nah pop, no style

Here’ s the obligatory post where I tell you about what I wrote for this week’s paper, and what fun things I’m doing this weekend. I also owe you a theater review, but that’ll come later.

TONIGHT is Erik Friedlander, with DBL D + Gribenas opening. My feature on Freidlander here.

TOMORROW NIGHT is BREAKfAST at Roboto (it’s also Warzone Womyn’s last show ever) — article here.

But tomorrow night is also the one-off the sea, like lead show, as part of the AIR benefit at, of all places, AIR. Music kicks off at 6:00, including Life in Bed, Dave Bernabo, Spynda-Kress-Pace, etc. etc. We play last, around 11, so you might be able to catch BREAKfAST and head on over to see us, if you’re so inclined, and you’re probably not.

Last night at the favored coffeeshop, I bore witness for the first time to Galaxie 500’s cover of Red Krayola’s “Victory Garden.” My pedigree does not include a Galaxie 500 expertise, though I like what I’ve heard; therefore, to paraphrase Lucy Van Pelt, it may be obvious to you that they covered this song, but it was highly disobvious to me.

There’s something magical about the moment you hear a cover of a song the original version of which you really like, IF that cover does it justice or is somehow innovative. I’m not referring to Rufus Wainwright covering “Across the Universe Here.” This occurs when you’re not expecting to hear that cover, when you didn’t know it was coming, you didn’t know the artist ever played that song.

It happened (strangely enough) at the same coffeeshop a few years ago (probably like four) with a cover of John Cale’s “Hanky Panky No How” (I didn’t know for a long time who it was doing the cover; it was Yo La Tengo). It happened with Ted Leo’s cover of Lungfish’s “To Whom You Were Born,” on a tape from Bexxx (that one was easy, I knew the artist and song and they were right there in the liner if I needed them).

This time I wasn’t going to let it slip by — I up and ACTUALLY ASKED the people who were working who was covering the song, and the girl whose mix it was wasn’t sure and tried and tried to remember but in the end it was my mad Google skillz that prevailed and revealed that it was Galaxie 500. And it was a beautiful cover of an amazing song, and I will listen to it again when I have a chance.

Feel free to share similar stories if you got ‘em.

Last night brought one of the best local news features I’ve seen in ages. Witness: Stuart Brown reports on the recovery of the Cowardly Lion’s head.

This report was golden. Stuart went all the way to McDonald to file the report, and the guy who found the statue head in the trash wouldn’t do an interview. So Stuart said he “wouldn’t speak to us on camera, but he says he’s pleased with his good deed.” WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF, BOB GORDON? (Note also the visual of him walking away from the camera. This might as well be an Alan Jennings investigation of the poor guy.)

Then they interviewed the 3-year-old great-grandson of the man (now deceased) who made the statues (comment: “The lion’s head is back and I’m happy!”) and another random 3-year-old, who apparently was known for liking the statues (Girl’s grandmother: “She was upset because he didn’t have a head. So I brought her up today so she could see he has a head.” Girl: “The head is back . . . but (inaudible).”

Best part is the end though: ” . . . there are plans to add another figure to this scene . . . TOTO. From McDonald, I’m Stuart Brown, Channel 11 News.”

This is the stuff I live for. As Frances Monahan would say, news value: 0!

I did very little this weekend, which was a pretty okay thing. I intended on getting some freelance work done but failed in that respect. I’ll get it done tonight. Likewise with some bill-paying. However, I did get to play with the parents’ new dog (I wish I had a digital camera with which to supply you pictures) and the nephews. (Joey’s description of his trip on the Gateway Clipper: “It was really great . . . fifteen!)

Also bought headphones, which was a great relief, because I’d gone a few weeks without them, and it greatly reduced the music in my life. Bus time and walking time is when I do a great deal of my music-listening, so being without headphones is a great disability for me . . . I found in the past week or so that I only had one or two songs that were ever stuck in my head and it was wretched. I also ALMOST bought an MP3 player but I decided there were other things coming that I’d want to spend that money on instead (tattoo?) and that being limited to cassette tapes has its quirky advantages.

This week, plans include going to PICT’s production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore (McDonagh joint)  Wednesday night, seeing Erik Friedlander Friday night, and playing a show Saturday night. And getting my freelancing done, fo-sho.

Usually the calls I get at work are from PR people or people who want to know how to list an event fairly benign. Sometimes, though, I get a doozy.

This woman called a couple of months ago to tell me that the man who was featured in Everyone’s a Critic that week (I have nothing to do with that feature, but I got the call and handled it so as to take one for the team) was a man who’s been abusing LiveLinks for years. She told me that it says his name’s Javier but it’s really Jose or something and he doesn’t live in Squirrel Hill and isn’t really 25 and a grad student. (This was false; I actually happened to KNOW the guy who was in Critic that week and his name IS Javier and he is a grad student and a nice guy.)

