I don’t know what took me so long to put this “Beach Fires” video together. The clip is one take, there is no editing, and it is as old as song that I shot the footage for. We were at a Fourth of July party at Mark and Cheryl’s house on Edgemere Drive along Lake Ontario. Mark is in the video and there is kid buried in the snd with only his above above ground, something I never noticed until today. After twenty-seven years this is the third video from Margaret Explosion’ “Invisible Idiot” release. The other two are attached below. I’m thinking Sparky’s Shed” has to be the next video from the cd.
Dark Is Light
At last week’s Skylark gig we gave away copies of our Invisible Idiot cd, released some twenty-seven years ago. Pete Monacelli took the cd home and wrote this verse in response.
What’s In the shadows
What melody
Love
The shadows
Be
Comforted by shadow
Sounds
Shadows silence
Faint sounds
Shadows
Dark is light
Escape
To freedom
Lake New York
Kids still play hockey on frozen lakes. The world is not completely upside down yet. We skied up to the lake, the big lake, the one they used to call Lake Ontario but in the spirit of Manifest Destiny we have renamed “Lake New York.” We have just a few more days of below freezing temperatures and we’re going to enjoy every bit of it.
Leave a commentStop The World
Without officially joining Spotify I made this playlist for Madison a few weeks back. I choose fifty 45s from the two stacks that were next to our turntable (in current rotation) and I was able find clean copies of all of them on Spotify. I put a custom cover on the playlist and figured out how to order it although I kind of like random. I was surprised how easy and fun it is to assemble. Algorithms providing plenty of distraction with a minimal amount of advertising.
Today I reassembled my Apple Music playlist, “Stop The World,” on Spotify. I shared the link with Madison again because I learned her parents were married in a Moose Lodge. The band I was in Indiana played all the social clubs (Elks, Eagles, Eagles, Moose, American Legion, VFW) as well as coon hunts. I knew nothing about country back then but I grew to love the classic cryin’ in yer beer stuff. That band, the On Fours, played most of these songs.
His Truth Is Marching On
The hat certainly threatened to upstage the affair but the bombast when the big guy made his entrance made it clear Round 2 has begun. The “Drill Baby Drill” refrain landed particularly hard after Peggi’s sister almost lost her home in the California fires. But the chorus from my title made us laugh out loud. It was perfect day for cross-country skiing.
Leave a commentCold Open
Pete Monacelli, reporting live from the Skylark Lounge, wrote these verses while listening to the band last night.
Last is first
Less is gain
Out is in
Life in abundance
Beginning to end
All are one
Tomorrow is today
Loss is gain
All awake internal dance
Light of life
Wake up
Today is tomorrow
Alive
Conversation
Inspiration
Wake up
To reality
Light is silent
Light is sound
Intense
Hope
Always comes
Back in time
Grooving Primitive
Alive
Inimitablealive
The bottom almost fell out of the middle of our opening song but we managed to rescue it.
Shoegazing
Margaret Explosion could very well be a shoegaze band. Far from an early nineties thing, our nephew, Eli, says the genre is bigger than ever. Apparently it all started with Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. Eli is writing a book about shoegaze. We fed him band names trying to get a handle on who qualifies. Were The Feelies shoe gaze?
“Not quite, not enough distortion and reverb. But a band like Galaxie 500, who I guess are similar to the Feelies in some ways, are proto-shoegaze for the dreamy etherality of their vocals/guitar parts.” Damon, Galaxie 500’s drummer, told him that “they were always confused about their association with shoegaze, since shoegaze didn’t really start to take shape until 1990, by which point Galaxie 500 were about to break up.” Eli said you can definitely hear Dean’s ethereal vocals in many shoegaze bands, and the sunset-like atmosphere in their music has a kinship with shoegaze titans like Slowdive.
