When the Sky is Full of 0’s and 1’s
• • • • •

Inspired by this post by Nicole I started thinking about how I got here. Not in the what does it all mean metaphysical sense, but what trail of albums, songs, noises brought me to this point. I have theories that if I had been in different parts of the country I would have gravitated toward different music, based not only on that region’s tastes but also based on what is around. After 6 years in Chicago I have noticed that I have access to some great reissues that other big cities may not have, or that may get swept under the deluge in large cities. I am speaking of labels like Numero Group and Four Men with Beards and others that lean toward jazz and blues that Chicago has been known for. I am not sure if it just that I am on more of a look out while I am in Chicago for these things then when I am in other cities. That is I notice other cities seem to have their niche, records and labels that frequently find their way to the front of the bin, or the endcap of an aisle. Thus, there is a passive mode to all music collectors/obsessives which feeds the active mode of looking for new stuff. So in each music fans life there is that point where you go from the purely passive; getting records from your parents dusty bins or hand-me-down from older brothers/sisters/cousins to the obsessively active, sometimes to a fault and into a niche. You become the “60’s pop-guru” or the “advant noise collector”. I have in some ways started to actively tried to avoid the later, and really attempt to hear (and own) all of recorded music. I know this is an impossible task, completely laughable even, but that is why I go to shows early and catch all the openers, drop a few bucks on random colored vinyl of a band I have no further knowledge of then the cover and maybe some linernotes. If someone feels strong enough about their music to get up on stage or press it to some medium (notice the descriptor, 0’s & 1’s are only concepts and not physical) then it deserves my undivided attention atleast once. I wasn’t always like this, like I said before we all start out passive. I through the course of however many parts it takes me to get to current that I may explain where the turning points were. I already know there were many deadend paths, paths re-travelled for better or worse, hopefully I can remember them all (most likely not in chronological order, but I will attempt it the best I can).

Later this week (weds?) look for “my earliest music memories”.

Music store to close; make room for clothes | Chicago Tribune
And yet Reckless Records is doing so well that it can open a store in the loop. I dont think online music sales and piracy are killing the Towers and Megastores.

The closing of the Chicago and Salt Lake Virgin Megastores will leave Virgin with 11 music stores still operating in the U.S. It operates more than 100 Megastores in the United Kingdom.

What so kids in the UK dont pirate and/or buy downloaded music. I dont think so.

In December, Tower Records shuttered its stores, joining a host of smaller chains and independent stores that have closed in recent years. Music sales continue to slide due to still-rampant piracy and consumer complaints that prices for recorded music are too high at a time when digital singles can be bought for 99 cents.

Maybe its not the online beast that is killing these large stores but the fact that they a) dont know how to sell records to “the kids” and b) pay themselves to much money to do it.

Ok, this is some crazy shit. check it
Pitchfork: News: Sonic Youth to headline friday @ PFork fest

..and they are going to play daydream nation in its entirety!!! There are still 2 more bands to be announced for that day. My money is still on Slint and House of Love becuase those are the other 2 bands ATP has scheduled for this series in England.

What a great friday!!!!!

Since this is on the Chicago reader page I am sure its getting viewed, but incase any of my friends don’t check the reader I will blog about it here. This reporter does a great job of outlining the problems with Daley and the reasons we should stand up against him. A must read.

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I know that a lot of ppl have bad days at work. Just a few weeks ago I had a reaction completely lost to a faulty roundbottom and an overly ambitious stirbar, and I thought how terrrible and was pissed at myself for days. Maybe you had your boss reem you out for missing a dead line, maybe you bothced that call. That all pails in comparison to yesterday.

It played out like a horror film. At 9:30am I get this email.
“All AVR meeting 1pm”
First thing I do is tell my boss, who doesnt regularly check her email so that she can plan out her day. We disscuss that “hmmm, meeting in 3 hrs, wonder what it could be”. In our minds maybe a change in reporting structure, maybe some news on the series we are working on or something else relatively heavy but not life changing. SIlly me, I go spelunking. I walk down the hall and talk to my good friend Todd, see if there is anything going on his project that may constitute this meeting. He hits me with “Dave’s been let go”, and it starts. Much like 28 days later, you start to think “Well it’s one person its an isolated case”. Todd and I talk for a bit, we discuss that this sucks and that we wonder who else, but only lightly.

