I guess last Saturday morning cartoons, overwhelming stress, random moments of disparagment and staying home with my cats 89% of my evenings hasn't been so bad. I watch movies, either putting all my chips in on an On Demanded one and losing $4.50 or getting a dvd from Netflix. I'm quite proud of that queue. All hand picked and searched. I keep a notebook in the purse to make notes of films/ music I know I'll forget to look up. The short-term doesn't hold up like it once did. Presently, I've taken on the exhaustive undertaking of catching up on all my magazines. They're looming at me by the bed. Oxford American was first, the May issue of this year. Reading that they recently indured a money embezzlement, my heart broke. It's a hard one to endure, especially when other parts of your life decides to fall apart. A letter-to-the-editor was born in this mess. Well, here it is:
please edit if you print. i am a painter, a history student, not a writer. andy earles was my boyfriend you met. he has a new cd out on matador. a comedy cd. and, it's funny. thankfully. cc
Salut Marc,
Sadly, I've missed the last two issues. I promise to not let that happen again. We met one another in Memphis at a party before our Indie Film fest last year. You and your OA entourage thought my boyfriend at the time looked like Jeff Tweedy. No, you guys actually thought he WAS Jeff Tweedy. Not so surprisingly, he gets that often. We were confused for about 5 minutes, but, it all came together. I'm not here to reminisce, though. My concern in writing you is that I can empathize with the embezzlement the OA experienced recently. I own a business based in Memphis I started seven years ago. I created it's operating system, oversaw the handbook, live every moment of my life for it...everything. It's growing, ethical and successful, monetarily and environmentally. I hired a close friend when I needed an office manager to help with the bookkeeping. All was well for several years, but, quickly headed south. I tried to make it work. My naivete did not allow me to even consider she was to blame for the biz losing thousands suddenly with a forged signature and some checks. Not a friend, someone I thought was one of my best and who vocally praised being part of a 'green' company. Never. Don't say 'never', ever. Did she not consider others while pilfering the back account, putting in jeopardy almost thirty jobs and my livelihood? I will never forget the overwhelming shock, feeling of inadequacy and ineptitude. Doubt, depression, double chocolate ice cream. Repeat. I jumped out of the haze and knew this history student would not allow this (enter obligatory four-letter word) to happen again. Instantly, I knew my first mistake was to trust her without checking over the work. There needs to be trustworthiness in an office as well as a leader. At that time I was not as involved as I should have been in the daily operations of my office. I admit it. I didn't pay close enough attention for the last three months of her tenure. I'm an entrepreneur and we learn a lot through experience, right? My heart broke when I read that the OA endured a similar travesty. I promise to never feign loyalty to the OA. I know that I am a mere reader in Memphis, but, we can all make a difference by making just decisions based in ethics and piety. My dad always says, "you wake up in the morning and you have the choice to make the wrong decision or the right decision. Make the right one". It's not always that black and white, but, now I think of that quote every morning. Maybe we will all meet again. I will say hello, and, maybe you can introduce me to the real Jeff Tweedy one day. No substitutes for the real thing.
cheers, Candace Mills
Memphis, TN
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Friday Night movie. Play by play.
Super High Me
Obviously, I'm home on a friday night with my cats and an on-demanded film. After looking through their list of paltry choices, eighties hits and recent favorites/ ridiculous, I chose Super High Me. And, obviously, it's in the recent ridiculous category. Doug Benson made this film, looks like it played at SXSW this year. I was there for the music week, attempting to survive 3 nights of rock shows and Andy's comedy performance. Doug is a comedian out in LA, once involved with UCB and presently involved with Best Week Ever, Paul F. Thompkins has a cameo as well as other funny dudes. Doug was High TImes Magazine's 'Stoner of the Year' in 2006. Yep. He is abstaining from marijuana for 30 days. One of my favorite moments is his stand up joke wondering why a mildew cleaning product hasn't been called Mildon't. Funny. I own a cleaning biz, hello... Snippets of other stand up pot ha-ha's, Doug doing stupid stuff to rag timey music, Los Angeles is Los Gangales.. you follow me, brah? Oh, and he makes fun of the Vagina Monologues and the women who have protested the stand up performance he co-wrote, the Marijuana-logues. Why am I watching this? Not sure. I like to watch movies in my small amount of free time. Oh, I am looking at the largest bong I have ever seen. Dougie's chilling with the 'Prince of Pot'. the Prince is totally high. Zach Galifiankis just showed. He is my comedic crush. Adorable. More play by nonsense later.
