Thursday, April 17, 2008
20.5 Things I'm Pretty Sure About
1. The Cleveland Indians will not win the world series in 2008. (they haven't won a game since I purchased MLB extra innings for the season)
1.5 CC Sabathia is not worth 20 million dollars a year.
2. My life is likely 2/3 complete
3. I am the only one at my gym that works out to Laibach
4. I will never hear MDID on NPR
5. George Bush will go down in history as the worst president ever
6. John Mccain will be the next president, because not only are most Americans bitter and clinging to their religion, they are stupid too.
7. The stock market will rocket upwards as soon as I take all my money out of it.
8. There is no TV news worth watching
9. I will not live to see humans land on Mars, much as I thought they would have by now as I watched them land on the moon at 8 yrs old.
10. Scott Pickering is the best drummer ever.
11. I've had a constant stream of the best bass players ever in my band.
12. Trappistes Rochefort 10 is the best beer ever.
13. Cleveland will not "come back"
14. Subterranean won't have more than one video a month I'm interested in.
15. My wife will never be a baseball fan.
16. My wife will never be a Battlestar Galactica fan.
17. My wife will be elsewhere when either of these things is on the Tee Vee.
18. I could never be as saracastic as Atrios
19. Try as I might, I will never be a "morning person"
20. You'll never hear MDID on a car commercial
1.5 CC Sabathia is not worth 20 million dollars a year.
2. My life is likely 2/3 complete
3. I am the only one at my gym that works out to Laibach
4. I will never hear MDID on NPR
5. George Bush will go down in history as the worst president ever
6. John Mccain will be the next president, because not only are most Americans bitter and clinging to their religion, they are stupid too.
7. The stock market will rocket upwards as soon as I take all my money out of it.
8. There is no TV news worth watching
9. I will not live to see humans land on Mars, much as I thought they would have by now as I watched them land on the moon at 8 yrs old.
10. Scott Pickering is the best drummer ever.
11. I've had a constant stream of the best bass players ever in my band.
12. Trappistes Rochefort 10 is the best beer ever.
13. Cleveland will not "come back"
14. Subterranean won't have more than one video a month I'm interested in.
15. My wife will never be a baseball fan.
16. My wife will never be a Battlestar Galactica fan.
17. My wife will be elsewhere when either of these things is on the Tee Vee.
18. I could never be as saracastic as Atrios
19. Try as I might, I will never be a "morning person"
20. You'll never hear MDID on a car commercial
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
SXSW
Yes the rumors are true.. MDID will be at SXSW this year for the first time!. Hard to believe we've never done it before in the 24 yrs of being a band.. but there you go - there's a first time for everything. Joining the band this time around will be Billy Buckley on bass and Scott Pickering on Drums.. The show will be at Habana Calle 6 on Friday March 14th at 1 am (guess that's technically Saturday)... Hope to see you there! God knows it's way past our bedtimes..
A couple other shows on the horizon over the next few months.. pls check the MySpace page for updates...
A few new songs in the can and hopefully a new CD by the end of the year.. As we get decent demo versions I'll probably post a couple at MySpace too...
Other random thoughts:
Seems there are 2 types of people that go to the gym, those that go out of self loathing (that's me - surprised?), and those that go out of self admiration (that's why they have those big mirrors everywhere..).
The 30 yr old Samantha Morton was just not believable as 16 yr old Deborah Curtis in the movie Control, although Sam Riley was a dead ringer for Ian Curtis. Like most rock band movies, it focused disappointingly little on the creative process and more on the personalities. Quite a different view of Tony Wilson than you got with 24 Hour Party People though.
Many people have compared MDID to J.D. a lot over the years. And where I admit the obvious musical references in the single note guitar lines and simple drumming, (It was upon hearing JD that I realized "hey I could do that") I've always felt like MDID's influences were more midwestern US than northern UK. JD's music seemed strangely alien and distant in the world of late 70's punk. I think it's the production of Martin Hannett that gave Curtis' voice that horror-movie croon, and made an average band sound completely new with the odd EQ's on the drums, the up-front bass and the scratchy in the next building guitar sounds. JD would have been a completely different (and very likely much less well known) band without his production. I know he's passed on but anyone know of any film or books of Hannett describing how he got the sounds he got on JD records?
A couple other shows on the horizon over the next few months.. pls check the MySpace page for updates...
A few new songs in the can and hopefully a new CD by the end of the year.. As we get decent demo versions I'll probably post a couple at MySpace too...
