MDID

Out and about

2010-02-20T00:49:00.003-05:00

MDID will be appearing at a few different places in March... you can hear an interview and some tunes on the radio in Cle (or on the internets) on Sunday night March 7 with Jim Benson on Inner Sanctum, a live performance on WCSB on Friday March 12th at 11 am, a show at the Beachland Tavern that Friday night, with old friends the Lawton Brothers, and then a SXSW appearance March 17 at Habana Calle 6. Hope to see you there!

Living in the Past

2010-01-07T01:57:00.003-05:00

Found this tape while digging around for some old MDID stuff, and thought, why not? Nobody else is gonna post this stuff. Riot Architecture, 1984. The songs had no titles, mostly because the songs had no lyrics. This band was one great singer away from fame and fortune. Tim's "helicopter guitar" in this one was a showstopper in the few actual shows we played.

Track 11

And here's an MDID track from the PLM sessions that was never used... mostly because of the riff similarity (realized in hindsight) to a Sex Pistols song...along with the weird dropout halfway through..

No Future

Less cranky

2009-12-17T13:10:00.002-05:00

Jonathan has some good suggestions in the comments, some we have already incorporated. We've definitely had more success with blogs writing about the band, but most of the posts focus on the "glory" i.e. Homestead days, and sometimes blog writers, free spirits as they are, frown on "hey look at me" emails, if they even publish contact info.

I think it doesn't work to our advantage that most of our notoriety such as it was occurred in pre-internet days. I think by default we have been connecting more and more directly with folks over the last few years. Much of that is by necessity for the fans who really like the music enough to pursue it though, and keep checking in during long periods of inactivity. The internet age has opened up a lot of doors, but not everyone has time to look behind all those doors to find one little CD by a band they liked once upon a time.

I mainly just meant to comment on how inffective the "traditional" promotional routes are these days for a band that hasn't passed the Pitchfork test. There's certainly nothing wrong with option B below, which is the most likely future course for the band.

Having my music roots in pre-internet times is what also has me resistant to giving up the physical medium, i.e. CD. Obviously the costs go down by a factor of 5 if the physical medium is discarded. It's not that cost has been that much of an issue recently. I'm lucky that at the moment my well-being is not threatened by a 5-7k annual loss on band activities, like it seriously was in the late 80's and early 90's. But I do feel bad for those who would feel that pinch more severely.

I have no illusions or desires for widespread success of MDID. After 25 years and 13 records, I am capable of learning!. I recognize that in the heirarchy of things that matter, whether or not MDID goes on is not going to make a huge difference in too many people's lives. I also recognize that if I want to make more people aware of the fact that I still write songs, songs that maybe they might appreciate hearing, I have to work harder at making and keeping connections, posting things more regularly, writing more music more often, taking more chances with live shows. I think I just need to decide whether it matters enough to me to keep doing all those things...

Cranky

2009-12-16T23:31:00.002-05:00

2 months and 200 promos later and the result is a literal handful of reviews and maybe 25 stations having played the record once or twice, along with a few copies for sale on E-bay, complete with the one sheet.

Seriously, doesn't seem to be a point these days trying to self "promote" anything. Things from an "industry" perspective are worse off now than they were 25 years ago for the individual in that regard. At least in the 80's you could send out a hundred "press promos" and actually get back 25 or 30 reviews. Now, as it was prior to the "indie rock" revolution, there's only a few major players that drive the hot or not bus. Only now they are online rather than in print. I've got some thinking to do over the next year about whether it even makes sense to manufacture anything anymore. It's the old tree falling in the forest thing.. I still happen to think the last 2 records were very good records.. but only a couple hundred people even know they exist, and I'm pretty sure the boxes of both I have in the closet will outlive me.

So what's next? The choices seem to be

a) start a new band
b) keep MDID going only for my own amusement and a small circle of friends and dedicated fans, forgetting about putting out CD's and playing live.
c) pack it in finally and sell all my shit,

You can probably tell from the tone of my post which one I'm leaning towards today.