Obviously, I'm home on a friday night with my cats and an on-demanded film. After looking through their list of paltry choices, eighties hits and recent favorites/ ridiculous, I chose Super High Me. And, obviously, it's in the recent ridiculous category. Doug Benson made this film, looks like it played at SXSW this year. I was there for the music week, attempting to survive 3 nights of rock shows and Andy's comedy performance. Doug is a comedian out in LA, once involved with UCB and presently involved with Best Week Ever, Paul F. Thompkins has a cameo as well as other funny dudes. Doug was High TImes Magazine's 'Stoner of the Year' in 2006. Yep. He is abstaining from marijuana for 30 days. One of my favorite moments is his stand up joke wondering why a mildew cleaning product hasn't been called Mildon't. Funny. I own a cleaning biz, hello... Snippets of other stand up pot ha-ha's, Doug doing stupid stuff to rag timey music, Los Angeles is Los Gangales.. you follow me, brah? Oh, and he makes fun of the Vagina Monologues and the women who have protested the stand up performance he co-wrote, the Marijuana-logues. Why am I watching this? Not sure. I like to watch movies in my small amount of free time. Oh, I am looking at the largest bong I have ever seen. Dougie's chilling with the 'Prince of Pot'. the Prince is totally high. Zach Galifiankis just showed. He is my comedic crush. Adorable. More play by nonsense later.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Odessa Memphis
Odessa is an art space collective Andy and I have decided to join. I had my first art show there February 14th. We have a show tonight and another Monday. If it's possible, leave your egos outside and stop in. Both of these shows are free of charge. We must be doing something new and different to already have haters. It's great. Ahhh, jealousy makes people say the darndest things. Anyways, we don't really care what these folks say and the show will keep going on. Some simpletons just don't have anything else to do, ya know. It's just a space bringing bands and hosting shows we want to see in Memphis. Those that don't likey can start one on their own to get their own group together. Or, pick up a book and learn something. I am a proud Chick of my hometown and love seeing Memphians collaborating and creating to do something different. Anything. Just watch your words and don't waste my time with mindless chatter and destructive criticism. Don't move, improve. Thank you. Here's our lineup:
Saturday, March 8th:
Neptune from Massachusetts with White Creeps (Wolf Eyes-style power
noise from Jonesboro Arkansas. Yeah, I'd wanna bum people out too)
NEPTUNE!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Active now for close to 14 years, Boston band Neptune has crafted not
only a formidable array of releases that document their squalling,
post-industrial noise punk, but an awesome arsenal of home-made
instruments they they've used to etch each and every one of their
tracks. Though beginning life as the extension of a sculpture project
by Jason Sanford, the band has shunned the austerity of art galleries
in favor of cranking out high-octane, oft-visceral exercises in
disruption.
Their discography stretches to around 20 releases, but Gong Lake,
their debut for Table of the Elements' Radium imprint, is the first to
be widely available outside of Neptune's own merch table. Five
full-lengths in now, and the band is nothing if not tightly wound – no
hesitation, no faulty missteps. As such, Gong Lake presents a solid
half an hour's worth of the trio's finely detailed improvisations and
galloping, percussive punk, bounding from the queasy loops and
pounding drums of "Grey Shadows" to the more carefully considered and
ominous oscillations of "Black Tide."
While Neptune's penchant for homemade instruments is well known, they
wisely avoid reducing their work-shopped creations to kitsch levels.
Instead, they spend the whole of Gong Lake blending a number of
different homemade synths and effects boxes with more tradition drums
and baritone guitars. The results are slyly alien, invoking a creeping
sense of the bizarre and unfamiliar that's effortlessly meshed with
exceedingly familiar rock dynamics. Thus, while "Paris Green" may
start with commonplace guitar strums, it quickly gives way to the
chunky low-end of a synth of unknown provenance, one that battles for
space with a rising tide of screeching oscillators. Elsewhere, "Yellow
River" ricochets with the effected sounds of a mutated thumb piano,
opening up spaces for echoing synths to shoot past the percussion's
insistent rhythms.
