Tom Petty is a rock ‘n roll romantic. Free Fallin’ is my favorite of his songs and I’m knocked out by this brilliant new version by Angel Corpus Christi. Angel’s big label record was produced by Craig Leon and featured Herb Albert and the Wrecking Crew’s Hal Blaine. This record sounds even better.
Leave a commentInternal Clock
A few weeks back Margaret Explosion recorded a session at Rochester’s Community Access TV station for an upcoming series entitled “Pythod Remix.” The Pythod was Rochester’s premier jazz club in the late fifties and early sixties and the MC for this RCTV series is Jose DeCosta from “Exodus To Jazz.”
Pete LaBonne was in town for the gig and Jack Schaefer is back in the band on bass clarinet so we couldn’t all fit on the sound stage. Pete volunteered to set his piano up off stage. The director asked how long the songs were that we were going to perform and we told him we don’t do songs, we improvise. This caused some confusion so we asked him, “How long do you want us to play?” He said he was trying to put together fifteen minute segments so we offered to do two seven minute songs in that period and damn if we didn’t do that four times in a row.
They set mics up all over the stage and took a number of the instruments live and who knows what their mix will be like. We set our little Zoom up in front of the band and grabbed this live stereo mix. Here’s the song we opened with:
Listen to Margaret Explosion – “Passage” from upcoming RCTV Pythod Remix Series.
Don’t Even Look At It
I awake from a vivid dream last night about an infestation at my parent’s house. My dad had called an expert to analyze the large bugs that were slithering from the mortar joints of his field stone foundation. (My parents actually have a modern concrete block foundation.) The expert had dug down along a portion of the foundation near the front door and we watched as bugs as big as six inches long worked their way out of the motor joints and they then either crawled away or took flight. One was iridescent blue and my dad, a bird and nature enthusiast, identified it as “rare such and such.” He was delighted to have spotted one of these and the blue bug flew toward him and hovered like a hummingbird right in front of his face.
There was a stern woman with the expert, possibly from the health board, and she was taking notes on a clipboard. She used a three word name, derived from Latin, in her confirmation of the infestation. The expert told my dad there was no option other than digging up the entire house and treating the foundation. My dad was trying to digest this when I woke up.
3 CommentsSmall Potatoes
Any day is a good for a walk on the beach. Not just a walk but taking the time to look out to sea. What do you see? Hardly anything but that is so nice. It is art, therapy, massage and religion all rolled into one. This sounds like one of my nephew‘s motivational tweets.
I wish my camera didn’t distort the horizon so much but that is small potatoes.
Leave a commentIn The Abstract
I apologize for the quality of my photo of Bill Keyser’s painting, “White Intrusion,” currently on view at the Lucy Burne Gallery in the Creative Workshop of the Memorial Art Gallery. The painting deserves better.
Masterfully simple, it could be described as one color on a white ground, a positive and negative space play, but the title tells you the white is a positive and both colors could be positives. In fact there are three forms involved in this intrusion. The two colors are completely flat but the three forms are multi-dimensional. Bill Keyser is a woodworker/sculptor/painter and a fellow student in Fred Lipp’s painting class. I find this painting very exciting.
Leave a commentDeer In Drag
There was a police car running out in front of our house a few days ago but no one was in the car. We spotted the casually dressed cop and two other distraught guys coming out of a neighbor’s back yard. We asked what was going on and they told us there was an injured deer running around and they were trying to do the “humane thing” and put it out of its misery. We asked what had happened to the deer and they said it had been shot with an arrow as part of the bait and shoot program and it got away.
We found deer down in the creek a few years back. It was a buck with a huge rack so we called our neighbor, someone who both feeds the deer and hunts them, not the same deer of course. That would be inhumane, I think. I’m real blurry on this humane thing. Assisted suicide for people is currently inhumane but it is fine for animals. Anyway, we showed this neighbor where the dead deer was and he sawed the rack off its head so he could get both sides of the rack attached to a deer skull cap. And when he rolled the deer over he found an arrow in its side.
Back to the injured deer that is currently on the loose: The hunters signaled it out, shot an arrow at it, injured but didn’t kill the deer and now they want to do the humane thing on it.
Leave a commentRocket Number Nine
In all of New York state there is only one pair of plates with “ART” on them and it is fitting that they would be on a Caddy. Art and money are entwined like never before. Warhol brilliantly blew the lid off this thing a long time ago. Which brings us to Lady Gaga’s new release, “Artpop,” with cover art by Jeff Koons.
There is a direct line from Warhol’s banana art on the Velvet Underground’s first lp to this. This a natural progression but did you ever imagine Lady Gaga covering Sun Ra (or at least getting close enough to the song to split writing credits with him)? Sun Ra will make more money with this song than he made his entire career.
2 CommentsNew Engine
I take one pill a day. I’ve been taking it for so long that I have trouble remembering if I actually took it. I pop it without thinking. My mom has a UTI and and another set of pills to take for it so we stopped by a drugstore today to buy her a “Pill Organizer.” I picked out one that didn’t look too obnoxious and we brought it over to their house.
