AAAaaAAAaaaAAAAAAAAA!

Ron who?

I heart you Sid & Marty

Was reading this morn that they are doing a remake of "land of the lost". Could be cool ... could suck. At least its not digital in keeping with the campiness. While my love for all things 70's is fairly substantial, I think I'll wait for this one to hit the $1.50 theater. HOWEVER, in doing some snooping, I found out that Sid and Marty Krofft actually made an amusement park in the 70's. It only lasted 6 months and it sounds so psychedelically amazing. It was massive and all indoors and you can see it at the beginning of the Krofft Supershow.
It had things like a giant carousel adorned with magic crystals, the world's longest freestanding escalator, freaks, carnies and dwarfs everywhere, and multiple levels of giant puppets that had all the characters from the shows.
:::Mouth watering :::
After the park closed (possibly due to not enough people taking mushrooms), Teddy Turner bought it and turned it into CNN headquarters.

wreckreational birthday week

A most amazing birthday week was had by yours truly with no small thanks going out to MC Homemade paying me a visit from Brockton for the week. Somehow we always seem to end up markedly more polluted towards the end of our visits, even with good intentions of hitting the gym and all that jazz.
Stayed at the ace hotel for my birthday. Formerly The Clyde Hotel where part of drugstore cowboy was filmed, they really turned this into a hipster art hotel. Big style points. Spendy, but great to check out for the once in a while thing. Went the polar opposite direction the next night at the palms motel punctuated with karaoke at the alibi with M.C. and Dori. The woman in the silver sequin dress running the show was passed out half the time so M.C. threatened the crowd with poetry and standup comedy. Atta boy! Oh yeay .. we saw Daniel Johnston at the wonder ballroom as well. Fantastic.
Sunday we had a small party at my house. My mom told all my friends how she wouldn't let me go to school one day because I had a "metal up your ass" t-shirt on. That got the peeps laughin. Dan Jones gave me the new bad brains box album "build a nation". It comes on four 45's (colored vinyl) and totally shreads. Thanks DJ!


Had a fantastic testface show wednesday with the comforters and whisky priest. Tried out some new material and am diggin the way things are going.
Friday and saturday played with tractor operator both nights opening for Yeltsin for their CD release. Nice job boys. Fridays show at Kelleys Olympian was great on many levels as my gut was full of rabbit and venison from toro bravo and the club was full of great faces including the mighty Lacifer.
Sunday we (Trac Op) recorded a couple new tracks for an upcoming release.

Was excited to hear this morning that everybody's (i say that loosely) fave bible nudgin' bad ass is coming back to portland this fall.
Nick Cave and his bad bad seeds - sept 22 - crystal ballroom.
schwing!

fuzzy binnies unite

a few years back, my good buddy Trost took a couple picks of me at this breakfast dive in north portland. I donned by bunny mask and plopped down in front of the lungdart machine. Good times indeed.
Imagine my frowny face when I see this morning that "Spoon" has a new EP out. Not saying I was first, but I guess I won't be using this shot anymore to promote the testface moniker. Maybe I'll try a nice Aye-aye mask.

Tonight ... testface

Tonight testface has a show at Sam Bonds. We'll be joined by the lovely Comforters and also Whiskey Priest who hail from Salem. Club testface band will have a head-count of about "six" tonight.
We'll play around 10 and promise to make it feel like a ceramic grenade. Come out and play ...

and now the news

A) - bit of a whisper in the grass about a polvo "reformation". If you do the math (no pun intended) you can hear them in just about and 90's postrock outfit. No westcoast dates yet, but keep them digits crossed.

stream feather of forgiveness.


B) - today i was born ... 37 years ago.

C) - hazel court, otherwise known as the "scream queen" has passed away. She was in a couple of my favorite horror flicks "the raven" and "masque of the red death" (both with vincent price)


D) - and lastly ... the popes visit to our fair stretch of land has him showing bush he can run with the cowboys as well. You go tiger.

there will be no troubled water

I am not making this up.
This is a (partial) list of songs deemed "absolutely NOT to be played" by Clear Channel following the 9 - 11 attacks
( note: clear channel owns 1,200 stations, massive market share, and your freedom)

ready? ...


AC/DC
"Highway to Hell"

Animals
"We Gotta Get Out of This Place"

Louis Armstrong
"What a Wonderful World"

The Bangles
"Walk Like an Egyptian"

The Beatles
"Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"
"Ticket to Ride"

Boston
"Smokin'"

David Bowie & Mick Jagger
"Dancing in the Street"

Jackson Browne
"Doctor My Eyes"

Phil Collins
"In the Air Tonight"

Dio
"Holy Diver"

Judas Priest
"Some Heads Are Gonna Roll"

Kansas
"Dust in the Wind"

John Lennon
"Imagine"

Alanis Morissette
"Ironic"

Nena
"99 Luftballons"

Rage Against the Machine
All songs by Rage Against the Machine

R.E.M.
"It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"

Simon and Garfunkel
"Bridge Over Troubled Water"

Bruce Springsteen
"I'm Goin' Down"
"I'm on Fire"

Cat Stevens
"Peace Train"

The Surfaris
"Wipeout"

Van Halen
"Dancing in the Street"

The Zombies
"She's Not There"

"I heart my analogue sound storage medium"

Put the needle on the what?

