiresome conversation – Funk? Funkadelic. Soul? Gospel? Motown Records. Fortune Records. Techno? Belleville three.

And I’m just lazily, inefficiently, blandly glossing – That sums up said-blog's more cultural fixation with Detroit, setting aside obvious geographic conclusions.

So I could get to the point and return to talking about people casting things off as dead. And move into "cultural cycles."

About how useless it is, to keep getting red over about punk rock (et. al.) being dead... – and I could go on...

As useless as a cow learning to form English words and studying Plato finally gathering the moxie and bravado to stand up straight, applying intellectual-affecting bifocals on his snout and reciting an argument for his life, right at the edge of the slaughter house line when the smasher is winding up for the hammer swing.

People are still gonna want their hamburgers.