Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Pre Order the new CD
The new CD is finally being shipped on Friday.. I should have them by the middle of next week... it may take up to a month or two before you will see any show up in your local record stores though, as many distributor's schedules are slotted into November. We'll use the time getting as many copies out to radio and press as we can. However, you can buy it directly from here right now (and don't be shy about checking out the back catalog either!). I'll ship them to you as soon as I get them next week. Yeah it's a buck more than the previous CD's up there, but this is mostly due to the more expensive digi-pak covers and the multi-staged recording process which ended up costing more than the manufacturing did. I'll set up a PO Box again for paper checks if I get enough emails from those who are still wary about Paypal or internet purchasing...
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Heritage Artists
People often ask who my "influences" are in a musical sense. While many point to Joy Division (I've frankly never heard that much of them in my own music), here's a couple of others that are still kicking (or kicking again as the case may be for 25 years, incredibly, only 5 yrs longer than MDID has been a "band")
Echo and the Bunnymen - their new LP is called Siberia and it's out later this month. Scenestars.net is streaming it in it's entirety for a limited time, along with the new
Gang of Four - Their new LP, out in October is Return the Gift.
While impressive upon first listen, the Echo LP doesn't stand up for me on repeated listening, although I do like tracks 03, 05, 09 and 10 quite a bit, which is about 400% more songs than I liked off Flowers (they hearken back a bit to Heaven Up Here, my favorite Echo LP back in the day, although if I ever pull out Echo now, it's usually Crocodiles, and Will Seargant's guitar sounds as good as it's sounded in a long time)
Gang of 4 has employed an interesting concept (that I've toyed with briefly and even employed myself a bit in the Shiner CD..) in re-recording 12 songs from Entertainment and Solid Gold, and the 2 "good" songs off of Songs of the Free for this new record. It's fun for the fan to listen to, but it's hard to improve on those old classics. It's definitely "bigger" and maybe a little dirtier sounding, and for all those Bloc Party fans who never heard them in the day it'll be a big 'wow'. Can't say I care for the super trebly-rubber bandy sounding bass, tho'. It's amazing how perfectly they still play these songs.. I can't remember how to play half the songs on my first few records. Versions that stood out for me were those of Not Great Men, Anthrax, What We All Want, Ether. Disappointments: No "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" (my favorite G of 4 song) and no "I Found that Essence Rare", an omission that I find a little mind-boggling. We do have our tix for the Chapel Hill show next month already. I've only seen them live once one other time, on the Solid Gold tour in 1982 or 1983. I was completely blown away by their frenetic performance. We'll see if the years have done them good.
Echo and the Bunnymen - their new LP is called Siberia and it's out later this month. Scenestars.net is streaming it in it's entirety for a limited time, along with the new
Gang of Four - Their new LP, out in October is Return the Gift.
While impressive upon first listen, the Echo LP doesn't stand up for me on repeated listening, although I do like tracks 03, 05, 09 and 10 quite a bit, which is about 400% more songs than I liked off Flowers (they hearken back a bit to Heaven Up Here, my favorite Echo LP back in the day, although if I ever pull out Echo now, it's usually Crocodiles, and Will Seargant's guitar sounds as good as it's sounded in a long time)
Gang of 4 has employed an interesting concept (that I've toyed with briefly and even employed myself a bit in the Shiner CD..) in re-recording 12 songs from Entertainment and Solid Gold, and the 2 "good" songs off of Songs of the Free for this new record. It's fun for the fan to listen to, but it's hard to improve on those old classics. It's definitely "bigger" and maybe a little dirtier sounding, and for all those Bloc Party fans who never heard them in the day it'll be a big 'wow'. Can't say I care for the super trebly-rubber bandy sounding bass, tho'. It's amazing how perfectly they still play these songs.. I can't remember how to play half the songs on my first few records. Versions that stood out for me were those of Not Great Men, Anthrax, What We All Want, Ether. Disappointments: No "Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time" (my favorite G of 4 song) and no "I Found that Essence Rare", an omission that I find a little mind-boggling. We do have our tix for the Chapel Hill show next month already. I've only seen them live once one other time, on the Solid Gold tour in 1982 or 1983. I was completely blown away by their frenetic performance. We'll see if the years have done them good.
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Right or wrong it won't matter long...
Work is progressing on the CD.. got the cover art proofs approved and sent off this week. Still hoping to get the CD's in by end of September.
Meanwhile, here's the title track.
Yesterday's issue was all about the money.
I heard a joke but it really wasn't funny.
I found something but it can't be what I'm after.
It's just a bunch of lies hiding in some laughter.
Seems some people are living out their dream now
at the expense of the 90th percentile.
Seeing life through a rose colored looking glass.
Do your part to perpetuate a lower class.
We didn't hire you to mess up our society.
We don't care about appearances of piety.
Your religious is the practice of deception.
Worship manipulation of perception.
Can't we stop acting like kids fighting all the time?
Choosing up sides until there's no one in the middle.
Politicians lost in a maze of the hypocritical.
Selling common sense on the street for a nickel.
Couldn't find a buyer for my hammer and sickel.
Lots of little Hitlers running on the loose everywhere.
Final solutions are a dime a dozen if you care.
History doesn't matter 'cause we'll all be dead anyway.
If we speed the rapture maybe they will all fly away.
We didn't hire you to mess up our society.
We don't care about appearances of piety.
Your religion is the practice of deception.
Worship manipulation of perception.
Can't we stop acting like kids fighting all the time?
Right or wrong it won't matter long,
A divided house cannot be strong.