As much as a seemingly unkempt aggression is Neptune's hallmark
throughout Gong Lake's 10 tracks, these three are no ordinary brutes.
Time and again, their dedication to expanding a familiar rock lexicon
with instruments of their own creation calls to mind the work of folks
like This Heat. Much like those Brits attempted the use the basic
palette of punk rock as a spring board for deeper experimentation, so
too does Neptune work a similar trick, obliterating the familiar
structures of rock and punk with otherworldly timbres and tones that
are wholly of their own design.
MONDAY (3/10):
SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunburned Hand of the Man is a band in the loose sense of the word;
it's better described as a banner under which a collective of musical
freaks have gathered. Based in Boston, Sunburned Hand of the Man grew
out of trio which called itself Shit Spangled Banner and featured John
Molony and Rob Thomas who would later become anchors of the Sunburned
coterie. According to Molony, Shit Spangled Banner was conceived as "a
cross between the Melvins and Sonic Youth," but the group was fast
picking up a host of like-minded dropouts and musical wanderers who
would show up at their loft, and their sound soon began to incorporate
everything from early American folk music to drone, free jazz, space
rock, and funk. After one release, 1996's No Dolby No DBX (released as
part of Ecstatic Yod's Ass Run series), the group changed it name to
Sunburned Hand of the Man. A string of self-released CD-Rs followed,
including Mind of a Brother (1997) and Piff's Clicks (1998). With
2001's Jaybird, Sunburned reached a new pinnacle, forging their
disparate elements into a distinct (if not complete) sounding
collection. By this time like-minded groups such as Jackie-O
Motherfucker, Tower Recordings, and the No-Neck Blues Band (who are
somewhat of a sister group to Sunburned) were also coming into their
own and gaining critical applause. The term "free folk" started
popping up in an attempt to describe these bands and Sunburned were
seen as leaders (or at least co-leaders) in a musical movement of
sorts, a movement which had its antecedents in Harry Smith's Anthology
of American Folk Music as much as in avant-jazz and noise groups.
Sunburned Hand of the Man continued to refine and expand their sound
on CD-R and vinyl-only releases such as 2001's Wild Animal, 2002's
Headdress, and 2003's Trickle Down Theory of Lord Knows What. Each
release was a rough but often brilliant indicator of where the band
was headed, rather than finished statements of where they had been. In
August of 2003 the profile of the band raised considerably when they
were featured on the cover of the respected British music magazine
Wire, appearing above the headline "New Weird America."
BLUES CONTROL!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blues Control might just be the missing link between Van Halen and
Henry Flynt. They are a duo. Lea Cho plays swank but grounded
atmospheric keyboard parts [think Harold Budd] for guitar player and
manipulator of assorted junk-on-table Russ Waterhouse to cut through,
whittle and lay waste to. It's a hazy, spaced world that exists
between fuzzed distortion, jabbering electronics, a lazy stay-in-bed
psychedelic glaze, with rhythmic keyboards pulsating below it all a la
a guy named Florian-and you can choose which one you want. Oh yeah,
did I mention the humid bikini-vibe that permeates the entire album?
So is there a blues angle to it? Yeah, but you've got to bury yourself
in it or dig your way in. Come out stinking if you want.
Saturday, March 8th:
Neptune from Massachusetts with White Creeps (Wolf Eyes-style power
noise from Jonesboro Arkansas. Yeah, I'd wanna bum people out too)
NEPTUNE!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Active now for close to 14 years, Boston band Neptune has crafted not
only a formidable array of releases that document their squalling,
post-industrial noise punk, but an awesome arsenal of home-made
instruments they they've used to etch each and every one of their
tracks. Though beginning life as the extension of a sculpture project
by Jason Sanford, the band has shunned the austerity of art galleries
in favor of cranking out high-octane, oft-visceral exercises in
disruption.
Their discography stretches to around 20 releases, but Gong Lake,
their debut for Table of the Elements' Radium imprint, is the first to
be widely available outside of Neptune's own merch table. Five
full-lengths in now, and the band is nothing if not tightly wound – no
hesitation, no faulty missteps. As such, Gong Lake presents a solid
half an hour's worth of the trio's finely detailed improvisations and
galloping, percussive punk, bounding from the queasy loops and
pounding drums of "Grey Shadows" to the more carefully considered and
ominous oscillations of "Black Tide."
