Delivery exception

For sale: my rig. 1994 Fender Twin Reverb '65 Reissue, with a pretty new ATA-approved road case. Email me for more info.


Last night's show at 3030 Cortland turned out really cool. It's an odd feeling drinking beer while seated in a pew. The venue used to be a Pentecostal church and now serves as a performance space. I had doubts about walking through the front doors and held my breath as I entered God's former house. I'm still here; I didn't burst into flames. There's something to be said about a completely quiet audience, seated and content with their surroundings. I felt like I should've produced a monologue, but luckily the songs proved to be enough.

In my recent moves towards becoming completely portable I ordered an ibook. I currently have an emac, which I love, it's just that shipping a 50 pound computer overseas is pretty risky and expensive. So luckily, I've found a good home for ms. emac and was able to crunch some numbers and justify the new computer. Would you believe that FedEx shipped the thing and it arrived two days ahead of schedule? Their computers ship from China (which is odd, I didn't know Apple farmed out internationally). Yesterday it was in Anchorage, Alaska and this morning on a truck in Chicago. I'll have to wait until tonight and go pick her up at the distribution warehouse. Now, AJ and I can't explain why, but tracking a package online fucking rules. It's either the technology of it all or the hilarious fact that you can sit at home knowing your valuable box of goods has been held up for the past 3 days at their hub in Hodgkins.

Illinois towns that are funny: Hodgkins, Skokie, Itasca, Sauk Trail. This list just goes on.

What's in it for me?

Tonight:
Grant Hart (ex-Husker Du)
Century Rocket Building
Mike Downey

3030 W. Cortland / Elastic Arts Foundation
7-10PM sharp, BYOB, $5

Houston, we are in Texas

Quick report from home. I'm not going to spell check this; Apollo 13 is on a commercial break and the boys are trying to get home. I just took the garbage out. 2 of the 4 garbage cans in the back were sideways, on the ground...they fell or were pushed over the side of the parking area onto the rock-filled "yard". I opened up one of the standing, functional cans and landed my Hefty onto some sort of American Flag. I couldn't tell if it was a real flag or some sort of party favor. I just know that it was in the garbage and my garbage is now on top of it. What?, you want me to pick it out, make it right?


Real quick, the boys missed the moon. They just want to come home.


xo,
Mike

This order is tall, out my front door

Friday is here. I'd like to wish m'sweet good luck on her bird songs and animal skulls exam. Sounds sweet and funny but this is serious business. Lycka till Nilla!

In other news this was just passed along to me. It's both sad and admittedly funny. Read to the bottom as the Comcast bit is precious. But hey, I have Comcast cable and for some reason I am getting a majority of the digital cable stations now. I didn't order these channels and the messages section doesn't say anything about a free trial run. Either they fucked up or, they fucked up. Whatever, I'll take what I can get.

Last night after the beer started flowing and my pad thai was in digestion mode I broke out a cdr of photos I took in the first few months that I had my digital camera (late 2003). And the results: I'm quite the photog! No, but I found some good stuff and put up the best ones as part of my Flickr page.

That's it. That's all.

Rock and rent

I saw the Rolling Stones a couple years ago at the United Center in Chicago. If you're not from the area, the United Center is a huge indoor arena; it's a common venue for extremely popular bands to come and play to the masses. I was seated parallel to the stage in the upper balcony. I couldn't see Charlie Watts and I paid way too much for my ticket. But, at that point I justified my attendance because I was getting to see a real rock n' roll band in the flesh before one of them kicked the bucket. And most importantly I was a fan of the band.

Bands come and bands go, but honestly the Rolling Stones aren't going anywhere except up. Read "up" as towards the sky, literally. The stage for their upcoming tour is just ridiculous. See that green wall behind the stage? Yeah, that's the Green Monster, the supposedly overly huge outfield wall in Boston's Fenway Park. But this is what sells. Joe Blow doesn't want to pay all of that money for his ticket and walk into the stadium to just some average setting, right? This is the Rolling Stones and their fans want it big, but preferably not too loud. Those eardrums don't bounce back like they used to.

About 3/4ths of the way through the Stones' set at the United Center they left the stage and reappeared in the middle of the floor's seating area on a hilariously smaller stage that looked, from my vantage point, no bigger than a stage you'd see at a typical bar. They were in the round and the first rows that were surrounding them were flush with the stage with no 15-foot gated barriers to separate rock fan from rock star. The Stones continued their set from there and they sounded better; they looked cooler. I don't know, sound wise maybe it was easier to mix one amp per band member opposed to the usual stacks of equipment needed to fill up a huge arena rock stage? They looked years younger too, like a real rock band should...young and dumb and playing because it's the only thing they really know how to do. It was all pretty amazing and not something that I'll forget.