THANKS

2009-11-26T09:31:00.004-05:00

Among many of the things I have to be thankful for are the few hundred dedicated fans who keep coming back, even after years of waiting for some new music. You all are the best, the reason I keep recording despite the general lack of interest from the world at large. So for you folks, a special little Thanksgiving treat in the form of a digital only EP.. This contains 2 non-LP tracks from the New Clear Route sessions. Here to Stay, a love song to the #1 person I have to be thankful for, my loving and patient wife Jeanne. Sanity On the Run - a hate song for all those over the last decade who've thought the abandonment of the very principles that supposedly make the U.S.a human rights example for the rest of the world was the right thing to do, and third, a blast from the past.. Our version of one of my very favorite VU songs, recorded live in Bremen Germany in 1989.

There is a little trick to the treat though. To get the link for the EP, look on the underside of your A New Clear Route CD. Right after the "replicated by" acknowledgement, there's a 7 digit alphanumeric code. The link to the EP is http://www.mydadisdead.com/code.: , where you would replace the word "code" with the 7 digit code you find near the center of the underside of the CD. Hint: All alpha characters should be in CAPS. If you've bought the CD from a digital vendor, email me at the link on the left for the code.

Stay tuned for more plans for free stuff for the upcoming 25th year MDID anniversary celebration, including a "re-envisioning" of the very first LP, more rarities and live stuff, along with other plans in the works.

To the virtual world...

2009-11-12T16:32:00.000-05:00

The new CD is available now 0n I-Tunes, E-Music and other MP3 download providers..

After nearly 4 weeks, finally feeling about 90% of normal.. voice still sounds slightly damaged, but coming back.. So sorry to have missed the Ohio shows at the end of October.

A New Clear Route Release Date

2009-08-29T13:13:00.002-04:00

So the release date is going to officially be October 15. J is finishing up the artwork and should get everything off to the plant by next week so we should have the CD's in hand by the end of Sept. You can check out a preview of half the LP at the MDID radio link on the main page. (or just click here) .

Already have some new tunes in the works, so hopefully there won't be a 4 year gap on the next one!. Still not sure how I managed to put out a record a year (and sometimes 2!) back in the 80's and early 90's.

Here's a quick quiz for all of you.. We've toyed with the idea of making a vinyl version of this release, but it's ridiculously expensive to make... how many of you would be willing to pay in the neighborhood of $20 for a vinyl copy?

Updates

2009-06-07T15:37:00.002-04:00

Ok.. by now a lot of you are probably wondering what's going on with that new record I previewed on MySpace a few months ago..., so I thought it's time for an update. Basically we've been in a "Polvo delay" the last few months.

I hear the new stuff they're doing is incredible, at least in terms of composition and setting new records in multi-tracking, but as a result it's taking far longer to complete than was first anticipated, pushing Mr. Paulson's schedule further and further behind and thereby pushing the finishing of the MDID record to the back burner. I'm hearing that the tarp may be coming off soon and hopefully we can get our little thing finished by the end of June, which probably puts us on track for an October/November release date. (there's the mastering, manufacturing, cover prep, promotional work etc all to be done before the thing can actually "come out" ), Plus there's at least a 4 month delay in getting it on I-Tunes etc.

In the meantime I've been doing some home re-recording of a few songs from the very first record, with an eye towards a 25th anniversary remake of that LP. Haven't decided yet if I'll actually sell it or just make it available online for anyone who wants it.

By they way, you can hear one of the remade songs, "The Quiet Man" on the new Pox World Empire Compulation III CD.

The new Star Trek movie? Meh, it was entertaining enough, with all it's little winks and nods to the old TV series, but it just didn't give me the impression of a lasting re-boot for the franchise. Besides, I couldn't get past seeing the evil Siler from Heroes every time the new Mr. Spock came on screen.

The local "art house" theaters (2 out of the 3 remaining screens in Chapel Hill that play "indie" movies") are currently up for sale with the owners being coy about whether they have potential buyers. My favorite video rental chain (Visart) has closed 2 out of it's 3 local locations, leaving only Carrboro open. The owners blame Youtube, Hulu, Netflix, Widescreen HDTV, and the rise of cable company "on demand" movies for drastic dropoffs in movie tickets and video rentals. (Yes, we are guilty of contributing, The ease of selecting an HD movie for the same price you paid at the video store without the whole "late fees" thing, which I invariably ended up incurring, was just too convenient.) We tried to make up for it a bit this past week by driving (well Jeanne drove) to the Carrboro store and renting the first 3 seasons of Weeds, which we watched all in the space of about a week and a half. Mildly entertaining ensemble show that tries to be "shocking" and funny but there's a bit to much suburban desperation and not enough laughs. I found it hard to sympathize with the drug dealing MILF lead character, and never being a regular pot smoker, didn't pick up on all the winky wacky weed references. This is definitely one of these that's better to watch several in a row.. not sure if it would hold up for me as a weekly half hour.