In the last week, I've been thinking a lot about my history with music and how I listen to it. I walk into my house past my records, past my wall of CD's and sit down at my desk and hit play ... on iTunes. No one can deny that the digital age has simplified some things and made it much easier to get a quick fix for something you have to listen to, but the truth is ... with the slow atrophy of the demand for physical product in the mass central nervous system, something extremely important is choking.



Saturday is International Record Store Day. The last bastion of a music hospice for discovery of all things sonically cool. Yes there are eleventeen million places you can go to read thoroughly padded record reviews online of that amazing band you've never heard as soon as (if not before) it's even released. Hell theres even an abundance of circles where you can find small run, weirdo hand packaged shit that Bestbuy will never ever be able to touch. But the days are quickly fading when you can walk into your local wax peddler and utter, "man what is that amazing track you're playing?" "Why its Timmy & and Tuna cans, and I just happen to have their new 45."

OK so everyone has a story about when and where they bought their first record. Mine happened to be "freezeframe" and I picked it up at a now defunct store called Caldor. They were a small chain store on the East coast. Their slogan was "you'll never NOT find it at Caldor". Walmart bought and leveled every one of those stores.
My town had no record stores so I had to bike (or get driven) to Nashua or Manchester. To be able to comb through every record every week of a 400 sq ft. hole in the wall and ask inanely dumb questions to the guy with the chopper stash and a Triumph Allied Forces Tour T-shirt. You could flip through the posters hanging on the back wall in those swinging racks. You could press your face into the counter glass and see what new pins or patches or stickers were available. They were the "temples" and "churches" for most kids. Now the underground is 1's and 0's. I still have every (almost every) record I ever bought in the places and there's a story behind every purchase. And they're all fuckin gone. Every one of em'. Its all dying off quick.

Do yourself a favor my friend. Go into your local record store on saturday and by something ... anything. Even if you don't by vinyl. Ask the over caffeinated kid with black frames behind the counter what's good right now. I'll be there too ... somewhere between Lionel Richie and Lou Gramm.


---------

"What's playing on your favorite download store when you walk into it? Nothing, that's what. Who are you going to meet in there? Nobody. Who's going to tell you to stop listening to that and start listening to this? Go ahead and save yourself a couple of quid. The saving will cost you a career, a set of cool friends, musical taste and, eventually, your soul. Record stores can't save your life. But they can give you a better one."
-Nick Hornby

and for those interested in the fascinating history of shellac records, look here.

Aries ... make your headbutts count

I just had a fantastic early birthday din din at marché. oysters, rabbit, lentles and wine, caramel tart and brandy. think i'll go join an aristocracy and build a castle with a moat of peasants blood and chum.

There will be some sort of BBQ at my pad with clasic fun games for everyone ... like:
- Bobbing for Carp
- Pin the shark on the lion
- crawl space limbo
- duck, duck, botulism
- musical scorpions and glass
- ladies midget cage fights
- and the ever popular ... whip the clown


am I missing something?

open letter to Karen

Dear Carpenters,

I never new you had it in you. "Calling occupants of inner-dysentery crap" is by far your finest work. I knew Jeff Lynn was sleeping on your couch during this period but I didn't realize he'd have this kind of effect!
Bravo.
lovingly,
testface

... and boy doesn't Thurston make you want to hold a microphone with 2 fingers. I love this version.

Saturday night's alright for Unicorns

Great night of music starting out with a set with the Squids. Dan's new songs kick ass and i'm so honored to hold down the rock with him.

they I quick shot across town to catch the last of the Ovulators enchanted forest show. Yes thats tina as a woodland elf and dori in a dragon suit.

Then a bolt across the way to Belami where James sat in on bongos and wine swilling with a swank combo. Morgenthaler made a couple bourbon renewals that made my insides feel like Christmas.

e - v - i - l

burn in hell you IRS bastards. They aren't so much vultures as something vultures would eat. I'm sending you combined checks tomorrow for $3398 dollars. So much for freelancing.
ouch.

one milkshake please!

Most relaxing weekend filled with anti-stressors, putzing, and the occasional cocktail. Finally dragged my ass over to le theater to see "there will be blood". In case you're wondering ... there was some blood. This film is so gripping and had my neurons doing backflips the whole time. So beautiful and crushing at the same time, but what caught me most was the score by Jonny Greenwood.

He gets my vote for god composition of the year at this point. Heard a lot of Reich in there. Discordant string arrangements and really minimalist stretches set up the stark landscape in the most appropriate way. Apparently he uses his Ondes Martenot on many of the sections. >> Insert analog boner here. << Sometimes it's downright uncomfortable and found myself with chicken skin quite a bit. This is very tight and desolate writing. And not that he doesn't deserve the street cred from his little band called radiohead, but a first time hook doing a score for Paul Thomas Anderson is kinda like telling your playground friends you just got to second base with the class bombshell.

What's up Oregon?

I come back to my lovely state after being in Mexico for two weeks to find a drastically confused weather system. It's FREEZING!!! OK granted - I'm sure the pity factor is through the roof, but what the christ? Flip flops ... I banish you back to the closet.

----

Stumbled across this little gem. BOCanada is one of my fave bands. I present you ... David Hasselhoff Vs. Boards of Canada:

RIP frosty Freeze

Frosty Freeze was one of the original members of The Rock Steady Crew, one of the earliest breakin' crews. Old school Bronx style. He passed away today. If you ever want to see a good documentary on this stuff, watch Style Wars or The Freshest Kids. If that's your thing you know...