One friend gone, but the world still looks ok.

I walk to the biology labs, not in search of more gossip but for actual work reasons. I don’t find the person I am looking for but I do find some biologists huddled, talking. I say have you heard and they list off 5 names none of which are the person I know.

6 friends gone, this is seriously fucked.

We talk for a bit and then I decided I have to bring this information back. I go to my boss and tell her what I have found out. Its like trying to tell someone a close relative has died. Her face turns white.

Denial.

Another co-worker passes through. We drop the news on him. More “your shiting me”. More denial. I say “this is what I have heard” One of the victims walks by.
Us: “How are you?”
Him: “Fine fine”

He leaves, we go “no way your information has got to be off”. I agree, its just to crazy, nonsensical even.

The rest of the day you walk into ppl in the hall and the common “hello” response is “i’m still here”. There is a sense of a black cloud that is roaming the halls, devouring ppl at will. You are afraid to go and talk to ppl you havent seen yet for fear that they me tagged as well. At this point we have no idea how high the number will go. When will the beast be full? Is it already and we just dont know it? Is it merely taking a coffee break?

A second confirmation on the earlier names come through, along with is a small piece of wellbeing that beast has finished. Those that have been let go all know by now. There is no work getting done today.

I felt like I was on borrowed time. The discussion turns to the monsters logic and its raison d’existence. We are all zombies. We are all scientists, but our logic gates are in full feedback loop, “Does not compute”. Now that we know that the carnage is mostly done here what about other places. You dont want to call your friends in other buildings, even though you hope that missed it too you know that the chances are slim. The reports from over their are even more grim. Whole areas are wiped out, not just a few select ppl like here.

Its only 11:15. The last hour moved slower then a trans atlantic ice flow. Much like said ice flow, the information captured in that hour was more then one could fully comprehend.

I want to set the clocks ahead. Get it to 1pm and get it over with.

More hours pass. No more bad news, no real progress on the logic front.

Lots of cussing.

Lots of “whoaa” and sighing.

You avoid the confirmed vicims for fear of the unknown, and for respect of the dead. You have no idea what to say anyway, and they may not want to see the cruel reminder of what they had just hours ago.

Unlike even a cheap horror film, there was not even a semblance of logic. The beast’s creation was discussed no further than “lack of interests in a few theraputic areas”, its killing menatliy was not discussed at all. The victims were not slackers, not only upper management, not only worker bees. Not only the aged, not only the young.

200 in all. Its hard not to classify. Survivors and victims only separated by what seems dumb luck. While in there presence you are almost ashamed to still have a job, but also very thankful to not have to go home and break the news.

There is no defence.

qouted from the latest Reckless Records email:

Reckless Records Chicago
3161 N. Broadway 773-404-5080
1532 N. Milwaukee Ave. 773-235-3727
new location to be announced soon
www.reckless.com
bring us your used everything, special order everything else

(i added the emphasis to the above)

lets spectulate where this could be? and does it mean 3 Recklesses or is it curtians for the lakeview one ? (since the wicker park one just got new carpet i doubt that they were going to leave it any time soon)

Arlo Guthrie - Alice’s Restaurant
Neil Young - Zuma
Juana Molina - Salvese Quien Pueda (Four Tet Remixes)
Caribou - Yeti EP
Pieces of April (dvd)
Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Summer in the Southeast
Bonnie “Prince” Billy - The Letting Go

I need to thank Dan over at Future Perfect Radio for enlightening me to the existence of this show in a discussion a few weeks ago at the Bottle after the Viva Voce show. I am not sure how Thurston Moore playing Sun Ra songs with Avreeyal Ra and Jim Baker at the Hideout flew under my radar. Luckily I was able to get ticket before the show sold out.