Anyway all these closings are just another reminder that it's a changing world out there for the creators and producers of all entertainment "products" , not just music. I think I know now how folks must have felt in the 50's as television gradually replaced radio as the home entertainment of choice. My dad was a casualty of that, being forced out of his job as a radio engineer in the 50's. He actually took to repairing TV's for awhile (he was a man who could change with the times!, but when tubes were replaced with solid state condensers, technology won it's battle over him and he got out of the "entertainment" business altogether.)

Unfotunately my business requires me to work in front of a computer all day long so I'm not eager to have computer delivered content also dominate my leisure time.

I'll miss the dusty video store even more then the musty theaters, both of which suffered from a bit of a lack of, shall we say, "modernization"

Oh, and by the way, get off my lawn.

15 records that definitely changed my life

2009-02-21T23:16:00.003-05:00

(copied from Facebook page)

I’m always late to the party on these kinds of things.. my version has some why to it.
WIXY 1260 http://www.wixy1260.com/

Ok, it’s not a record, but a radio station. When I was 5 I got an AM transistor radio for a Christmas (or birthday – don’t remember) present. The radio was glued to my ear just about 24 hours a day with 1260 on the dial, (except for when the Indians were on, of course). At one point I entered one of the promotional contests and actually got on the air. Wish I had a tape of that! They don’t make stations like this anymore, deeply imbedded in the local community, with local talent, local promotions, and local ads.

The James Gang – I Don’t Have the Time b/w Fred

The first record I ever bought with my own money, from Giant Tiger, for 50 cents. I was 8. I think I listened to it about 50 straight times when I got home. I liked I Don’t Have the Time, but the B side “Fred” blew my little 8 yr old ears away…You can hear the echoes of it in my music to this day.

Credence Clearwater Revival – Proud Mary b/w Born on the Bayou

I danced around to this and sang it endlessly without having any idea it was about a steamboat. The band earned lots more of my quarters over the next couple of years, with Fortunate Son, Green River, Up Around the Bend, and Bad Moon Rising.

Led Zeppelin – II

The first full LP I bought with my own money.. I don’t remember but I think it was around $5. I drove my mom crazy as a 9 yr old singing “Whole Lotta Love” again and again. That riff was stuck in my head like glue. It wasn’t until later that Robert Plant’s singing drove me nuts as well.

David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust

Don’t know what to say about it, other than it was unlike anything I had ever heard, and I listened to it constantly. It made me feel things a 13 year old probably shouldn’t feel.

Mott The Hoople – The Hoople

Having a paper route meant more money available for music buying.. this came out in 1974 but I think I bought it a year later.. smack dab in the middle of puberty.. this one, along with David Bowie’s followup to Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, made me feel funny in my pants.

Crack the Sky – Crack the Sky

Relatively obscure by some standards, but this record actually won Rolling Stone’s record of the year in 1975. It was a natural progression from glam to “classic” rock, and a pretty unique sound… It opened the door for me to other similar bands like Be Bop Deluxe, Roxy Music etc.

Yes – Relayer

I bought other Yes records, but this is the one that I wore the grooves out on. None of my peers got it.. Songs that were 20 minutes long? I was 15 at this time.. an age for me that was full of confusion, self doubt, contrasted with visions of grandeur and possibility. This was a record you had to invest some time in to get to know it.. all those time signature changes, twists and turns, little vocal melodies that came and went, squalls of noise… tremendous cascading buildups followed by smooth pools of quiet reflection. I loved it…

Scorpions – Virgin Killer

Ok.. this is about life-changing records, not necessarily great ones.. This one started my “metal period”.. which lasted from about ’77 – ’80. I was a chubby pimply teen with no prospects of any kind for getting girls, and kinda angry about it. I got my first real job at a Grocery store in ’74 (yes I started working at 14 - had to get a work permit and all that).. and by '76 thanks to UFCW I was making around $10 an hour and suddenly had $$ to spend on all kinds of music.. most of which I wasted on Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, and other European metal that provided a lot of immediate gratification but grew stale after awhile. My metal obsession made me miss the entire punk revolution, and miss out on being a part of the “cool” crowd of Cle Punk in the late 70’s. This remained an issue in bands I played in later on.. as many of the punk crowd saw me as a Johnny come lately. Of all the types of music I’ve appreciated over the years, this type is the one I’ve least come back to, and a lot of these records sound embarrassingly dated today.. although I do still enjoy certain songs.. The Scorpions’ Coast to Coast or Sails of Charon for instance…

Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures

I was working at Cleveland State’s WCSB in ’79 doing a metal show when my now friend Tim joined the station, and gently but regularly pushed this record on me. At the time I thought punk was garbage. I didn’t respect it as music, and therefore anything remotely associated with “punk” I dismissed out of hand. I could write a long post about this at some point.. but suffice it to say that as I came to know and love this record, my metal obsession began to dissolve, and it opened the door to more and more of the “new wave” to creep in. JD spoke to me more directly and pointedly for where I was in my own life than any rock music had up to that point, and it made me feel like I had found a music that really “belonged” to me. I had bought a drum kit about a year ago and flailed around it a bit, trying to play Bill Bruford with the chops of a raw beginner.. but this record made me realize that you didn’t have to be a virtuoso to write and play good songs. Truly inspirational.

Wire – 154

This one melded the simplicity and atmospheric mood of what I heard in Joy Division with the complexity and melody of some of the earlier classic rock I loved. It brought me back to the 60’s somewhat.. interesting and inventive sounding guitars with really great vocal melodies.. It’s a desert island selection.

The Dream Syndicate – 12” EP (Down There version)

In the spring of 1982 I traveled to San Francisco to visit a teenage friend who had moved out there. It was the first time I had ever flown on a plane and the first time I had ever been out of the state of Ohio. It was a hugely memorable and influential trip for me, not only being in a different city (and SF is about as different as you can get from Cleveland in the U.S.) ..but I was still pretty excited about the “new wave” of music I had found with Joy Division, Wire and all the rest of the new “UK invasion”. I saw the Teardrop Explodes in concert there, and one of the first early shows of Faith No More at the Mabuhay Gardens. They were a pretty different band back then. I knew there was a Rough Trade office in SF and I made sure to stop there, and made other visits in my capacity as a college radio music director to Ralph Records (I distinctly remember a long hallway lined with black garbage bags and black lights) , and various record stores hunting for stuff I could take back to the station. It was at Rough Trade where I was turned on to what was being called the “new psychedelia” on the West Coast. A lot of the British new wave was hearkening back to 60’s stuff but this was a virtual flashback.. Dream Syndicate, Salvation Army, Rain Parade, Green on Red, Gun Club... They were all brand new and there was the excitement of a “movement” evident in the air. I brought a lot of those records back to Ohio and to the airwaves and like to think I played my little part in kick starting their fame in the Midwest! It was a turning point for me as I started to drift away from the UK bands as many of them shifted their focus to the “new disco”… it was perfect timing for me.

Various Artists – They Pelted us with Rocks and Garbage

A pretty diverse and accurate document of the Cleveland Music scene, circa 1984-85. This is the first time I made my own appearance on vinyl, playing drums for the band Riot Architecture. RA was the 2nd band I’d been in, the first (Thermos of Happiness) having gained some local notoriety and infamy as the first local band emulating the British new wave..we got equal amounts of scorn from the punk crowd and admiration from the Anglophiles. TOH eventually “released” a cassette of Lo-Fi live and 4T recordings, but they weren’t heard by more than a few people. RA was even less popular. A band with a ton of unrealized potential, we practiced weekly in the basement of my house on 115th st in Cleveland, often shaking loose the plaster from the basement ceiling… our best work was done in the presence of only the 4 of us, unfortunately. A 24 track studio recording of over 10 songs went unfinished, and though there were rumors that guitarist Dave Stitz had some amazing practice tapes in his possession.. these never saw the light of day either.

