Showing posts with label Sonny Vee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sonny Vee. Show all posts

Saturday, July 13, 2019

2019: July 13th - The Pixies: Tame



I may have made you wait longer than other folks would have to get to a track by The Pixies, here during my Frank Black Appreciation Week, but you knew I'd get there, right?

I won't lie, I thought about not posting any. I could fill a couple months posting beloved Black Francis songs and completely eschew his first major band, but then, well, I'd be lying to myself. It's weird; for some reason I have a bit of a grudge against the Pixies. I'm not sure when that happened, or why exactly. I think it's a combination of a few factors. Bear with me while I dig around in my mind and see if I can explain this, really more to myself than to you, but thanks for being here for me to bounce this stuff off, sometimes that just works better, talking out loud to someone else.

I'll never forget when Mr. Brown turned me onto The Pixies back in the mid-90s - he lent me Bossonova and it completely bowled me over. The first few tracks are epic, packed with that wonderful madness that Joey Santiago and Frank Black bring out in one another when things really get going. Then you get to Digging for Fire and Down to the Well, and they're so sweet and sugary, I was in love instantly.

I should specify that my introduction came well after the Pixies were over, and so at the same time Brown lent me Bossonova, he also lent me Frank Black's third solo album, The Cult of Ray. I loved that too, but it paled in comparison to how Bossonova made me feel. As I began to consume the other Pixies records, they became my band. Not just my band, but one of our bands - the music I shared with Brown and Sonny, my two best friends. Mr. Black and company were part of what seemed to us, a secret handshake. I didn't know anyone else who was into The Pixies, or Soul Coughing, to name two, and those bands became ours. This was while we were building our first band, Wink Lombardi and the Constellations, and it was an amazing time in my life. I'd just gotten out of a three-year, high school relationship, and I had amazing friends I saw every day. We'd play music, go to obscure diners for coffee and pie, stay up to all hours getting stoned and recording bizarre acoustic tracks, or noise sessions on my Tascam 4 Track. It was amazing. And The Pixies were one of the major soundtracks to that, so I'm protective of it, now, many years later.

I suppose that's another thing about The Pixies that I'm protective of - it can be hard for me to go back and really immerse myself in listening to these albums that I absolutely love because they trigger massive nostalgia pulses in me. And I guess I want that kept in its place. Couple with that the fact that directly after Cult of Ray, Frank Black formed The Catholics and began releasing albums that I actually got to see him play live, and that helped shape the next chapter of my life. Those Catholics records are HUGE to me.

So, I guess it's actually kind of obvious why I prefer Frank Black to the Pixies, and why, as much as I LOVE Indy Cindy, the first Pixies reunion album, I would rather Black keep moving forward than trying to go home again.

Anyway, every song on every Pixies album rules, but this is one today rules a little bit more than most.

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Had The Horror Vision folks over last night and recorded a new episode that will hopefully be up later today or tomorrow. Our movie reaction for the episode? Possum. Here's the trailer:



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Playlist from 7/12:

M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Motörhead - March or Die
Motörhead - Eponymous
Black Polygons - Lobélia
Boy Harsher - Careful
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Frank Black and the Catholics - Pistolero

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No card today.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

2018: July 8th

I've been using a lot of instrumental music for my writing sessions of late. Most of the time lyrics don't bother me, because most of the time I write to metal and the lyrics can almost be seen as another instrument anyway, especially with the throatier stuff (hence why I listen to Deafheaven so much when I write). But I've noticed while working on this new short story, tentatively titled, "Please Believe Me," that lyrics have proven a distraction. So the other night I fell pretty hard for the Jim Jarmusch/Jozef Van Wissem stuff, and now today I'm finding Johnny Jewel's newly released Digital Rain and absolute aces album to craft by. Here's a sample:



Oh! Before I forget, happy birthday to my one of my best friends in the world, Sonny V. Despite our distance and life's continued efforts to occupy all our time and keep us apart, I love you sir, and one day we will jam together again. In the interim, I found myself thinking about some of our old comedy skits recently, so here's an oldie but a goodie:



I attended my first Horror Writer's Association meeting yesterday, thanks to the generosity of David Lucarelli. I loved it, the idea of a large group of people gathered to discuss the craft. I found inspiration from pretty much everyone present, and I absolutely cannot wait to officially join and begin attending the monthly meetings! Also, two of the gentlemen in attendance have books I am planning on reading in the very near future. Both are available on amazon, or if you're local, I believe at Dark Delicacies, a horror-shop in Burbank I wasn't really aware of until yesterday. Can't wait to check that out as well.

 Direct Amazon Link HERE
Direct Amazon Link HERE


Playlist from Saturday, 7/07:

Zeal and Ardor - EP
Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit
Beak - L.A. Playback
Beastmilk - Use Your Deluge E.P.
Best Coast - Crazy for You

Card of the day:


Working to develop a better understanding of the intricate Universe that surrounds us. This is Magick, the idea of tapping into something greater, and that the energies from doing so flow both ways. 

Thursday, April 16, 2015

The Walk Slow



I've been meaning to post this for a couple weeks now. MAN! When you're a musician there's nothing like the love and joy that can come from being in a band. You sling it out with three or four other guys, saddle all your hopes and dreams together and try to shoot an arrow into the side of the world that actually sticks. It's hard; it takes a level of commitment and determination that is not easy and can drive some folks apart. But other folks, well, it makes you bond as strong or stronger than family. That's always been the case with the guys I slung it out with my former bands in Chicago. I've known Sonny Vee since forever. He was in Wink Lombardi and the Constellations with me ("which one'a youse guys is Wink?") on through the short-lived Second Attention, he slung it out for a while in Infinite Vision and that's where we met and added Joe Grez to the cabal of maniacs - which included Mr. Brown and Monsieur Viderstrom - who ended up forming Schlitz Family Robinson. Anyway, that was a long time ago. More recently, and I use that word loosely here for sure, Joe and Sonny and I were in The Yellow House. We came pretty close to... something. But the industry was kicking and screaming as the internet, MP3s and Napster all took over and in just a little over a year and a half (fact check Joe - I'm bad at quantifying the passage of time) that slipped away too. But not before we recorded and self-released one full length and two e.p., all of which I am still enormously proud of. Anyway, Joe and Sonny are back in a new band, The Walk Slow and hearing them, seeing this video, it makes me so incredibly happy that I just can barely even think straight. These guys are the real deal - back in '01 Grez used to say, "next to no one in music knows how to be cool anymore" and sometimes I feel like that too. But when I hear something like this, well, I know that's just the scarred side of the otherwise brilliant coin.