someday we're all getting paid

For a guy who's trying to heal himself of the nasty ol' sickness that got him down one mere night ago, I'm not doing a very good job of taking care of myself. I drank coffee last night. And it's safe to say that the meds I took were the 'non-drowsy' kind, the kind that keep me wired. But see, it's 8 in the morning, and I'm goddamn awake. Blindingly awake. I went home 'round 3 am after the Vernacular/Birth blowout at the Beachland (more on that in a little while), tossed myself into bed, and then whirled around impatiently. After attempting to force the issue, I got up and started....this. Maybe I should have had more than one whiskey glass full of wine. These days, I'm making a good effort to lay off the conspicuous booze consumption. Could be that I'm tired of waking up with, to quote Springsteen, "a freight train runnin' through the middle of my skull".

Tonight's show that I helped set up at the club turned out to be a runaway success. I credit the fellas in Birth for really upping the ante on the press--their latest joint, "And You Will Cry With Joy" got a nice bit of local press, and it would appear that they did a hell of a job getting the word out on an individual level; I'd never seen a lot of that crowd before, so I can only figure that was Birth's promotional skills at work. LDC and the Vernacular regulars turned out, too, which is a testament to his relentless emailing, online posting, and flyering. So yeah, there were folks aplenty. And both bands tore it up. Though it took approximately one song for V. to get their groove on, they came out swingin' and finished up strong, with a revamped yet still emotional version of "The Blood", a cut from their CD, The Little Bird. I'm always wondering how it is that these guys manage to transcend the limitations of the trio format and their peculiar instrumentation--bass, trumpet, drums, flavored with timbales and a cool amount of laid-back feedback guitar. Yet somehow, at the very moment when it seems they've painted themselves into a musical corner, their arrangement skills, uncanny seizure of dynamics, and pure visceral energy help them beat the odds. I hear that a bootlegger at the show taped them. I'd be pretty interested in hearing how that tape turned out!

I'll be the first one to say that I've never been the biggest Birth fan. Much respect to those guys for being able to play circles around me, but they've never hit me where I live. Tonight they've come much closer than I've ever seen them do before. I'm fond of their malestroms and their rock/funk workouts more than what my friend Schafer terms "gratuitous rhythm changes". When they put notions of neatness aside and really start to let the sweat seep into their instruments, it's a beautiful thing. I think they're onto something. The touring must be helping, I figure. Apparently they're headed on a European tour. Who knows how hotly they'll be burning after that. Most importantly, there seemed to be a lot of love between them and V., which is good. A nice helping of both the raw and the cooked, to be all Levi-Strauss about it. Most importantly, I think a lot of the Birth regulars dug on Vernacular quite a bit, which is terrific. I think it's crucial for bands in CLE to reach outside of their normal friend/peer circles to folks who wouldn't normally see them. Why preach to the choir? A DIY ethos is great, but sadly, to most people that doesn't mean bupkes. It's not going to matter just how honest you are, or how hard you work, or--goddamn--just how good you are. Advertising dictates taste, so it's important to find those folks who aren't necessarily "in the know" and make oneself be heard. Hopefully Birth and Vernacular will keep doing that, and in the process find more friends on their journey.

Thanks to an amassed public outcry--throngs of poets burning me in effigy outside my house on cold old west fourteenth--I'm attempting to update this silly blogger thang.

My efforts are hindered by the sneezling and sniffing of this winter's vicious and roaming cold, which has made the rounds in town in the form of a flu or nasty cough; in this particular incarnation, it's turned me into a red-eyed, red-nosed blubberer. I don't think it's going to altogether destroy me this weekend, but it has made me rather sedentary for the time being. There's too much going on and too much that needs to be done--I've gotta rest up and regain my strength.

I think I caught the cold from the Hook Boy fellas; Dave (of Dreadful Yawns) was looking a bit ashen, his rockstar locks sans the usual luster, his Clarence White licks just drooping. Our keyboardist, Chris, was en route to recovery from a bout of illness that had put him out for the count about a week previously. It was inevitable, being in Chris' cozy basement studio like socks in a drawer, that one of us would catch something. Add to that the usual moldy, musty and chilled Beachland basement.

Despite this, we had a nice little practice. Mike brought in new tune, redolent of Talking Heads' more mersh days. It's great fun; I get to ride on Jason's disco groove for a while, one-uh-two-uh boom on the floor. I want Chris to be all Bernie Worrell on the cut, though it might give the song more kitsch than it needs. We then went through songs from the old set, played them miserably, and called it a night. Things never quite end there, though. Jason and Chris and I embarked on one of our funky soul jams, as per usual, and had a blast just turning it up and turning it out. I really need to buckle down and get those guys to do a gig as a party band of some kind; if not, we need to sew The Pocket into Mike's melancholy and whimsical tunes. Jason and Chris are so damn good at it, it's not even right. And most importantly, it's a hell of a lot of fun.

I've mentioned it before in a previous entry: I got my eBay bass head, and let me tell you, folks, I'm excited. It's got more power than I can possibly use, and I can get some nice, deep, rumbly sounds out of it. The tone's a bit eeeeeh, if you catch my drift, but I'm one of those people who firmly believes so much of that vaunted "tone" ideal comes out of one's pickups and one's fingers (or pick). After that, all your doodads and ee-kews and amp modelers come into play. It'd be nice to have that kind of junk to play with, wouldn't it? I'm in the process of acquiring more, piece by piece, but I'm also in the process of not making a lot of money (surprise, surprise), so it's going to take some time before I get around to buying a rackmounted Behringer V-AMP modeler--or even one of those Tech 21 DI stompboxes. I figure it's easier to just get basses of varying size, sound, and heft, for those "hard to reach areas".

Speaking of which, I've got to find a case for my poor underappreciated epiphone hollowbody bass. It sounds damn good, but it's been taking a pounding and is in dire need of protection from the elements. Maybe I'll take it to Clyde and Mark down at good ol' Timeless Guitars and have them baby this swell little piece of hatchetry. I don't really need it right now--the stuff the New Lou Reeds have been cooking up sound so much better with my Jazz bass that it'd be hard to return to that little guitar. Eventually I'll get it up and running, and use that Epiphone's woodsy ping to my advantage.

I think that the next update will be my commentary on either a. my friends' bands/projects or b. upcoming shows I have, which are plentiful. Right now I'm feeling a powerful snooze coming on, which is good. I had several bowlfuls of potent homemade soup, and I'm feeling extremely lethargic. I thought the musica latina on the radio would wake my ass up, but to no avail.