After a quick stop off at the MCA (free members night, cant pass up free food) and a continual battle with Chicago style wind & rain, we pull up to the Hideout. We are equally excited to be in from the rain and to be one step closer to the event. I won�t lie, Thurston could play a show that consisted of one note of pure feedback and I would be there front row (I have records that are just that and they are GREAT!).

As an aside, I should also mention that I owe Sonic Youth a lot for enlightening me to free jazz. It was the summer between senior year of HS and freshman year of college. My first time in NYC, visiting a friend, and we went to see SY @ Irving Plaza. The opening act was Milford Graves who came out dressed in a suit adorned with all manner of cymbals and bells. He proceeded to make the greatest racket while slowly progressing toward an equally tricked out drum kit. Once behind the kit 2 sax players come out and for the next 40 minutes it is the craziest thing I had ever heard, non-stop chaotic noise. I think my friend had to pick my jaw up from the floor. Simply put, it was life changing. For the next few years, my friend would send me village voice clipping of various members of SY doing one off shows with other jazz greats in small NYC clubs. I was so jealous. Where I was going to school the only jazz was of the smooth variety.

10 years later, even with all the great jazz that happens here in Chicago (at places like the velvet lounge, elastic, hotti biscotti, hungry brain, and I am sure other smaller places I don�t even know about) I am still jealous of NYC in some small way. So this show was a nice fulfillment of all those clippings my friend would send.

I shouldn�t be jealous of NYC though because there were ppl that flew in from France and the west coast for this show. Tim Tuten mentioned in his intro something to the effect �People think that it all starts in NYC, but we know that it starts here in Chicago and goes out to the rest of the world�.

The first band on was called My Barbarian, dressed all in white handmade apparel with eyeâ��s painted on their foreheads. True to the spirit of the evening they were â��out thereâ��, playing a style of music that was everywhere as much as it was here. They opened with a short vocal chant making way for the glammy and bombastic “Gomorrah” with its talk of various ancient societyâ��s. This set the tone of their set, with the next songs â��Osirisâ��, â��Fantasyâ��, and â��Marsâ�� dealing with topics of the mythic past or scary future. They refused to be locked into any one style, varying between Beefheart-ish zaniness to straight up indie-pop. The band was tight and extremely entertaining. My initial worry was that this gimmick of weirdness (the costumes, make-up) would be something they would hide bad songs behind. That was simply not the case, they were great song writers and entertainers, closing the set with a skit about bringing the gay troops home from Iraq and then lastly a song about Canada.

The highlight of the in-between set music was hearing the original Sun Ra version �Nuclear War�. Having only heard the Yo La Tengo version, coupled with the fact that I have been looking for this track for a while, it was nice treat.

Let’s travel back in time, and place our selves at the scene of the event. Tim and a person from the Hyde Park Art Center give their introductions and walk off stage. Thurston starts with some pick scrapes and slowly Avreeyal Ra begins to fill in some percussion while Jim Baker finds a few choice notes on the keys. The beast builds to heavenly proportions and we watch with mouths agape. Ten minutes pass and we still have no real sense where we are, the piece slims up a bit for what we think is the end of one piece but what is probably just a brief regrouping. This must be a new piece now as Jim Baker is over to his Arp synth creating these wavy drones that Thurston is floating some beautiful harmonics on and Ra is filling with plucks on a thumb piano. There is electricity in the air. It appears that Thurston has grabbed a large metal file and is running it across his strings of his guitar. Baker is back at the keys, playing them as if possessed. As quickly as it has started it ended. The set was a good hour plus, with all three musicians communicating on a mythic-solar plane. By the end of the set we had all transcended this earthly existence. A great kick off for the weekend long festivities that went down at Hyde Park Art Center. If you missed the lectures and shows this weekend there is still time to catch the exhibition of Sun Ra stuff, on display until jan 14th.