Other random thoughts:
Seems there are 2 types of people that go to the gym, those that go out of self loathing (that's me - surprised?), and those that go out of self admiration (that's why they have those big mirrors everywhere..).
The 30 yr old Samantha Morton was just not believable as 16 yr old Deborah Curtis in the movie Control, although Sam Riley was a dead ringer for Ian Curtis. Like most rock band movies, it focused disappointingly little on the creative process and more on the personalities. Quite a different view of Tony Wilson than you got with 24 Hour Party People though.
Many people have compared MDID to J.D. a lot over the years. And where I admit the obvious musical references in the single note guitar lines and simple drumming, (It was upon hearing JD that I realized "hey I could do that") I've always felt like MDID's influences were more midwestern US than northern UK. JD's music seemed strangely alien and distant in the world of late 70's punk. I think it's the production of Martin Hannett that gave Curtis' voice that horror-movie croon, and made an average band sound completely new with the odd EQ's on the drums, the up-front bass and the scratchy in the next building guitar sounds. JD would have been a completely different (and very likely much less well known) band without his production. I know he's passed on but anyone know of any film or books of Hannett describing how he got the sounds he got on JD records?
Sunday, September 30, 2007
End of September
Spent at the Carrboro Music Fest today, enjoying the sweet southern tones of The Kingsbury Manx behind the town hall on a beautiful sunny day.. A most pleasant way to wrap up the summer months. The Manx is great live, and I tip my hat to them despite their lack of response to my fan email to their My Space page.
I've recently become aware that most of the MDID digital catalog except for the Homestead stuff is now up at E-Music, Insound, Rhapsody, Yotta Music, M-Traks, Virgin Digital (for you Brits), MTV-3.fi (for you Finns), FNAC Music (for you French), Musicload (for you Germans), and god knows how many other MP3 download sites out there.. so now you have no excuses for not being able to find the music!... (Except fot the Homestead stuff - which of course you can still get here)
Keep an eye on our own My-Space page for a few unreleased goodies popping up now and then.. Right now you can hear the only song on the Hello CD that was not re-released, an apocalyptic party number called Dark Age Revival.
Also thanks to Tom Gatzen in CT for a 1991 Record store video.. We'll try to get a song up from that sometime soon on the You Tube. Still to be converted are vids from a show in Germany in 1989, one in Nashville in 1995, and a couple of others from the early days. I'll renew my call for anyone that has video footage of the band to pls email me at the link to the left.
Thanks also to all those who emailed with your support re: my brief illness and hospital stay in Sept. Not entirely out of the woods yet in that regard, but will know more after this coming week.
I've recently become aware that most of the MDID digital catalog except for the Homestead stuff is now up at E-Music, Insound, Rhapsody, Yotta Music, M-Traks, Virgin Digital (for you Brits), MTV-3.fi (for you Finns), FNAC Music (for you French), Musicload (for you Germans), and god knows how many other MP3 download sites out there.. so now you have no excuses for not being able to find the music!... (Except fot the Homestead stuff - which of course you can still get here)
Keep an eye on our own My-Space page for a few unreleased goodies popping up now and then.. Right now you can hear the only song on the Hello CD that was not re-released, an apocalyptic party number called Dark Age Revival.
Also thanks to Tom Gatzen in CT for a 1991 Record store video.. We'll try to get a song up from that sometime soon on the You Tube. Still to be converted are vids from a show in Germany in 1989, one in Nashville in 1995, and a couple of others from the early days. I'll renew my call for anyone that has video footage of the band to pls email me at the link to the left.
Thanks also to all those who emailed with your support re: my brief illness and hospital stay in Sept. Not entirely out of the woods yet in that regard, but will know more after this coming week.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Another one bites the dust
I've officially sold the last CD copies of Everyone Wants the Honey, Shiner, and Chopping Down the Family Tree, so you can now add these to the out of print MDID catalog. 'Tis a shame. H0wever, all are still available for download at I-Tunes and E-Music.
Hasn't been a whole lot going on band-wise, which I"m sure you've figured out via the lack of posting these last couple of months.
Haven't given up the ghost quite yet, but the muse is on an extended vacation for the time being.
Hasn't been a whole lot going on band-wise, which I"m sure you've figured out via the lack of posting these last couple of months.