I could tell as soon as we unwrapped it that it was the wrong one. The containers were colored so you couldn’t see in the chamber when it was closed and it was hard to open. It was laid out as you would expect, Sun. through Sat., but the type was too small and the type on the evening chambers was upside down so if you picked up the container the way my mom did the days of the week would read backwards.
So back to Walgreens where a young girl with blue nail polish cheerfully swapped it out for a large print version that reads up right from one side only, AM and PM laid out in separate chambers Sun. through Sat. in clear plastic with an easy snap latch. Enough of this, “Did I take my pill.”
We helped my dad take his trash out to the curb but before we did he wanted to know what he should do with a shoebox of floppy discs. I was trying to picture if any of our old computers still had a floppy drive. We decided to throw them away but we took one last look at history before we did. Canvas 1.0 from 1991, Hypercard from 1987, Mac Perspective, a program my dad used to design the mural at the UofR Laser Lab, Reunion 1.0. Mac3D, all marvels in their time.
1 CommentNod As Headliners
Jimy Chambers was one of the original members of Mercury Rev and his new band, Odiorne, played at Monty’s Krown last night with Small Smalls and NOD. We studied the poster for the gig and determined Nod was going on first. Odiorne was in the biggest type and both they and the Small Smalls were from Buffalo and Nod was listed last in small type. We got to the club about a quarter to eleven and before paying our paltry three dollar cover we asked the doorman if Nod had played yet. He said, “Nope, they’re up first and should be starting any minute.”
Monty’s is a classic rock and roll dive. It smells like cigarettes even though smoking in bars was banned years ago. Ted Williams was still there but this is no longer “the literary bar.” We ordered a pint and found Nod, now just a three piece, sitting at a table. We shot the shit for a bit and learned they were going to be last on the bill. They should be the headliners. They have everything I like in a rock band. They’re gnarly and rough, loose and danceable, and their songs get stuck in your head like a pop song. We had a long day and had to pack it in during Odiorne’s set so we missed Nod.
“World Still Wants You” by Nod fron “Tree Stuff & Lightning”.
1 CommentRemember The Homeless
A few years ago I arranged to meet some kids from a local homeless shelter so that I could draw them. The way it went down only the best behaved kids were selected by the organization to meet with me. And because they were told I would be taking their photos, some of them had their best clothes and face on. We met at the shelter and talked briefly over pizza. The kids were so interesting they made me feel like a statue and I fumbled my way through some awkward conversation before getting down to business.
I set up my Lowel Tota light kit and used the soft umbrellas to reflect the light back on their faces. The photos were a lot richer than my usual low res mugshot sources. I did a few drawings with Tempura and then a set of oil paintings but I was never happy with them. In the past few weeks I have revisited the faces and produced a series of charcoal drawings. I have two in the Irondequoit Artist’s Exhibition at ISquare which opens tonight. The drawing above is not in the show.
Leave a commentUpon this Rock
We were still in our pjs, reading the paper when an SUV pulled up out front. A couple of very funny looking woman got out and headed up to our neighbor’s door and a third woman came up our walkway. I used to engage these people all the time when we lived in the city. I like talking about religion and I love their little pamphlets. They would leave new ones for us when we weren’t home. If we were busy I would be quick with them but some of them are damn tenacious. I found if I told them “I’m Catholic” they would back off in a hurry. They can’t compete with the orthodoxy. This time Peggi suggested I tell them “We’re Jewish” so I went for it. It only egged this woman on and she got into full conversion mode.
She wanted to talk about eternal salvation and asked me, “What do you think eternity will be like?” I said, “Pretty quiet.” Without missing a beat she said Jesus came into the world to provide us eternal salvation. He died for our sins and his resurrection proves that there is life in the hereafter. I said I don’t believe in the Resurrection.
She fumbled for some reference in the old testament that was in some way related to sacrificing for eternal life and I cut her off. She said, “Well, the Jews made a few mistakes but they are good people.” I volleyed with, “Jesus was a Jew.” She was momentarily stunned but agreed that he was. She asked if she could stop back sometime to continue the conversation and she left me with a pamphlet entitled, “Can The Dead Really Live Again?”
1 CommentCode Of The Locker Room
Pete LaBonne coined the name, Margaret Explosion, back when we had a weekly Friday evening Bug Jar gig. That’s him on bass in the 1998 photo above. Jack Schaefer is seen on guitar with Peggi and me, the ME in Margaret Explosion. Just kidding! Pete has lifetime privileges and joins us and tonight on the Little’s grand piano. Jack has rejoined the band although both Jack and Pete are now playing different instruments.
Each gig is as different as we can make them. No set lists etc. Last week’s was more different than most. Ken, our bass player could not make it and Rick McCrea joined the band on trombone so we had three horn players. Oh yeah, and Ken Columbo sat in on piano.
Margaret Explosion tonight – Little Theater Café. Listen to “Hippie Dance” from “Live at the Village Gate”
Our Pumpkin Is Bigger Than Your Pumpkin
Our neighbor down the hill grew some giant pumpkins this year. They kind of took over the garden, grabbing a few of our pepper plants and tackling them stakes and all. But we can’t complain. Our garden space is in his garden, a former clay tennis court and he gave us one of his pumpkins. We hauled it up here in our wheelbarrow.