My Dad is Dead – And He’s Not Gonna Take it Anymore

Is this cheating? It really did change my life. Started me down the road of eventually visiting all 50 states and several countries, playing my music for appreciative and not so appreciative audiences. This record was in the works for a couple of years.. Listening these days, It’s kinda charming in it’s amateurishness. You should have heard the really embarrassing stuff that didn’t make it to this record. The friends I can count on the fingers of one hand know what I’m talking about…

Dursun Ozdil – Yikilmasin Insanlik

In 1989 we got the opportunity to tour Europe (mostly Germany) as part of a Homestead “package” tour with Happy Flowers and Bastro. Bastro had stolen John McEntire from us by this point, but it didn’t matter.. he was a better “fit” with them, .. and with him in the band they totally rocked out more than ever.. Besides, by that point we had found Scotty P, who would return again and again to record and tour with us.. anyway.. it was during this tour upon a visit to a Hamburg train station that I had my first exposure to Turkish music. There’s a large Turkish ex-pat population in Germany, and the train stations were filled with kiosks selling tapes of all kinds. In one particular Kiosk I heard blaring out of a cheap boombox a strange combination of what sounded like Big Black drum machine plus a really droney acoustic guitar and some of the most mournful vocals I’d ever heard.. It was immediately addictive. I didn’t speak any German at the time and the Kiosk owner spoke no English, so we had a comical interaction in which he kept trying to sell me American disco music and I kept trying to convince him that the Turkish stuff was what I really was interested in.. Ultimately I left there with about 10 tapes at the absurdly cheap price of about $2 each. I love the sound of the saz to this day, and thanks to my wife, now own an authentic Turkish saz, which I employed heavily on the upcoming record…

Ok.. well that’s 15, and I’ve run out of time… maybe in another post I’ll list the tons of amazing records I’ve heard since the late 80’s. I’m sure that will include many Pixies records.. our tour with them in 1991 was a highlight of the bands “career”. … In the meantime, pls check out my current LP’s on rotation:

Black Taj – Beyonder
Wilderness – (K)no(W)here
The Fall – The complete Peel sessions
The Lines – Flood Bank (re-issue)
The Independent top 40 of Triangle Bands (if you want to know what’s going on in the Chapel Hill scene these days.. a good place to start.
http://www.indyweek.com/music/121008/tracks/indytop40of2008.zip

it's about time

2009-02-08T13:13:00.002-05:00

I posted a new blog here.. been posting more at the Myspace site lately, no particular reason...

The big news is that I just finished up the overdubs on the new stuff yesterday.. narrowed down the 15 dunes to an even dozen.. Brian begins mixing now and hopefully have something for y'all by June or so... I honestly have to say that I feel good about every single song.. can't say that's been true since EWTH.

Spent most of yesterday adding electric saz to several tracks. It's a Turkish instrument that Jeanne bought for me a couple of xmas's ago but I never had much of an opportunity to play.. It's not a particularly easy instrument to pick up for someone used to Western scales, but as Brian said.. "For a saz, that makes a great electric guitar".. It's difficult to keep in tune, and the narrow neck and tiny frets make it more difficult to play in a "guitar style".. Maybe someday I'll find an English language instructional video on the "proper" way to play it. But it has a great sound that definitely added the bow to the package on several tunes, especially "Sometimes I Feel", which has vaulted for me personally from the middle of the pack up to near the top... it's pretty different than the demo version posted earlier on Myspace.

Other random things:

It's been a bit of a struggle lately with the lupus..lots of strange rapidly appearing pains that last a day or two then disappear. Makes day to day living rather unpredictable. Can't wait for Obama to lift the ban on stem cell research.. it's one of the ways that the religious right negatively impacted my right to live, delaying important research for 8 long years and with it my hopes that a cure will be discovered in time for it to have some effect on my quality of life..

Sometimes I still can't believe that we have a President Obama. I think it's pretty telling that the media has suddenly discovered it's cajones again now that a Democrat is back in the White House. The whole Daschle thing incensed me from the standpoint that billions upon billions of dollars have been simply "lost" in Iraq with no investigation whatsover, but the media found time to write painstakingly detailed stories about Daschle's car service. anyway, all that's for another blog...

Saw Slumdog Millionaire.. can't see what all the hype is about. It's not bad I guess.. just was expecting to be more blown away based on all the reviews, and Danny Boyle being the director. Trainspotting was brilliant, and the 28 days and weeks movies were interesting to look at, if not particularly compelling story wise, and I really liked his under-seen 2007 SCI_FI flick Sunshine, but as Jon Stewart said.. it was one of the most depressing feel good movies of the year!. I mean I suppose that was the point, the story of a kid who basically had everything taken away from him eventually getting the millions and the girl of his dreams.. but I never felt like the movie built that relationship on much of anything more than their shared misery. With movies of this type, I always want to know what happens next? So he gets the girl, now what? Do they get married, have 1.5 kids, and live in the suburbs of Mumbai? Or does his insane childhood and adolescence of running/searching/surviving ensure that he will never be satisfied, and instead always looking for the next chase?

