More photos HERE»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»>

My right hand is all bruised from playing drunken bloody knuckles with Covey the other night.  Dumb.

So…a week ago I got a ‘get well’ card from “The GLC”.  Wasn’t sure what to make of it, butnow I’ve gotten email correspondence from them as well.  Turns out GLC stands for “Girls Love Cooley” (I thought it was “Good Luck Club”).  I’m down with it.  Random anonymous adoration is cool in my book, and just what I need, in fact.  Too bad I’ll probably never get to meet them, though, cause you know, Cooley loves girls, too.

It rains as we bomb. What a glorious morning, I’m happy again. (Ah, Debbie Reynolds coming back to mind … it’s been a week, lovely.) So we started playing again, this formation once known as POW, soon to be known as … something else. Any ideas? How does Wood Pussy sound to you (it’s archaic for skunk)? Or Black Beauty? Let us know what you think.

No matter. I really have nothing to say. Just wanted to put up this picture of Jason blowing a dusty trombone. What a setta …

A jawful of mouthwash … beloved, it is good. Something closer … may you and I and all of us face the mirror with dignity, may we pronounce our names with a simple clarity that bespeaks our perspicacity …

… and fucking A, can anyone hook me up with any Liquid Liquid?

…and there are bright moments, sure. Times when you hear it working, when you can tell what color it is, when the random tones strike a chord … and then you try to figure out the key, and it’s a fucking crap-shoot, like shooting fish or punching blindfolded. A white rook, a black knight, a double-twelve domino you’re stuck with when the Mexican Train folds. Do you still not get it? What I’m saying is that it’s a cakewalk if you’re stupid, it’s simple if you’re lucky, it’s easy if you’re blessed … and still most of us move slowly forward under the weight of the heaviest of palimpsests, the joy that knowingly shares it’s space with sorrow.

Or let me put it this way: it’s like a B string that won’t stay in tune … it feels so good playing it– so right being heard– you don’t really care that everyone else thinks it’s wrong.

1. vinyl first, if possible, unless the vinyl is ridiculously expensive (I felt like a real chump paying $24 for that last Boards of Canada LP)
2. must buy the record upon first sight, meaning have the money for the record and be able to purchase it the very first time you see it available in the store.  If you see it elsewhere first and don’t buy it, the record and your devotion to it are tainted.

Buying records on the exact dates they come out also helps me remember dates and times when things in my life and the world in general occurred.  For instance:

GBV’s “Alien Lanes” and Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee” came out around the time of the Oklahoma City bombing.  I was working at the Peking Duck House with Kochalka and playing bass in The Fags.  Spring, 1995

Breeders’ “Last Splash” came out when I was in-between apartments, depressed about possibly having to live with my mother again, depressed at her choice of new live-in boyfriend, depressed that my friends were doing heroin, happy that I was working at a movie theater, happy there was a new Breeders CD since the Pixies had broken up 7 months earlier. September, 1993

Sonic Youth, “Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star”…got the vinyl a week before the official release date.  Super-hot sunny day, living with a couple of burgeoning junkies I had recently met, record collection growing, getting into Half Japanese, Boredoms, Daniel Johnston, etc.  Mildly disappointed with the new Sonic LP.  Later that night our building burned to the ground. May, 1994

Sonic Youth, “Dirty”, Helmet, “Meantime”…fun, good summer…first “Real World” all over MTV as well as Pearl Jam and Nirvana.  High school was over and this would be the last summer living at home with parents.  A few weeks earlier I had gone to NYC for the first time, to see Sonic Youth preview their new album at a free July 4 concert in Central Park with Sun-Ra.  I was in the front row (incidentally, Mr. Eric was also at this show, didn’t know him then) and caught a banana Thurston threw into the crowd.  In my rock-star worship mode I stuck the banana in my pocket.  After the show we saw actress Julie Hagerty on the street.  A week later the show was on MTV news (SY getting promoted cuz these were Nirvana days) and you could see my little brown head bobbing to “100%”.  A few more weeks after that I lost my virginity.  July, 1992

Pavement, “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain”…making a pathetic Valentine’s day card/mix tape for this girl I was in love with.  Pretty stupid.  Yeah, I’m one of those mixtape guys.  I was living with a couple of morons I knew from high school…one tried to beat me up because he thought I was fucking his ex-girlfriend (my best friend was) and the other ripped me off for months rent and many utility bills.  A few months later we’d be evicted.  I was getting into CCR around this time.  February, 1994

See how it works?  I could go on forever.  But I won’t.