We walked through the woods and into our former next door neighbor’s new neighborhood today. We hooked up with her and walked over to the voting hall in the Point Pleasant Firehouse. We showed her the funky party/social club/party room that is behind the room dividers in the voting hall and we hatched plans to rent the space for a party. On the way home she told us about a Lou Reed encounter that took place in the hot tub of her Manhattan health club.
The wagon wheel above made me wonder if maybe Banksy is doing a piece a day in Rochester for the month of November like he did in NYC during October.
Leave a commentAs If Punk Rock Never Happened
People talk all the time during Margaret Explosion gigs. There are no lyrics. We are hardly performers, most of us have our eyes closed. But the crowd does shut up when the music gets engaging and that is all as it should be.
We were standing in the back of the Tango Café last night while Scott Regan played songs from his new cd. His folk country songs sit comfortably in the Americana tradition and his backing band, The Grownups, push him in a JJ Cale direction. Most of the crowd was seated up front around tables and most were smiling. As jam-packed as the the place was the sound was great.
The Grownups, Phil Marshall, Ken Frank and Jimmy Mac, were the foundation of the great Colorblind James Experience. Janet, Chuck’s (Colorblind James) wife and Phil Marshall’s sister, was down front catching up with Ken Frank’s (also bass player with Margaret Explosion) wife when someone turned to Janet and told her her voice was too loud. This really got Janet going. She left her spot and stood next to us at the bar in the back while she unloaded.
I was struck by the similarity between this incident and a story her husband, Chuck, told us a few years before he passed. He was listening to Bat McGrath when Bat stopped a song and turned to some un-rapt audience members to chew them out for talking. Chuck was blown away by this pompous lecture and threw the blame squarely back in the performer’s court for not being engaging enough.
6 CommentsActive Hiveway
Peggi and I walked in the rain yesterday. I was singing you know what in my head, trying to get “I’m Only Human” out after getting that damn song lodged during halftime of the Arsenal Liverpool game. I had the sound off but visual from the Liberty Mutual commercial got me.
Peter Presstone (he’s been in a few bands since those days but we still call him that) asked if we’d do a couple of songs for the Lou Reed night he’s hosting at the Skylark Lounge on the 22nd. We did “What Goes On” a few times back in the day so we agreed to give that another shot and Peggi picked “I’m Dreamin” from “Magic and Loss.”
It took me most of the day to get two drawing in frames for a show that opens at ISquare on Friday night. My drawings are equal parts charcoal and eraser marks so all sorts of particles cling to the glass and matt board. I spent more time tarting them up than doing them.
Leave a commentHighly Unlikely
My dad threw out their phone books and my mom wanted to call her friend but she didn’t have the number. My father was out and mom is afraid of the computer so she called me. I told her my computer had just shut down when today’s wind knocked the power out. She told me she heard on the news that a few trees had come down and she was afraid a tree would fall on my father. I told her she already had enough things to worry about and a tree falling on my father was highly unlikely.
My neighbor had asked for help getting his winch back in his pickup truck. I just walked down there to help but he was eating lunch. On my way back up the hill a large branch fell right behind me.
3 CommentsBrooklyn Trees
We walked by this same tree yesterday and its leaves were still on the tree. The spotty frost we had here, up by the lake, brought down all these same-sized branches, all at once. The leaves are still green, the tree is bare. Fall is over for this tree, just like that. None of the mucky-muck.
I think this is one of those weed-like trees, some people call them “Brooklyn trees.” They grow up between the cracks in the sidewalks and they grow real fast but this one is so big I’m not sure. There was no metal tag on the tree like there is on so many of the trees in the park.
1 CommentMagic & Loss
I bought the banana album at Midtown Records. It had just come out and Tom Campbell and I were ogling the package. The purchase was made strictly on the basis of that cover. We peeled the banana right there in the mall. I had no idea what I was in for once I got home with the lp. It spooked me and attracted me at the same time. Little did I know at the time but this record had every essential ingredient of a masterpiece.
Still in mourning for Lou but these videos helped.
Leave a commentPeople Like Pretty
I was asked to submit a few pieces into an upcoming, juried show at ISquare so somewhere near midnight on the day of the deadline I sent along photos of these three local homeless kids. Truth is the drawings were not done and they have changed considerably since. I had them in painting class last week and I told my teacher that I had submitted the three but only two of them got in. I told him which one was rejected and he said, “That’s the best one. People like pretty. They don’t like expressive.”
But that’s not the end of the story. I just got a note from the gallery director that says the person who did the poster for the show used the image that was rejected so it is back in the show.
Leave a commentWhat Law?
I grew up about a half block from this little man-made island and I was lost in the past as we drove up Humboldt Street. I spotted this little crab apple tree that had dropped its load and I asked Peggi to stop the car. The fruit on the ground was an entirely different color from the leaves on its branches, a startling sight. The apples were all in good condition, sort of surprising an animal had not taken care of that, and the bright green spray paint on the curb was nice accent. It wasn’t until we got home and looked at the photo that I saw the sign.
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