For those that care, here's a line by line "songwriter's commentary" on the above...
Meanwhile, here's the title track.
Yesterday's issue was all about the money.
I heard a joke but it really wasn't funny.
I found something but it can't be what I'm after.
It's just a bunch of lies hiding in some laughter.
Seems some people are living out their dream now
at the expense of the 90th percentile.
Seeing life through a rose colored looking glass.
Do your part to perpetuate a lower class.
We didn't hire you to mess up our society.
We don't care about appearances of piety.
Your religious is the practice of deception.
Worship manipulation of perception.
Can't we stop acting like kids fighting all the time?
Choosing up sides until there's no one in the middle.
Politicians lost in a maze of the hypocritical.
Selling common sense on the street for a nickel.
Couldn't find a buyer for my hammer and sickel.
Lots of little Hitlers running on the loose everywhere.
Final solutions are a dime a dozen if you care.
History doesn't matter 'cause we'll all be dead anyway.
If we speed the rapture maybe they will all fly away.
We didn't hire you to mess up our society.
We don't care about appearances of piety.
Your religion is the practice of deception.
Worship manipulation of perception.
Can't we stop acting like kids fighting all the time?
Right or wrong it won't matter long,
A divided house cannot be strong.
For those that care, here's a line by line "songwriter's commentary" on the above...
A divided house can not be strong
Back in town after a couple of weeks in Cle working at the job that allows me to keep perenially losing money on this thing I call a band... I'm always nervous enough about traveling, but it seems like major catastrophes often happen while I'm away from where ever I call home. From 9/11 to Tiannemen Square to the LA Riots, all have happened while I was away from home for an extended period of time, and now comes Katrina. I am, like many, in shock that the aftermath of such a well anticipated catastrophe could have been allowed to spiral so deeply out of control. If ever there was any more evidence needed that we live in a class-based society, and that unrestrained capitalism is a heartless, cold and cruel bitch, now we have it. The majority of people left in New Orleans are there because they had nowhere to go, and no money to go with. FEMA director's Mike Brown's classic blaming the victim, in which he says those that "chose to stay" in New Orleans didn't make a good choice, alarmingly illuminates how out of touch our current government is with the very nature of being poor. Being poor means you have NO CHOICE or severely limited ones only. These people don't own 4WD SUV's, summer homes in the north, money for airline or bus or train tickets, or extended families in other states to which they can escape. What happened in New Orleans is a direct result of the current government's desire to create a society in which it's every man/woman/child for himself/herself. They simply do not believe that government has a role in providing for the common good, nor protecting the disadvantaged, taking care of the sick and elderly, protecting the environment for future generations, or in uniting the country. Their current focus is all about protecting the wealth and aristocracy of a limited number of "succesful" businessmen and women, along with untethered lottery capitalism that allows a small percentage of the society to amass obscene amounts of wealth and privilege, while leaving the vast majority of us all to provide the replaceable labor to support the glittering palace.
What should scare the bejeesus out of everyone (the glitterati included) is that we've had 4 years since 9/11, (the event that Republicans say, like a lock groove at the end of a record, "changed everything") and nothing has changed in terms of our preparedness to deal with a mass casualty, mass infrastructure disrupting event. This kind of event (natural though it may be instead of "terrorism" based) is exactly what the freshly minted Department of Homeland Security was supposed to be preparing for. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that their preparedness stops after all the people with means to escape have been advised to do so. This is so much worse than 9/11 because we had several days warning of the actual impending event, not to mention decades of weather studies that warned of the catastrophe that would occur with a Category 4 or higher hurricane in the Gulf region. Everyone could see the giant thing heading straight for us on the weather map. Of course, after the either profoundly stupid or intentionally misleading and manipulative statement that "no one anticipated the levees would fail", the president will appear in photo ops hugging victims, what's left of the National Guard that's not in Iraq will roll in and shoot some looters, everyone will hurry on line and pull their credit cards out of their wallets to help the cause, but nothing will really change. The day after the "Labor Day" holiday Republicans will dominate the Congress' time with the repeal of the aristocracy tax, ensuring that a few thousand young Americans will never have to work a single day in their lives, thanks to the lucky and ruthless "business decisions" made by their forebears, and the whole process will repeat yet again with the next storm or terror attack.
What should scare the bejeesus out of everyone (the glitterati included) is that we've had 4 years since 9/11, (the event that Republicans say, like a lock groove at the end of a record, "changed everything") and nothing has changed in terms of our preparedness to deal with a mass casualty, mass infrastructure disrupting event. This kind of event (natural though it may be instead of "terrorism" based) is exactly what the freshly minted Department of Homeland Security was supposed to be preparing for. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that their preparedness stops after all the people with means to escape have been advised to do so. This is so much worse than 9/11 because we had several days warning of the actual impending event, not to mention decades of weather studies that warned of the catastrophe that would occur with a Category 4 or higher hurricane in the Gulf region. Everyone could see the giant thing heading straight for us on the weather map. Of course, after the either profoundly stupid or intentionally misleading and manipulative statement that "no one anticipated the levees would fail", the president will appear in photo ops hugging victims, what's left of the National Guard that's not in Iraq will roll in and shoot some looters, everyone will hurry on line and pull their credit cards out of their wallets to help the cause, but nothing will really change. The day after the "Labor Day" holiday Republicans will dominate the Congress' time with the repeal of the aristocracy tax, ensuring that a few thousand young Americans will never have to work a single day in their lives, thanks to the lucky and ruthless "business decisions" made by their forebears, and the whole process will repeat yet again with the next storm or terror attack.