We mentioned “In One,” a Rochester band that called themselves “shoegaze.” Peggi and I did the 45 cover for them back in the day (1993.) I couldn’t find anything about them online even though the guitar player, John DePuy, is still active with Hinkley so I ripped the seven minute, yellow vinyl, small hole 45 and put it online here.
Just a few weeks back Peggi and I were taking turns reading aloud The New Yorker article about Spotify. This morning we listened to Eli’s recent Endless Scroll podcast and found him interviewing Liz Pelly who wrote the book about Spotify that The New Yorker kept referencing.
1 CommentRe. Re-Release
Margaret Explosion plays Skylark Lounge on Thursday, somewhere other than the Little Theatre Café, and it will be Phil Marshall’s last show with the band – until he fills in as substitute that is. We will miss him and we plan to do our best to make this performance a fitting send-off. With the five dollar cover, we also plan to offer free copies of the band’s first cd, recorded with the first lineup under the name “Invisible Idiot” because Margaret Explosion was performing with a different lineup by the time we got into the studio (our living room.)
We’ve been assembling copies of the Invisible Idiot cd all week so despite being twenty-seven years old we’re calling it a re-release. We had the cds printed at DiscMakers and we had the covers printed locally by an engraver, Paul Klem. You should be able to spot the blind-embossed “Invisible Idiot” title at the top of the front panel but it takes some work and is probably easier for a blind person to read. We fold along the score lines, glue the two flaps and weigh the covers down under a stack of books while the adhesive dries.
Back When City was a newspaper they reviewed the cd as follows.
Fun with Father Time
by Chuck Cuminale — City Newspaper
Invisible Idiot — Outta Sight, Outta Mind
Invisible idiot is a first cousin of the Margaret Explosion, an otherworldly lounge band that, from October 1996 through June 1998, played an esoteric weekly Friday night happy hour at the Bug Jar. The ethereal soundtrack they provided cast an often eerie, slow motion effect on the just-out-of-work crowd’s revelries. The group’s improvised minor key melodies bathed the room in a melancholy glow, suggesting old 8-millimeter home movies, and blurring the lines between experience and reminiscence.
The music on Outta Sight, Outta Mind was made by many of the same musicians. Mostly recorded in six sessions during March and April 1997 in Paul Dodd and Peggi Fournier’s living room, the pieces collected on Outta Sight capture much of the same mood as their Margaret counterparts. A feeling of calm detachment pervades the disc along with a dreaminess that brings to mind Personal Effects’ (Fournier and Dodd were the forces behind that beloved Rochester band) gorgeous classic Don’t Wake Me.” Not every dream is a good dream, though, and I am pretty sure I heard a stifled cry or two coming from that soprano sax, and maybe an exhortation from old Father Time to keep things moving. Outta Sight, Outta Mind is a brilliant soundtrack, for whatever movie happens to come along.
Ultra Show
Maybe it’s a good thing that the Memorial Art Gallery did not do a catalog for their current “Drawing As Discovery” show. It got us over there three times and each time we found new favorites. I probably photographed a quarter of the 120 pieces. I’ve been visiting there since you entered by going up the big steps in the front of the old section and this is the best show they have ever mounted. And to think that all of these pieces are in their collection. Works on paper are fragile so they will be put to bed when the show closes today.
“I like the idea of a word becoming a picture, almost leaving its body, then coming back and becoming a word again.” Ed Ruscha
It will be a long time before we see 8 graphic Kara Walker drawings, Lyonel Feininger, Auguste Rodin, Burchfield, Picasso, Sol LeWitt, Goya, Rembrandt, Daumier, Delacroix, Tiepolo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Tamayo, David Hockney, Léger, and Morandi in the same space.
Leave a commentOther Side Of LA
We are planning to visit Peggi’s sister in LA this winter and right now we’ve got our fingers crossed that her home will still be standing. The Palisades Fire has moved one big step towards her and it is only 11% contained. She has already evacuated. We were thinking about her this morning as we strolled the beach up here on the North Coast.