Also saw Zack and Miri make a porno last night on DVD... cute and funny.. a non-depressing feel good movie!. Two thumbs up for the "Lost" conversation among the cast/filmmakers while Zack and Miri were having their big sex scene.. "I don't know, theyre on the island, off the island, who can follow that shit...".. and 3 thumbs up for Tyler Labine's hilarious cameo as the drunk Steeler's fan. I've liked this guy on the 2 recent TV shows I've seen him in.. Invasion and Reaper (returning to TV in March - also with a Kevin Smith connection) - he gets some funny lines and delivers them with just the right mix of smart assery and dumbness..

More Awesome

2008-09-06T14:21:00.001-04:00

Awesome

2008-09-06T14:00:00.001-04:00

From yesterday's Hi Mom Film Fest in Carrborro....

New RNC them song

2008-09-06T13:41:00.002-04:00

Since Ann and Nancy Wilson have issued a cease and desist order to the Repbulican National Committee for usage of "Barracuda", maybe the RNC could approach these guys..

How's your price? What do you cost?
Your value, profit, or loss?
How's your skull? Does it fit?
Is your mind free, empty, or split?

a dugga dugga dugga indeed..

Secondhand Freespace

2008-08-30T11:57:00.003-04:00

I attended a panel discussion held at local 506 a couple days ago, hosted by a new loose "organization" called Secondhand Freespace

The panel was made up of 4 local club owners/bookers (Glenn from 506, Mouse from the Cave, Dayn from Jack Sprat, and Jenks from Nightlight.) and and the topic was generally how to get your band booked at a local club. I don't have a lot of skin in this game as MDID rarely plays live these days, and when we do it's usually some kind of special occasion where we normally don't have to "sell" our ability to bring quality alcoholics to shows. Still, I've felt less than involved in the local music scene than perhaps I should be given my decades of experience with the bullshit of it all, so I thought it was a good opportunity to mostly listen and get a pulse of the local club happenings.

First of all, the idea of having quarterly gatherings to discuss the current state of a local music scene is one I appreciate and commend. It's sometimes difficult to get people with diverse opinions all in the same room much less talking to each other. Anyway, what I took away from the discussion was:

Every promoter has his own way of doing things, and what "works" for some bookers is the very thing that will turn other bookers off completely. So don't try to figure them all out. Just don't lie about your capacity to fill their club.. (they ALL hated that…)
At least in this market, what mattered most to these club owners is whether you can bring bodies into the club. Not to say they were all totally jaded about music, but there was definitely a sense that the "giving a new band a chance" scenario works only a couple of times and by the third time you'd better have at least a couple dozen friends showing up at your gigs.
There's a sense that there was a "golden days" in Chapel Hill, I guess in the 90's, when bands like Polvo, Archers of Loaf etc, were at their peak. Some discussion was spent on how to "get that back" and basically how the UNC students don't care about live music like they did back then. I wasn't here to know, but my sense is that many of the local "scenes" I experienced in the 80's and 90's were loose conglomerations of a lot of unconnected things happening at the same time that only looked like a cohesive movement of some kind when viewed from far away.
"Schtick" goes a long way to generating an audience. Guess that's true for some. For me, the music has always been enough.. I don't need scenery, dancing girls, or performance art to augment the musical experience, but I realize that's just me.
I need to go out more. I appreciated the point made that if musicians want people to come to their shows, of course they should show up to others'.

No one seemed to talk about or notice the irony that Indie rockers (at least the ones I've known and met over the years) aren't exactly social butterflies. Also not discussed was the intense distaste some of us have for the profit motive in music.

I understand that running these clubs is these guys' jobs, but I found the whole discussion of "If you don't plaster your fliers on every available pole and stand out on the street handing out flyers, or if you're not out there on the streets somehow drumming up support then you're not working hard enough for me to book your band" anathema to how I've always approached music. I don't agree that it should be the musician's job to wear the salesman's leisure suit as well. Probably a good reason among many for why MDID never became "popular".

Still, 2 issues about this approach..