There's really no final point here to make, no catchy ending that I can give. The Stones still try to play at smallish clubs and steer clear of their hits playing old standards and rare songs for the fans. I guess I've personally lost interest in seeing them live, it happens. But look at that stage, it's got balconies and more square footage than I'll ever own in my life. Mr. Jagger, I'd like a room. I don't require much, just a place to lay my head and wash up. Thanks, this'll do.

Put it up on the screen, put it in quotes

The Religious Right baffles me on a day to day basis, that is the days that I see them on the news, accidentally land on the 700 Club or take a quick second to think about an interesting class I took on how religious leaders effectively use the media. The latest bewilderment comes from Pat Robertson and his recent statement about his thought on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his response to the media's and Venezuelan government's opinions of said statement.

Today's news reveals that Robertson thinks he was misinterpreted. I'm going to make this quick. This isn't a political or religious blog by any stretch of the imagination. This blog is about my daily life and how I am affected by my surroundings. And whether I like it or not part of these surroundings are people that put their faces in the media daily and shoot themselves into my living room. When people are outright liars, and even worse right-wing liars, it just stirs me up a little bit. This is plain and simple, clear as day:

Pat Robertson said, "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it." He later said, "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability."

Ok Pat, what's said is said. Now deal with your actions. You must've known that whether this was a planned statement or it just trickled off your tongue you'd have to face the heat. Pat, dude, if this is what you believe then that's fine, stand behind your words! Be tough; explain your reasoning, use the "intelligence" God or Jesus or whoever gives you such intangible things gave you. You fucking holly roller, stand up for what you believe.

But no. Today Mr. Robertson said, "I didn't say 'assassination.' I said our special forces should 'take him out.' And 'take him out' can be a number of things, including kidnapping; there are a number of ways to take out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted by the AP [Associated Press], but that happens all the time."

Pat! You have been recorded on video saying it! Head over to cnn.com, the video is available there. No one is putting words into your mouth. No one is trying to pull a fast one on you. I would love to see a bunch of Christian conservative white caps (sorry for the generalization, but I can't help myself) head down to Venezuela and attempt to kidnap their leader. But I guess if the mighty Pat Robertson makes a call for action that his masses will jump out of their recliners and sneak down to Venezuela to where all of the evildoers live. Oh sorry, he wants our Special Forces to go ahead and take care of it.

While I was typing this I cruised back over to CNN to see that ol' boy Pat issued an apology. In summation he said that calling for an assassination isn't right, but that he was still misquoted. Unbelievable.

Best part of all of this is Chavez's response, "It doesn't matter to me. I don't know who that person is. As far as his opinion of me goes, I couldn't care less."

Robertson is sitting around here looking for people spew his stupidity upon while the rest of the world couldn't care less about him, or what he stands for. Way to work towards an international public image Pat. I'm guessing the 700 Club doesn't have a big following in South America. But I'm not worried what the rest of the world thinks, they will never follow along with him. It's the people right here in our backyard that I'm sorta afraid of. Communists, eh, no problem. I can sorta see where they're coming from, but that's another story for another time. But the Religious Right, be afraid. Be very afraid.

Travelling light

My life is broken up into about three separate and equal parts these days. Part one: the routine of going to work. Necessary evil. I don't hate this job; I surely don't love this job. It "pays the bills" and I am thankful for it. I'd rather be fishing.

And by fishing I mean sitting next to a lake with fish in it, eating baguette and avocado and drinking red wine. But kids, lets not get too far away from what I was going to say. Part two: when I'm not at the workplace I am in a mode of urgency to prepare myself for my move to Sweden. I leave October 24th. I arrive October 25th. I think I have a show on the other side of the country on October 26th. I've never lived outside of Illinois. Safe to say that I'm learning as I go in my planning for relocating my life to another country. You are allowed two large suitcases (maximum 70 pounds each I believe) on international flights. I have to bring a guitar with me so that will count as one bag. I have one suitcase/bag to fit, what I feel, are my most important belongings. I'm actually glad that the voltage is different there or else I'd be trying to find room for a coffee grinder, alarm clock with huge digital numbers, dvd player, etc... Stuff like that goes into my parent's basement for usage at a later time, maybe. But how many sweaters does a dude need? Can I survive with 2 pairs of shoes, one for nice weather, one for bad? Won't I get bored with so few stylistic choices? Who cares! I recently stopped worrying about stuff like this. Plan is to pack up a few boxes of items that won't fit in my bag and have them shipped or brought over when people come to visit. Btw, wanna come visit?