1 CommentArt Talk
“You do portraits. Why don’t you have a piece in this show.” I can’t remember who asked me that when we walked into Studio 402. It seems they have an annual self-portrait show. That would be a lot of self portraits if you submitted a piece each year. I participated once with an abstract piece. And I was big on anonymous portraits for a while.
I found the piece above the most interesting in this year’s show. No idea who he is but I feel I got to know him through this piece better than I did the others. It is striking, first of all, in color and posture. I found myself staring into his eyes the way he appears to be staring back at us. And I like seeing the struggle to get volume into the plane – the side of the head coming forward. It stands out among the academic portraits. I like the bold signature and the cross worn on the outside of his shirt. Are those three crosses in his signature?
Over at RoCo for the Members Show, the second time for us, I settled on this piece as my favorite. Although I wish the two figures had just a little more room and the black frame was not so strong an element. I had to look up goldpoint. Minor quibbles. I love the drawing.
Unique Fair paints like an old master and I love his show up now at the Little Theatre Café. It was just a few months back when I posted a photo of his paintings that were on display at RoCo.
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Joyride With Eno
I’d like to bring our cd poster to every gig but that would be rude to the rotating artists. The band barely fits in the photo above and the photographer would need an even wider lens to get us all in tonight when Jack brings his bass clarinet. Then again Melissa may not be able to find a sitter.
We and people in a dozen cities across the country watched the same version of the Eno movie last night. The one hundred year old theatre with the brand new sound system was packed. I’m pretty certain I saw yesterday’s date in the code that scrolled across the screen in one of the montage segues. Our version of the film opened with Eno previewing a loop on a monitor. He apparently was in his home studio, a brightly lit room with Albers like art on the white wall behind him. His work area, monitors and white Apple keyboard were impossibly clean and orderly but Eno was warm and immediately engaging. He had us laughing with his first story.
The film is compiled from a pot of over five hundred hours of potential material, some shot for the film, of course, and clips from performances and sessions with all the bands he worked with. Material is still being added to the database today. The pieces of the film are arranged by an algorithm created with guidance from the director, Gary Hustwit. We learned that this very Enoesque concept was the director’s idea and it was born out of desperation as Eno had made it clear he was not interested in one person presenting a profile of someone (him.)
The film is energizing. It feels so fresh you don’t want it to end. The clips cut across time and space and yet hold together perfectly. Eno is full of so many ideas and this presentation makes them all sound like fun. The movie is something like a joyride and I can’t wait to see a different version.
Leave a commentOne Cicada
Peggi and I came across a cicada coming out of its shell while walking in the woods years ago. I took some photos and a short movie and I was waiting for the perfect song to attach the visuals to. I found it in Margaret Explosion’s “Sleepwalk,” one of 17 songs on our new cd “Field Recordings.”
I put the video online yesterday and texted a link to Bob Martin because Chicago had an invasion of cicadas last summer. Bob replied” “In the first couple days they were fascinating to look at. I’d actually move them out of the way when mowing. 4 weeks later, they were deafening, at one time registering nearly 100dB on my Apple Watch dB meter, and a brief trip outside would have you brushing them off your clothes and hair before coming back in. After six weeks, as they were dying off, we were raking them into piles as big as leaf piles in the fall. And just when we thought we were done, itch-mites began multiplying, feeding on the eggs that the cicadas had laced into the tree branches (thus killing the branches) and then said itch-mites began feeding on us, leaving scars we still see. And then there was the smell of rotting carcasses. We didn’t have any concept of how crazy it was going to get despite the warnings. Ours had red eyes and grey wings, though there was the occasional blue-eyed ones, which we referred to as “Sinatras.”
The song was recorded live at the Little Theatre Café (naturally.) Peggi Fournier plays soprano sax, Jack Schaefer plays bass clarinet, Phil Marshall plays guitar, Melissa Davies plays cello, Ken Frank plays the double bass and I play the drums. Arpad Sekeres mastered the audio.
