War Story Wednesday: Chicken VS Turtle

 If you have been around chickens, you know that in the picture below, the chicken is giving the turtle "the one eye", prompting the little reptilian to retreat into his shell:

Cat Attack Tuesday!

There exists no better blues-banishing companion, perhaps, than adorable and adoring cats.

 You know them, you love them, Eva & Gabby just can't help but love to rock. I guess they learned from Mr. Bombs! Although, it just might be that these speakers are carpeted and make an epic indoor cat tower:

...And sensing my emotional state like a cat-yoda (which she is), Gertrude snuggled with me right through the crisis hours:

 

You have my frank and sincere thanks, faithful felines!

"It'll Pass Away in a Slow Parade..."

Well. A lot has been going on, and none of it particularly good. I won't go into too much detail, as I have neither the time nor presumption to explain everything. The short version is: Mr. Bombs is in the hospital. That is the big thing. A smaller bummer would be that my second show in Lincoln fell through.

So I am going to just go ahead and declare the "Greyhound Runaround Vaca-tour" OVER.

"...that's leaving, I just don't know how soon."

War Story Wednesday: In the Trenches of Rock

Well, there isn't much time so I'll explain it quickly: Above you can see the recording session for Secret Meetings. Below is a mixing process to get the basic tracks off of 4-track cassette and onto a digital recorder:

 Then tonight we are going over to record the vocals.

Thoroughly Rocked-Out Thursday

The full-on Rock'n'Roll schedule doesn't particularly lend itself to making regularly and timely blog posts, I've found. My days in Tucson this past week have generally started around noon, with a pretty consistent morning routine of coffee, cigarettes, and some combination of television and acoustic guitar practice. I'll start to get my act together around three or four in the afternoon, making calls and packing up gear, and head downtown anywhere from 5-7:00 PM. Then it is rock-out time for Mr. Bombs and I, or he'll have rehearsal with HAIRSPRAYFIREANDGIRLS...or maybe one of the other bands that share the practice space will have rehearsal. I've taken to calling the practice space the "Rock Office," "Office of Rocking Out," and other similarly silly epithets.

The photo above is of the band Secret Meetings, an excellent band featuring a husband/wife bassist/vocalist team and the HAIRSPRAY Joshes. Mister Bombs is going to be doing some recording for them this Saturday, and I'll get to play assistant engineer. The plan is to isolate the amps, so that a live recording of the whole band will have each instrument on a channel for mixing. Noah and I recorded takes of two of my songs that way, but we haven't really listened to them. Speaking of Noah and I rocking out, our show this past Sunday was incredible! The touring bands Olsen Twinns and Little Ruckus made the dance a party! The whole show was laid back, low key, and relaxed, but, also totally punk rock at the same time. Mister Bombs and I were very well received as the openers - the songs were much more rock than dance, but the all-ages audience of roughly twenty were into the music and took all of my remaining demos. Somehow, the touring incarnation of 'Genre Zero' (AKA: Me, playing under the band name which was made by Robb, the Doctor...of drums...the instrument being played by Mister Bombs, who is usually one of the best guitar players around and created some Fruity Loops, simple synth backup tracks that we played with for 2 songs) fit just right. Before the pop-punk-dance bands, Donut Shop Death (AKA: Mari Safari) played a set of frosted-flake-level g-g-great punk songs, like I am talking Weezer-level good. She also used a backtrack for her songs, prompting Mister Bombs to ask if she might want him as a drummer at her next show. Then Olsen Twinns and Little Ruckus taught us all about Sweat Power - go to their show and you can find out, too. To close the evening down, gracious host and undisputed most-enthusiastic-dancer Mullarkey retired some of his Run On Sunshine songs by performing them post-dance, outside in the misty sprinkles, and a-Capella. Awesomely great songs about cats and life in Austin MadMatt generously drove our gear and helped us with the load in-and-out. You remember his awesome bus, right:

There is a very 'artsy' panorama wherein the frames totally don't line up but, everyone who was there is in a frame: The Gals checking out the cool stuff taped up inside the bus in the blue, MaddMatt driving in the dark red, and me grimacing in a silly way that I meant to say "Party in the Bus"...but just looks scary. Tuesday after Geeks Who Drink, we all went to check out Matt's new pad:

Tonight, the Electric Blankets (who also share the practice space) are playing a benefit show / roast of Tyler, a friend of theirs who was jumped and beaten just a few blocks from 4th Avenue, the bar district in Tucson. He had several bones in his face broken, jaw split...all for telling some guys to leave a lady alone who was trying to tell them to get lost. Someone got mad at me when I was busking, and luckily I escaped a savage beating, but Tucson is a rough-and-tumble kind of town...

These kinds of shenanigans like rehearsing for shows, going to shows, playing in shows, hanging out with all my old friend in a party bus...well, they last until 3-4:00 AM, and sometimes I'll still be up for a bit after that. Hard to find time for the morning blog write-up when I am going to sleep looking at the sunrise...

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Tucson has this establishment, called "The Loft Cinema", that is the local indie theater. They also happen to serve beers that you can take into the movie, a la Brewvies in SLC. Tonight, a group of us are getting together to go to the late-night showing of High Fidelity. This film was highly influential on the young Mr. Bombs and myself, in fact it is probably the source of much of our music pretension and snobbery, and the book by Nick Hornby upon which it is based has been on my 'need to read' list for a long time. Maybe after tonight I'll be re-energized to seek said book out.

2. We've got a lot of work to do so that we will be ready to rock worlds at a show we're playing this Sunday at The Pound. We've been working hard at getting the songs really fine-tuned, getting our loop timing just right, and building some dancy-ness into the tunes. It is a live dance music show. Sunday at 7 at the Pound: better bring your dancing shoes.