Regarding part two: I have a ton more to say about this planning process. I'll be revisiting it later, count on it. I haven't even scratched the surface yet. Part three: watching Anthony Bourdain's 'No Reservation'. Joke, sort of. No really, my album is coming out and I've got shows booked for October and beyond. I've no band, as you know. I don't want one either! On one hand not having band mates makes life a bit easier as you don't have to adhere to anyone's schedule but your own and you can just do whatever you want in most cases. But, big but here, jumping up on stage with a guitar (and now laptop) isn't the easiest thing to pass off on a crowd of unknown audience members. Why aren't I at some open mic night somewhere? Why am I sharing the bill with "real bands"? Where are my glasses? So, I've been tweaking, retooling, retweaking and overhauling. We'll see what happens. Results may vary.

More on all of this later...to the trenches I travel.

Levitate me later or Get out of my stations

Last night I'm on the couch in front of the idiot box (as Grandma Jo calls it) aimlessly flipping around, channel to channel. The Cubs had already won and I was feeling pretty alright about the spag I had just consumed. Simple pleasures, simple pleasures. Note: a night on the couch is semi-rare for me lately as I've been quite busy tweaking my live set and it's taking up lots of my time. Story for another time. Anywho, I took the night off of recording/computing; the day job has been a bear and I needed some brainless time. So I just lounged for a few hours and let television land take me away.

I was searching for something, anything. And then, there it was. It was stupid, but I couldn't stop watching. Yes, I watched 'Mindfreak' last night. Basically, if you don't know what it is, it's this kat named Criss Angel and he's an illusionist. His show is really similar to what David Blaine was doing a few years ago except Angel's stunts/illusions/magic/whatever are of a grander scale. Compared to Blaine this guy has more of a personality. But I like Blaine's weird, staring at you all awkward and not saying much shtick better. Angel is more produced. Yeah that's a good word for him: produced.

So, he does some pretty impressive card tricks, yeah yeah yeah and then the fucker levitates about 20x higher than Blaine did in his street magic shows. It looks really good and I guess professional. There was obviously a lot of time and effort used in making the illusion work outdoors in a seemingly random environment. But, come on, magic shows on television put me immediately into the role of skeptic for the simple reason that we can't see everything that's going on because your point of view is always what the camera and editors have provided for you. If you were there in person you could walk around him and take all angles into consideration. This is the reason it's either 1. on television or 2. live, but on a stage where you are strategically positioned.

Anyways, I was curious as to how these guys make the levitation trick look so real. After a little research I found two of the techniques that illusionists are currently using: The Balducci Levitation and the King's Rising, which is shown here and explained here.

From what I read neither of these are what Mr. Angel is using. He gets a few feet off the ground while these only get you a few inches. I read the illusion's price tag is around $3000, but I couldn't find any information on it. I'm guessing that these more high profile illusionists are pretty tight-knit and don't want this one spoiled in the public realm just yet.

First one to levitate on stage or off at the Empty Bottle tonight wins my affection, forever.

Boo, hiss, boom ack isk

Last time we chatted I was filling everyone in on my upgraded stress level that went along with all of my travel arrangements and touring. Well, never fear, the reality fairy swooped down and paid me a visit. She whispered, "Mike, you probably shouldn't go on a three-week tour when your album isn't going to be out yet. You should wait until the album is officially out and people have a chance to give a shit." And after a few days of thinking it all over I realized she was right. So, the conclusion is that I'm still doing the Midwest shows but unfortunately canceling the other ones I had confirmed. It's pretty depressing; it took about ten minutes to send out emails and undo a month and a half of work. Whah wah. However, I am pretty stoked that I get to play a string of shows with Jens Lekman. He's pretty amazing.

In other news: the air conditioning at work is busted and everyone here is near death. I work in a room that is fairly small and has seven computers running along with seven people breathing hot air into each other's personal space. Boo, hiss.

Hey, the Sleep Out, Jeff Hanson, City on Film show at Schubas was so so good. It was a great combination of musicians that I am currently pretty impressed with. Sleep Out has the coolest t-shirts. Unfortunately my wallet wasn't into the idea of buying one. Then, after the show, I'm riding down my alley, nearly home, when I see some familiar faces: Sam and Nate from Sleep Out live like two buildings down from me, which is really random and makes me wonder who else is in ear shot of me reciting their songs in my humble abode.

First time you, first time me

It's really been a slow news week in my little world. The strains of self-booking a tour are wearing me thin. I've got myself set up for a stressful couple of months here dealing with organizing a tour and a move over the ocean all at the same time. Oh yeah, I start playing shows in Sweden the day after I arrive which equals more travel coupled with some wicked jetlag. But, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm taking it on, day by day, getting shit done.

On the lighter side, who remembers the Halloween dance scene in Karate Kid? It was on cable last night (Showtime free trial, nice) and I just got to thinking how ridiculous and perfect Daniel san's shower costume was. It kept him hidden from his rivals and allowed him that alone time he was seriously in need of with Ali. And, that chicken smashing eggs on people's heads? Only in the '80s! I mean, what? And ninthly, the Cobra Kai kids all dressing up the same as skeletons (complete with black Converse All-Stars) was killer. I love the way it mirrored the old school group of thugs wearing the same disguise that at the same time heightened their sense of bad-assness.

