PRF BBQ 2011

This Thursday I'll be playing up at Quenchers, 2401 N. Western, Chicago, IL, for the first night of the PRF BBQ 2011. Goddamn I am excited. Also I had the foresight to take the next day off of work. Last year I went into work lightly hungover and heavily exhausted the morning after Thursday Night Lights, where I had a meeting with a work colleague who keeps her office at 85 degrees at all times. And it was 90 and humid that day if I remember correctly. Good times.  Here's the actual schedule:

8:00-8:45 My Canadian Girlfriend
8:45-9:30 Jimmy Two Hands
9:30-10:15 Lonely Trailer
10:15-11:00 Fake Limbs
11:00-11:45 Century Rocket Building
11:45-12:30 Memory Map
12:30-1:15 Subrig Destroyer

Fantastic bands, all of them.

Voici le flier:

Follow my lead and take Friday morning off, too. I'll see you there. I'll also see you for lunch at Hot Doug's the next morning. Dig.

Math Rock >> Slap Bass

So I was a huge Primus fan in my high school days. I owned all their albums, knew the lyrics to all their songs, saw 4 or 5 shows of theirs, learned the bass parts to most of their songs, etc. No, I'm not embarrassed. Okay, maybe a little bit embarrassed. Shut up. My fanaticism trailed off in the later 90s when nu-metal came about and they were singing the praises of Limp Bizkit and other monstrosities on their website. During the height of my fanaticism I bought a cd by Porch, the band started by the original guitarist for Primus, Todd Huth. Expecting some kind of funk-metal hybrid, it was a shock to find out that it was a math rock band. Not that I knew what math rock was in 1994, but anyway I thought, damn, this is way better than Primus.  Well, I recently did a google search and found out that, some 17-odd years later, Porch has a new album out. And it's pretty damn good. Apparently Primus has a new album coming out soon as well, but I really don't give a crap.

Peehole #4

So I have been making a mini-comic called Peehole for the past few years.

Mostly drawings of silly stupid crap like this:

That there is from issue #1, pictures of crap I drew on post-it notes at work. If you are my current boss and you are reading this, please be aware that it was at my old job, because I am a good worker now and would never even think of slacking on the job anymore. I've done 3 issues so far. Well, Peehole #4 is finally finished. This issue is based on an art project I took part in called the Sketchbook Project, where everyone involved was given a sketchbook and a theme. My theme was "It's Not Easy Being Green". I suppressed my urge to draw filthy pictures of Kermit and Miss Piggy and instead drew some pictures of random green weirdos.  Here is a preview of the cover:

 This one took a while to prepare because the paper in the sketchbooks was off-white and thin, so the pictures looked yellowish and some of the pictures had ghost images of the picture on the other side of the sheet showing through. For any other comic I would have grayed the image and messed around with contrast and sharpening and called it good, since my other comics have been printed in black and white only, but the green color is important for this issue so it took a lot more photoshopping than usual.

I'll be taking some copies up to Quimby's later this week. Also I'll have them at Quenchers this Thursday for the PRF BBQ 2011, which I will talk about in a later post.

A Couple of Show Videos from Caffeinated Recordings

My good friends at Jim and Matt at Caffeinated Recordings have taped a few performances of mine in the past year. Here's me at Quenchers back in March opening for my friends Bone and Bell and the Columbines. I was added to the bill the night before after Seek Dark Seek Flesh had to drop out of the lineup due to a sick band member, and I was a little slack in my preparations, as you can see from the equipment malfunction early in the song. For percussion I use a metal pan and a maraca attached to a kick drum pedal. The maraca is attached with a metal hose clamp that sometimes comes loose, so I have to tighten the screws before each show. Well, I didn't remember before the show, so it flew off into the audience a few seconds in. Witness my friend Faiz attempting to fix the problem and everyone laughing at my misfortune. The sound guy came through with some electrical tape and saved the day, and everything went pretty well after that. I covered two of my favorite songs in the set - "New Pants and Shirt" by Killdozer and "Prayer to God" by Shellac. Hopefully I have not tarnished the legacy of these tunes. Enjoy!

Also, Jim and Matt recorded Red Swan's performance at Klas Bohemian Restaurant out in Cicero last fall for the PRF BBQ Auktoberfest. Being October, the idea was for every band to be in costume, so we decided to dress as banana republic dictators. I didn't have time that morning to write "El Presidente" on my sash, but the point came across. We don't have time for many Red Swan shows anymore now that we're split between Detroit, Lansing, and Chicago, but I thought this one turned out pretty well.  Matt recorded the sound through the soundboard, mixed it, and edited that into the video, which was shot from two angles. Damn fine work he did there.

Red Swan will bury you!