Anyway, she went on for about 10 or 15 minutes that day about how he’s bad to women and takes advantage of them, and she’s a good Christian and doesn’t understand why these things happen to her, and we should print a retraction because he’s probably showing all the women that he was in the newspaper and impressing them with that. I honestly didn’t say ANYTHING the whole time — every time she’d pause, I’d say, “Do you have anything else to say?” and she’d start again. I’d keep listening then eventually she worked herself up to the point where she hung up on me, and I gave a sigh of relief.

Yesterday she called again. I knew it was her as soon as she started because, like last time, she was rude from the very greeting –

Andy: Hello, this is Andy.
Crazy: Yeah, I can barely hear ya. Hey, this listing, in your paper, in this listing it says Sunday, September 1, and September 1 is a Saturday.
Andy: Where is this, what page?
Crazy: IN YOUR NEWSPAPER.
Andy: I know. What PAGE?
Crazy: Oh, I don’t know, I don’t have it in front of me, I just . . .
Andy: Okay, well, there aren’t any listings in there for things going on on September 1. We list events a week at a time.
Crazy: Well it says SUNDAY September 1 and September 1 is a SATURDAY. Look at your calendar! Isn’t that true?
Andy: That’s true, but I don’t know what listing you’re talking about.
Crazy: You’re just a dummy, aren’t you? You shouldn’t even be working there-
Andy: Well, that’s true . . .
Crazy: You’re a bunch of dummies there *click*

A couple of music-related things:

Next week’s paper will have a couple of things I will have written. One will be on Erik Friedlander, an awesome cellist who plays at Frick Fine Arts on Friday, the 27th. The other will be on the Japanese skatepunk band BREAKfAST, who play at Roboto on the 28th. That show is also Warzone Womyn’s last show.

Unfortunately, that’s on the same night as the big AIR benefit show, which my old band will be REUNITING TO PLAY. How friggin’ majestic. We’ll be on last (around 11 PM) so if you want to see WW and BREAKfAST you can probably still catch some/all of our set.

On Saturday, I went to the co-op on my bicycle, which is a good idea, especially when you’ve fixed your bicycle so it works right. I bought some groceries, including a bottle of kombucha — also not a bad idea.

Then I rode home in the sun on bumpy streets, some of which are brick-paved.

When I pulled up in front of my house, I felt something cool on my back. Something cool and wet. It wasn’t coming from above, and it wasn’t sweat. It soon became painfully apparent to me what had happened: my kombucha, in the heat and with all the shaking in my bag on the bumpy streets, bubbled and bubbled and burst all up in my bag, covering my groceries, my bag, and my back with gingery weird sour kombucha scent.

Fortunately, kombucha cologne attracts hippie girls like woah, and I basked in seemingly unwarranted attention the rest of the day/night.

Not really. I changed my shirt and didn’t get any unwarranted, much per usual. But be warned — your bottle of kombucha will burst given the right amount of shaking, even if you’re not doing it on purpose. It’s living food for the living body, and it has feelings too.

Hello blogaroo. Very busy week here at work and outside of work for that matter; saw Remora last night and I’d write volumes on Brian’s stage show and how fascinating it is to me but I don’t have time right now. Maybe later.

Tonight, FIYA and Allies and Smells Like Gina at MoFo; tomorrow night, might go see Thought Crime/Brain Handle/etc. at Roboto or might fall dead asleep at 6:30. Saturday night at MoFo is Jeremy’s birthday bash, featuring a couple MNPLS bands and Sun Tornado, and it’s also the Pist reunion at the Braddock Elks.

Speaking of which, here are things I wrote this week:

• Pist reunion
• Üsztürü
• The Boss of It All (my first attempt at a film review — I’m no Horbal, be kind!)

More soon!

Living none too close to Paul’s at this point, and never knowing exactly when Jerry’s is open, I’ve found myself not buying any new music lately. Saturday I was in Bloomfield and fixed that (in fact, I attempted to go to Jerry’s as well, to make the circuit, but they were closed by the time I got to Squirrel Hill). So, let me tell you the things I bought:

• Oxford Collapse: Remember the Night Parties. Embarrassingly, I hadn’t owned this until Saturday. I already knew I liked it — OC have grown and grown on me since their early stuff a couple years ago. Now I sing along in the car.
• Gong: The Flying Teapot. It’s Gong. I’ve yet to reach a final decision on this one, but there are some pretty sweet jams in there.
• Daniel A.I.U. Higgs: Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot. Lots of guitar weirdness and some mouth harp from Higgs, who basically can’t go wrong by my estimation. An added plus is the booklet that comes with the LP — a letterpressed(?) tome with little mnemonic poetry reminding us how to spell things like DEATH and COITUS. Reccommended.
• The dark horse of this race Eyvind Kang’s Live Low To the Earth, In the Iron Age. Coming after The Story of Iceland but before Virginal Coordinates, and released on Abduction and not Tzadik, it encompasses more drone and atmosphere than those slightly more orchestrated albums. It’s more a rock improv record than a rehearsed neo-classical record, and my favorite album of his that I own. Go get it if you can find it! (I might add that I got this one — and Gong — on the used rack of all places. What fool discarded this?!)