I took the top photo and will post some photo’s soon.
View a complete set on flickr taken by Kirstiecat here

this is appartly

We recently took a trip to NYC and I want to highlight little parts of the trip over the next few days. One thing we did almost every day was visit this little pizza/bakery. It was usally on our way back to the hotel, and if it wasn’t it was only a few blocks from where were staying. You can see a picture of the roof of the building here (it he one on the NW corner). Each night we would sit down and either have a slice of pizza or a few small things from the bakery (the mousse cup and/or mousse cake was Kirsties favorite, while i really liked the strawberry topped cheese cake).
The place reminded me a lof of the the coffee shop we had found in San Fran, a place where we could sit and kinda observe the local ppl doing thier thing. Being that we were staying very near to NYU the “locals” were usally drunk college students. On one night though we ran into a large group of high school drama students who were in NYC to see 5 or 6 theather performances in as many days.
Its neat to become a “regular” at a little shop like this for only a few days, kinda like you are stealing yourself into another world, becoming a new familar face for the cafe workers, if only for a short time. Its also nice to have a place where Kirstie and I can sit down and kinda talk about the day, after the hussle and crazyness of running around tyring to do as much as humanly possible in one day in NYC.

So I installed this thing called Gallery and here are some of the pictures I have uploaded to it cinchel/photos and cinchel/watercolors

Not on a Monday that is for sure. Why?
Do you want to go to work? Of course not, so why would the world end on a weekday. That would be perfect and the end of the world is not supposed to be perfect. The horsemen would come down and be all confused.

horsemen:”hey ppl of earth, the end is now!”
ppl of earth: “whoo hoo, i didnt want to go to work today anyway!!”
horsemen: “wait a minute, you are supposed to not want the end of the world”
ppl of earth: “yeah and we would have been really upset if you ended the world on saturday. We were looking forward to the rock shows and movies and shit we were going to do. But, today is monday and who wants to go back to that hell whole.”
horseman: “oh well then, carry on then. this was only a drill”
ppl of earth|:”really damn that sucks”

Not of the year…just of the week.

I have had some free time at work and started keeping track of new posts on The Big Takeover (the greatest music mag ever, one of 2 that i subscribe to, the other being The Wire ) and each writer has a top 10 that they update frequently. So I have been inspired to make a list, and try to update it frequently as well.

1. Richard Swift - Collection Vol. 1
This 2 cd set compiles everything that Swift has done. Amazing kitchen sink pop made a few years ago but sounds as if its from 60 years ago.

2. Ron Sexsmith
Kirstie and I picked up a bunch of his stuff latley. “Other Songs”, “Whereabouts”, “Cobblestone Runway” is where we have started, and I wonder where has he been all my life. Just our luck that we start to get into an artist after they came to town.

3. Anne Summers - Very Classy
Just put this on my iPod. I still know every song by heart. “I’m taking all my pills/for long life/and I’m throwing them all away”. Classic power-pop that should have been everywhere.

4. francoiz breut - vingt a trente mille jours
I dont understand a word of french, but her voice fits perfect with the spooky keyboards and atmospherics of the songs. The album has a creepy open feel, the sounds of spaces, reverb, and color. The album cover is dark and red, quite fitting.

5. Liars - It Fit When I Was a Kid
I was super excited to see that Dr. Wax had this behind the counter saturday. The cover is the edited version, which is fine by me. The music is just as good as their last album (They We’re Wrong So We Drown), starting with heavy beats and moving to beautiful drones. Perfect tease for the new album.

6. Belle & Sebastian - If Your Feeling Sinister (Live @ Barbican London)
iTunes only release with all proceeds being donated to the DEC’s Asia Quake Appeal. Very good quality sound wise and playing. Makes me want to see them live again.

7. Blur - s/t
This and 13 are the best things they have done.

8. double digit weather
After 0°F weather for the past few days 11°F seems like a heat wave

9. Wipers - 3-cd box (Is This Real?/Youth of America/Over the Edge)
Being that my iPod is getting full, this box set pushed off a couple of Buzzcocks albums. It’s ok though because I have listened to those enough in the past 6 months.

10. Le Concorde - Universe and Villa
I guess when the weather gets cold all I want is pop. This is hands down the best pop album of the year.

A $300 million Pentagon psychological warfare operation includes plans for placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the U.S. government as the source

This is a pretty interesting article, seems that the US doesnt think that the press is outside the realm of control. Scary.

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