Leave a commentSecond Part
My last post got 5 stars so I’m doing a second part. I’m happy to find Max Roach is featured in the book that Bennie recommended. He is rightfully everybody’s favorite drummer. The first jazz record I ever owned was Charlie Mingus’s “Town Hall Concert” from 1974. I was still in high school and didn’t know what to make of it at first but I eventually fell in love with it and Danny Richmond’s playing. Brad Fox could sing that whole lp.
My favorite drummer though is Ed Blackwell. Trained in New Orleans, he is what they call a melodic drummer. He plays on Ornette’s “Science Fiction,” an album that turned my head around. I got to see him playing with Don Cherry at a club in New York. I shook his hand even. I was talking to Hamid Drake when he played here and he told me he studied with Ed Blackwell. Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell recorded “Mu” first part and second part, released on a separate lp, in just one session! Just listen to a few minutes of the second track on “Mu First Part.”
And don’t you love the Actual label. The lower case, sans serif typography, the sparse placement of the image on a white sleeve and the logo! In a box with the stylized “A” next to it. The number, flush right at the bottom, indicating a whole series of recordings. Actuel albums looked like anthropoligists’ collections, carefully notated field recordings.
After Bennie showed me a few jazz licks Peggi joined us on sax. Bennie played her panadero, and I played drums. Any time you have two drummers you are jamming. It has to be the easiest path to “jamming.” I never liked bands with two drummers. It is so messy. The most valuable tool in a drummer’s kit is space.
Leave a commentNo Backbeat
When my brother was in town for Christmas we stopped out to see Brad. We were sitting in his living room and I remembered when we used to set up our drum sets in the living room, that very same living room. We were in high school and Brad’s mom was at work. Brad had studied at the Eastman and he showed me all that I know – very little. His first lesson was I, 2, 3, 4, on the hi-hat, drop the kick in on one and then add snare on two.” I was sitting with Marc Weinstein a few months ago when he told me how little he knew of the fundamentals. Marc plays with Pat Thomas in Mushroom, he played with MX-80 after Dave Mahoney and he’s currently playing in a blues band in Buffalo. We were laughing and trying to outdo one another with what we can’t do, rolls etc.
Our friend, Bennie, has been studying Brazilian percussion. She was leading the drum section in the stadium at Flash matches when we met her and we’ve seen her play in various settings. She occasionally brings a Brazilian instrument to Margaret Explosion gigs and sits in for a few songs. The last time I saw her I asked if she would stop by sometime and show me a few simple jazz beats. She came over on New Years Day with a paper bag of IPAs and a soft pink case with her panadero inside (a tamborine-like instrument that in the right hands can sound like a whole drum set.) Bennie has the right hands.
Specifically, I wanted to learn how Al Foster does what he does with his left hand in the last couple minutes of of Miles’ “He Loved Him Madly.” That’s all! Bennie had me start with a brush in my right hand while she sang chic, chic, ch-chic, chic, ch-chic, chic, ch-chic, chic over and over and over and over. And she wanted me to keep my right hand over the ride, not pull back and drop beats like I do. I did this for a half hour or so while she scat sang. I had the other brush in my left hand and couldn’t wait to start using it but Bennie would snap, “no backbeats” when it touched the snare. No backbeat? I live for the back beat. When the cymbal pattern was relatively smooth she had me doing it with four on the floor. I tried a snare beat again and got scolded. Bennie suggested I place a quick snare beat just before one of the kick beats. She sang the beat and I tried it. It was exhilarating. I know there is a whole world in there, in and around that simple cymbal pattern.
Bennie had a book with her and I told her I didn’t know how to read the notated drum patterns. She said don’t worry about that just read what the drummers have to say.
2 CommentsNot A Metaphor
We were just getting so we could remember our new neighbors’ names. Alliteration like ours and Dan and Diana across the street. They had only been here a year. We learned Chris had passed suddenly at 71 so we stopped down to give our condolences to his wife. As we walked up to their house we saw this hawk perched on a branch above. It looked right at us, posed for a photo and then took flight. Carol was still in shock and we felt so sorry for her.