Haven't given up the ghost quite yet, but the muse is on an extended vacation for the time being.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Chapel Hill
Thanks to all the homies that showed up for our Local 506 show on the 27th. It was lots of fun, sweaty, loud, string breaking rock action. It was also cool to play some of the oldies again, although I chickened out on the songs off "Everyone Wants the Honey" because they just wouldn't sound the same without Matt and Shayne. Thanks also to Tim for guitar work and Laura for booming drums on her new invisible kit. I still haven't found a way to match the set prep with the peppering of shouted requests. They are always for the songs we didn't practice. Ultimately I should probably try and fill up Mr. Roboto's positronic brain with some version of every song I've ever done (supposedly he can hold up to 500 songs...) to satisfy the cravings of the average show-deprived MDID fan. J videotaped some of it... We'll try to get one or two up on the You Tube eventually...
Fun with an arm gas
Geez, you could waste an afternoon on this. I think its pretty funny that a My Dad Is Dead anagram is "Dad Dismayed", which I'm sure he is, wherever he is, that I chose that for a band name all those yrs ago. Personally I like "Dadaism Dyed" the best..
Then again, it's kinda creepy that "One of the Worst Presidents Ever" produces "One then woes for desert vets, RIP".
Then again, it's kinda creepy that "One of the Worst Presidents Ever" produces "One then woes for desert vets, RIP".
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Bumps
Time flies... a few bumps in the road as far as getting the "rarities" compile done.. seems all the 'master' CD's I created have some sound issues.. not sure yet if it's the recorder or the media, but in any case, I wasted about 40 hours compiling material onto what ended up being unusable masters. Since the band will be playing a few shows again this spring/summer, and hopefully recording new songs, the whole rarities/compile thing has been put on the back burner for the moment.
The good that came out of it is finally the conversion of the few videotaped concerts I had into a digital format. I went through the self taught learning curve and got a couple things up on the You Tube. More will be forthcoming, but the transfer/upload of each file takes an afternoon, so it will take some time.... By the way, I've had a couple of folks in comments offer to get me copies of videotaped concerts, one in Chapel Hill in 1991 and another record store concert somewhere in Connecticut.... I would still very much like to have those, and any others that may be out there.. Please email me at the link on the left.
Thanks to all those that attended our Cle show in March.. It was very nice to see some friendly faces and play a lot of the older tunes again. We're working on getting a live drummer for the whole set in Chapel Hill in May, hope it works out.. otherwise Mr. Roboto will heed the call.
The good that came out of it is finally the conversion of the few videotaped concerts I had into a digital format. I went through the self taught learning curve and got a couple things up on the You Tube. More will be forthcoming, but the transfer/upload of each file takes an afternoon, so it will take some time.... By the way, I've had a couple of folks in comments offer to get me copies of videotaped concerts, one in Chapel Hill in 1991 and another record store concert somewhere in Connecticut.... I would still very much like to have those, and any others that may be out there.. Please email me at the link on the left.
Thanks to all those that attended our Cle show in March.. It was very nice to see some friendly faces and play a lot of the older tunes again. We're working on getting a live drummer for the whole set in Chapel Hill in May, hope it works out.. otherwise Mr. Roboto will heed the call.
Friday, January 12, 2007
If Sonic Youth can do it...
Regular readers of this blog will know that I've toyed for awhile with releasing a live/rarities compilation. For the rarities, many of the better ones are already posted for free on the site. However, there are still some studio recordings that haven't seen the light of day yet. For the live material, problem is that much of the quality of what's available is not so great. Even if the performances are energetic, or different enough from the recorded versions, the sound quality of the live tapes is often abysmal, mostly recorded on hand-held devices. However, seeing as how these are the only recordings of MDID in the 80's that exist (to my knowledge - I also put out a call to everyone reading for copies of any live recordings/videos to please contact me, which yielded nothing that I didn't already have..) I suppose I shouldn't rule out that some fans out there might not be interested in them. So..... I'm posting 3 examples of live tunes in the quality representative of what I have. If you would be interested in hearing more.. pls add your notes in the comments, or email me.. Ultimately what I'm aiming for is a limited edition double CD (probably 300-500), one with rarities and studio outtakes and one with these live performances, and hopefully a decent sized booklet.
Mother and Child This one was recorded on the last show of the Pixies tour, in Denver.
Time Has Come Today Recorded in May of 1990 in Cleveland, Peabody's Down Under, opening for Throwing Muses
Whirlpool Recorded sometime in 1989 on tour with Prisonshake. Not sure of city.
Mother and Child This one was recorded on the last show of the Pixies tour, in Denver.
Time Has Come Today Recorded in May of 1990 in Cleveland, Peabody's Down Under, opening for Throwing Muses
Whirlpool Recorded sometime in 1989 on tour with Prisonshake. Not sure of city.