Some musicians are good musicians, but lousy businessmen. What does it say about our society that the lack of good business sense can keep these otherwise talented people from being heard, and enriching others' experiences of life? To me, the classic Republican "survival of the loudest" attitude when it comes to artists and musicians is one of the great negatives of unfettered capitalism as it exists in the U.S.. It's always disheartening to me to talk to musicians from other countries at festivals like SXSW and find out that their trips are subsidized by their governments' support for the arts. I ache for a time when my thousands of dollars of taxes go for paying artists to perform in other countries rather than bombs to kill them and their families. This country can be so utterly backward about some ideas.
Some great artists are very difficult people to be around. Don't have a lot of friends. Don't make me name names or look in a mirror. Again, should social connectedness drive the exposure level of a musician?

It seems maybe yes on a local scale at least.

What surprised me most was that there was relatively little discussion about live music being a dying dinosaur, which it definitely seems to be to me..

MDID audiences, which regularly numbered in the several hundreds in several cities (including right here in Chapel Hill, where we normally played the largest place in town, the Cat's Cradle when we came here) in the late 80's and early 90's, have steadily dwindled over the last decade, to the point where it's a damn good show if 50 people show up. Is that because my music was so much better back then? Believe me that thought has crossed my mind more than once. Is it because I'm not "working hard enough?". Maybe, but, regardless of whether it seems smug, I feel like I've "paid my dues" by dedicating 10 yrs of my life to the poverty of being exclusively in a band, before I had to get a real job, so there's certain things I'm just not going to do, and that includes standing on street corners hawking upcoming appearances. There ought to be some benefit to a "grizzled veteran" of the indie music scene besides the occasional outrageous fun of having to outline a 20 year career to someone that's never heard of you and why did you name your band "THAT" anyway?? Am I wrong to feel that way?

So you probably won't see a lot of MDID at your local club with any regularity, even though I think the new material we're writing now is quite good, and worth hearing. I do continue bugging Glenn now and then for an opportunity to play, but I also understand that we're not a "house packer" these days.

20.5 Things I'm Pretty Sure About

2008-04-17T18:43:00.001-04:00

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

SXSW

2008-02-19T22:03:00.003-05:00

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?

End of September

2007-09-30T21:35:00.000-04:00

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.

Another one bites the dust

2007-08-12T01:10:00.000-04:00

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.

Chapel Hill

2007-06-02T12:09:00.000-04:00

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

2007-06-02T12:01:00.000-04:00

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".

Bumps

2007-04-22T23:27:00.000-04:00

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.

If Sonic Youth can do it...

2007-01-12T23:09:00.000-05:00

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.

The Emerald City

2006-12-23T11:34:00.000-05:00

Just finished reading Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a Washington Post writer who spent nearly 2 years in Iraq from the time of the infamous felling of Saddam's statue to the end of the reign of the "Coatlition Provisional Authority". It's fascinating, disturbing and outrage-inducing reading. I'm sure those 30% out there who still support the war will find it offensive because of the truths it shares, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand how we got to be where we are in this conflict now.

The main keys to gaining employment for the CPA were loyalty to the Bush administration, and belief in certain conservative principles (anti-abortion, flat taxes etc..). The post-war plan consisted mostly of pie-in the sky ideas by 20 something conservatives, many of whom had never set foot outside the U.S. before, but were hired to help remake Iraq in the Bush administration's vision of America due to their connections to conservative think tanks and politicians. Their focus was on a grand-remaking of Iraq in an American Conservative utopia, rather than getting the country back on it's feet in a practical fashion. As a result, months and millions were wasted, resulting in rushed "solutions" so as to be ready to claim significant progress in time for the November 2004 elections.

Chandrasekaran ends several of the chapters with extremely telling anecdotal vignettes, from the Halliburton managers who ordered all cats in the Green Zone killed (supposedly for fear of disease, a fear not entirely justified according to a State Dept biologist who had spent time there), to the CPA staffer who declined offers of historical books on Iraq from native translators in favor of his dog-eared 1970's tourist guide to the country, about which he said, "Everything I need is in here". Perhaps my favorite of the vignettes was a joke written by CPA staffer Joshua Paul, as it seems to sum up the entire messed up situation...

Why did the Iraqi Chicken cross the road?

CPA:The fact that the chicken crossed the road shows that decision making authority has switched to the chicken in advance of the scheduled June 30th transition of power. From now on the chicken is responsible for its own decisions.