Leave a commentRoots
This house, a block behind the World of Inquiry School No. 58 has been torn down. My grandfather grew up here with ten siblings. He and two of his brothers opened a store, Tierney Market, at the intersection of North Street and Hudson Avenue. My grandfather would walk to work. I am so happy they gathered in front of their house to pose for a photographer on their parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. Could they have imagined we’d still be looking at this photo today?
The stories we heard of Pa’s drinking and abusive behavior don’t exactly jive with this photo. The couple reached the half century mark! My mom, Mary Tierney, wasn’t even born when this picture was taken but her oldest sister, Rita is shown in the lower left. She was the first child of my grandfather, Raymond Tierney, top left, and his first wife who died in childbirth. My grandfather rather quickly married my grandmother, upper left and by all evidence they had a wonderful marriage unlike Ma and Pa. I still remember my grandmother in her 90’s saying “I miss Ray.” I miss him too.
Leave a commentExplicit Despair
“The Way These Painters Lived
From his window across a courtyard, Frank could watch the painter Willem de Kooning as he paced in his studio and contemplated his canvas. “I think that the people that influenced me most were the abstractionist painters I met; and what influenced me strongly was the way these painters lived, Frank said of his time embedded in New York City’s vibrant arts community. They were people who really believed in what they did. So it reinforced my belief that you could really follow your intuition… You could photograph what you felt like.”
– wall tag quote from Robert Frank MoMA exhibition 2024
When Robert Frank was still alive he worked with Gerhard Steidl to produce a series of dreamy photo books. All in the twenty dollar range, they are gorgeous beyond words. We have five but not “Park/Sleep.” I was looking at the Amazon listing for that one as we shopped for Duane and I came across these two customer reviews:
Verified Purchase
“The book is about his life I guess and it IS ROBERT FRANK so I wonder why he thinks it’s important for us to see. If you are a photographer, as I am, you probably have similar pictures that you made.
They will never be published because you are not HIM.”
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Verified Purchase
“Just an intractable artist, not the Robert Frank from The Americans, the great photographer we all loved.
I don’t like this explicit despair.”
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We saw the recent/fantastic Robert Frank shows at MoMA with Duane a few weeks ago and Peggi photographed a Steidl book in the bookstore that was about the making of these Steidl books. We ordered that one for Duane and we sent him this small sculpture (above.) Duane’s package to us was the catalog from the MoMA show. Peggi and I spent Christmas morning with it and it was real gift to see the show again.
My brother, Mark, and his wife, Amy, came up from New York for Christmas and Hanukkah and gave us a book they bought at the Jewish Museum for their current show, “Draw Them In Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Confronts Philip Guston.” My first thought was “No Contest” but we gave it a chance and fell in love with it. With essays by the artist and conversation with Art Spiegelman, Hancock’s paintings came to life. We plan to see the show in person when we visit New York in February.
Leave a commentMerry, Gentlemen
Melissa and Phil were both out of town last Friday so Margaret Explosion played with Bernie Heveron on guitar. Bernie is shown here playing keyboards, some twenty years ago, sitting in with Margaret Explosion at one of the holiday shows at the old Bop Shop. Phil Marshall, who joined the band about six years ago, is playing guitar on this minor key holiday song.
Leave a commentChristmas Halo
Years ago we decided to strap ice cleats on a pair of worn out walking shoes and just leave them on the shoes for days like today, Christmas, with a thin layer of fresh snow on top of icy streets. At the bottom of the steep hill on Hoffman we ran into Daminika. She rolled down hr window to say hi. She was wearing a headband that looked like a Christmas wreath. Peggi said, “”I like your headband” at the same time as I said, “I like your halo” so Daminika said, “What.” We laughed and pointed to her head. She said, “I hate Christmas. I’d rather be out skiing.”
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