While Neptune's penchant for homemade instruments is well known, they
wisely avoid reducing their work-shopped creations to kitsch levels.
Instead, they spend the whole of Gong Lake blending a number of
different homemade synths and effects boxes with more tradition drums
and baritone guitars. The results are slyly alien, invoking a creeping
sense of the bizarre and unfamiliar that's effortlessly meshed with
exceedingly familiar rock dynamics. Thus, while "Paris Green" may
start with commonplace guitar strums, it quickly gives way to the
chunky low-end of a synth of unknown provenance, one that battles for
space with a rising tide of screeching oscillators. Elsewhere, "Yellow
River" ricochets with the effected sounds of a mutated thumb piano,
opening up spaces for echoing synths to shoot past the percussion's
insistent rhythms.
As much as a seemingly unkempt aggression is Neptune's hallmark
throughout Gong Lake's 10 tracks, these three are no ordinary brutes.
Time and again, their dedication to expanding a familiar rock lexicon
with instruments of their own creation calls to mind the work of folks
like This Heat. Much like those Brits attempted the use the basic
palette of punk rock as a spring board for deeper experimentation, so
too does Neptune work a similar trick, obliterating the familiar
structures of rock and punk with otherworldly timbres and tones that
are wholly of their own design.
MONDAY (3/10):
SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunburned Hand of the Man is a band in the loose sense of the word;
it's better described as a banner under which a collective of musical
freaks have gathered. Based in Boston, Sunburned Hand of the Man grew
out of trio which called itself Shit Spangled Banner and featured John
Molony and Rob Thomas who would later become anchors of the Sunburned
coterie. According to Molony, Shit Spangled Banner was conceived as "a
cross between the Melvins and Sonic Youth," but the group was fast
picking up a host of like-minded dropouts and musical wanderers who
would show up at their loft, and their sound soon began to incorporate
everything from early American folk music to drone, free jazz, space
rock, and funk. After one release, 1996's No Dolby No DBX (released as
part of Ecstatic Yod's Ass Run series), the group changed it name to
Sunburned Hand of the Man. A string of self-released CD-Rs followed,
including Mind of a Brother (1997) and Piff's Clicks (1998). With
2001's Jaybird, Sunburned reached a new pinnacle, forging their
disparate elements into a distinct (if not complete) sounding
collection. By this time like-minded groups such as Jackie-O
Motherfucker, Tower Recordings, and the No-Neck Blues Band (who are
somewhat of a sister group to Sunburned) were also coming into their
own and gaining critical applause. The term "free folk" started
popping up in an attempt to describe these bands and Sunburned were
seen as leaders (or at least co-leaders) in a musical movement of
sorts, a movement which had its antecedents in Harry Smith's Anthology
of American Folk Music as much as in avant-jazz and noise groups.
Sunburned Hand of the Man continued to refine and expand their sound
on CD-R and vinyl-only releases such as 2001's Wild Animal, 2002's
Headdress, and 2003's Trickle Down Theory of Lord Knows What. Each
release was a rough but often brilliant indicator of where the band
was headed, rather than finished statements of where they had been. In
August of 2003 the profile of the band raised considerably when they
were featured on the cover of the respected British music magazine
Wire, appearing above the headline "New Weird America."
BLUES CONTROL!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blues Control might just be the missing link between Van Halen and
Henry Flynt. They are a duo. Lea Cho plays swank but grounded
atmospheric keyboard parts [think Harold Budd] for guitar player and
manipulator of assorted junk-on-table Russ Waterhouse to cut through,
whittle and lay waste to. It's a hazy, spaced world that exists
between fuzzed distortion, jabbering electronics, a lazy stay-in-bed
psychedelic glaze, with rhythmic keyboards pulsating below it all a la
a guy named Florian-and you can choose which one you want. Oh yeah,
did I mention the humid bikini-vibe that permeates the entire album?
So is there a blues angle to it? Yeah, but you've got to bury yourself
in it or dig your way in. Come out stinking if you want.
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