Halliburton:We were asked to help the chicken cross the road. Given the inherent risk of road crossing, and the rarity of chickens, this operation will only cost $326,004.

Muqtada as-Sadr:The chicken was a tool of the evil Coalition and will be killed.

US Army Military Police:We were directed to prepare the chicken to cross the road. As part of these preparations, individual soldiers ran over the chicken repeatedly, and plucked the chicken. We deeply regret the occurrence of any chicken rights violations.

Peshmerga (Kurdish militia):The chicken crossed the road, and will continue to cross the road, to show its independence and to transport the weapons it needs to defend itself. However, in future, to avoid problems, the chicken will be called a duck, and will wear a plastic bill.

1st Cavalry:The chicken had no right to cross the road as it did not have the correct identification. Thus, the chicken was searched and detained. We apologize for any embarrassment to the chicken.

Al Jazeera:The chicken was forced to cross the road multiple times at gunpoint by a large group of occupation soldiers, according to witnesses. The chicken was then fired upon intentionally, in yet another example of the abuse of innocent Iraqi chickens.

CIA:We cannot confirm or deny any involvement in the chicken-road-crossing incident.

Translators:Chicken he cross street because bad she tangle regulation. Future chicken table against my request.

Missing in Action

2006-10-28T12:40:00.000-04:00

Yeah, I know it's been awhile since the last post.. A lot of things keeping me busy and away from making music the last few months..some family related, some personal, but hopefully the chill autumn air will re-awaken the muse.

This October is a month full of anniversaries..

I passed Go for the 46th time, collected (almost) 300 MySpace "friends". Although a couple of mysteriously deleted profiles have the friend count back to 299. How much is a MySpace friend worth? More than a Monopoly dollar? I've had discussions with some of my non-virtual friends recently about the whole internet networking phenomenon, and whether any actual networking is actually taking place.

My wife also passed Go, the day after me, I'll play the gentleman and let you all guess how many times it is for her.

We enjoyed our 5th anniversary in October as well, and the day again was one of the coldest of the month for Chapel Hill, as it was in 2001. We had a wonderful and expensive dinner after which we were too full and sleepy to do anything else.

It's also the one year anniversary of my latest "baby" (all of my records are my babies) A Divided House, which just this past week officially passed the 300 mark in physical sales. It's a far cry from the number of CD's I used to sell in the 80's, but given the current marketplace conditions for a sole proprietor label with minimal airplay, no promotion, no video, no advertising, well, it's a tribute to all the MDID fans out there who have done the work to actively seek us out.

And, finally, of course, still to come, my wife's favorite holiday, Halloween. We'll be skipping the Franklin Street mayhem this year, although I'm toying with the idea of posting a picture of me in my Frylock costume from a couple of yrs ago on MySpace. ("Do I look fat in this honey?" "You're dressed as a box of french fries, how do you think you look?")

Oh, and for all of you in my former state, please do the right thing on Nov 7th and send that nutjob Blackwell to his political grave.

M. Night takes a bath

2006-07-23T15:29:00.000-04:00

Having been a fan of most of M.Night Shyamalan's previous efforts, (except for the last half or so of "Signs") my wife and I were excited to catch his latest in the local plex, "The Lady in the Water". Don't be fooled by the quick edits in the trailer, this one's scariest moments come when the sprinklers in the lawn start up. It's got lots of M.Night's common theme of ordinary people, who can in fact do extraordinary things, even though they would never believe themselves capable of them, but the over the top goofiness of the myth presented (when the lady, Story, announced herself to be a "Narf".. my wife and I giggled the remainder of the film about when she was going to "Narfle the Garthok") lessened the impact of any of the action taking place within. Being someone who's indeed very afraid of dogs, especially snarling, growling, teeth baring dogs, I still found the one made out of grass in this movie too cartoonish to arouse the fright it did in the major characters.) His earlier films, while still leaning on the extraordinary heroes hiding in ordinary bodies theme, were at least grounded in more "believeable" situations, and therefore, for me, carried more weight. Although I must admit it is a powerful scene when Paul Giamatti's character, (named "Cleveland Heep" in what must be another one of those inside Cle jokes that none of us born Clevelanders seem to be in on), realizes the only way he can help Story is to confront his own wrenching sadness over the death of his family. Critics seem to hate this movie for some reason, might have something to do with the know it all film critic that ends up being "Scrunt" food in what turns out to be the biggest laugh of the film.