And did you know: 'Cruel Summer' by Bananarama (amazing song btw) is not included on the Karate Kid soundtrack. However, there is a Gang of Four song on it. Figure it out.

Booking it

So tonight I'm making my way over to Wrigley Field for the first time this season. I like to go a lot more frequently, I just haven't had any ticket hook ups. Last season (had ticket hook ups) I saw about fifteen games. The fact that I was unemployed and available for weekday games helped a lot. Now, I'm more confined to nights and weekends. Good luck scoring those tickets without someone working on the inside somehow. At this point it's not about if the Cubs win or lose. Really it's about that experience of being at the ballpark and enjoying the evening in one of my most favorite ways. I have a feeling this is going to be the last Cubs game I'm able to attend for a pretty long time, seeing as how I'm packing up and relocating to a land where baseball, seriously, doesn't exist.

I've already talked about my search for a Swedish soccer team to follow. Maybe I'll start with the national team and work my way from there. Or better yet, go with the team that's located closest to where I'll be living.

Thank the good Lord that airlines offer these really random special fares that I somehow always magically find. A regularly priced one-way ticket to Stockholm on an airline that I'd feel comfortable taking (any airline I've ever heard of) costs more than I've spent on a round trip fare. Makes zero sense to me. There are airlines offering extremely cheap flights but, um, Air India with 2 layovers in Germany sounds like more of a hassle than anything. But after some very focused searching good old Expedia came through as the glorious SAS Special Fare popped up...direct flight to Stockholm for a price that I felt was fair. Booked it; one or about 17 weights lifted off of my shoulders.

And, this Friday: Sleepout, Jeff Hanson and City on Film at Schubas. Seriously, these are 3 of the bands/people that I really really wanted to see as of late. And they're all on a bill together. So nice!

I'm a cardinal, I'm an arsenal

I'm an Engineer (and things get weird) - mp3

Thanks for stopping in! Here's the last song off of my upcoming album. I borrowed/reused/stole the chorus from a song that I (in Wolfie) released back in 1999. Holy crap that was 6 years ago. You'd think I'd be able to come up with a new chorus by now. Next week I'll start with the demos and really rare and random stuff. I've actually got a whole album's worth of stuff I did that was going to be the third National Splits album. Ever canned an entire album before? It's not fun, but it was necessary. At least it felt necessary at the time.

I have absolutely no plans for this weekend, except for a Phoning It In on Saturday. And don't read that as "boring". No plans usually equals a free-form Mike wandering through the days with a shimmer of optimism in his eye, jacked on a dose of strong coffee, observing and reacting to our situation.

Pro/con

+Recent stuff that spins my wheels:

Anthony Bourdain has a new show. You might remember him from A Cook's Tour. His new show No Reservations is over on the Travel Channel and is less about food and more of a travel log. Of course food and drink is still an important aspect of his existance. Last night's episode had him in Iceland where he ate, in his opinion, the worst meal of all time. And that's saying a lot, as this guy will eat anything.

Mike Kinsella's Owen project. It took me a long while before I even gave it a listen, and for no good reason. My current favorite is Places to Go off his debut.

Covering my friends' songs at my recent shows. I'm talking about Sleepout's Cat or a Horse and Devin Davis' Iron Woman.

Finally scoring tickets to my first Cubs game of the season.

Flying Arrows.

Missives.

Brandon Chalk.

(look right, get the links)


+Recent stuff that blows my lid:

Old friend taking a stand. Are you sure about this?

I need new tubes.

Service Engine Soon / cars.

It's hard to live in a basement

Caught most of Olivia Tremor Control's set at the Wicker Park street fest Saturday night. Time warp! I used to really really love these guys back when they were putting out albums and touring ('96-'99). I have to say that since they toured for 'Black Foilage' I'd sort of lost touch with their scene. But, my interest was sparked and it was a perfect night to hang outside and be with some friends, so I went. They played most of what I'd wanted to hear. Safe to say that the OTC folks haven't really changed at all over the years. They had about ten people on stage and as many peripheral instruments and sound gadgets as I'd ever seen. I've always enjoyed their ability to ride the fence between sound collage and great pop songs.

In other news: my little world of making music is just lovely. Why? Oh, because I got the mastered copy of my album over the weekend. Now the album sounds "warm" and/or "polished" or whatever other words people use. I don't know, it sounds better now that a professional ran it through a bunch of boxes with blinking lights and knobs.

I also redesigned my other site. So, you can hear some of those mastered songs over there.

And, I got to play "Iron Woman", a song by Devin Davis for Devin at our "show" over the weekend. And that's all I have to say about that.