RIDE CAPTAIN RIDE UPON YOUR MYSTERY SHIP

Trapped in time. Must their voyage, until now ever plunging forward, turn backward down memory lane? The crew was exhausted. They had spent what seemed like years plugging in the coordinates and the last time lateral motion through time was achieved was in Tennessee. They continued transcending space with no problem, zipping one multi-quadrant of space to the next, but something in the computer was shorting out when attempting to transcend time. Every portal they entered it was 2007. Our fearless warriors, will they return to NOW? Or will they forever pitch on nostalgia's endless maw? Crumpled and lost in a dusty corner of cyberspace; your captain's log:


men of many vices - sweet blog
live in johnson city, tn
ryan deasy, mike lindeau, nick maller, & toby oler
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?inkzijznr25

MY FRIENDS DO AWESOME STUFF

Spring is that you? It's gotta be the reappearance of the sun or Andrew Conklin's new album If I Were More Like You that has me all loked out. I saw Andrew perform-a this fresh batch of tunes at the sweet BlueSix Acoustic Room in the Mission a couple weeks ago. I haven't been able to stop singing Jaguar to myself and everybody else since.

YOUR SEATS ARE DOWN THIS AISLE BUT TONIGHT YOU WILL ONLY NEED THE EDGE

BUY TICKETS
Friday Feb 19

San Francisco Bluegrass & Old-Time Festival
Shelby Ash's Bluegrass Bonanza

The Earl Brothers
The Dalton Mountain Gang
Forest Fires

at Plough & Stars 116 Clement Street (between 2nd and 3rd) San Francisco, CA

http://sfbluegrass.org
http://www.earlbrothers.com
http://www.daltonmountaingang.com
510-339-1872
BUY TICKETS

SOMETIMES TROUBLE JUST FOLLOWS A MAN LIVE - THE NASHVILLE KNIVES

Recorded in Indiana in 2008 and 2009. Barry Elkins sings classic bluegrass. Look for more come summer.

1. They Call It That Good Ol' Mountain Dew (trad.)
2. Love Please Come Home (Leon Jackson)
3. Southern Flavor>Columbus Stockade Blues (Bill Monroe, trad.)
4. Love of the Mountains (Allen Mills)
5. Big Spike Hammer (Pete Goble, Bobby Osbourne)
6. Rollin' In My Sweet Baby's Arms (trad.)
7. The Ballad of Hollis Brown (Bob Dylan) *Mike Lindeau, fiddle
8. Barefoot Nellie, You're the One for Me (trad.)

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD

The Nashville Knives are Dan Bilger, guitar, Ryan Deasy, bass, Barry Elkins, mandolin, vocals, and Toby Oler, banjo.

INTERNET POLLUTION

The new TV Mike & the Scarecrowes album Spittin' in Cursive made the East Bay Express's Best of 09 list.

"With Devendra Banhart, the Freight & Salvage, and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass commanding national spotlights, why shouldn't the Bay Area be a bastion of self-styled folk revivalism? But a banjo and a stash of Pete Seeger records does not a 21st-century folkie make. There must be a broader vision — something to warrant trotting out the old familiar tropes. Rooted as surely in the West Oakland warehouse that frontman TV Mike calls home as in the timeless continuum from Seeger to John Fogerty to the Avett Brothers, TV Mike & the Scarecrowes excel on vision and execution alike. Part string band, part cow-punk (at times recalling fellow locals the Trainwreck Riders), and gently transcendent through and through, their debut reveals no shortage of ideas, nor of skill to see them through. The whole thing, from TV Mike's alluring drawl to Toby Oler's slow-stepping banjo, resonates to a frequency all its own. (Brave Scarecrow Records)" Nate Seltenrich


INTERNET POLLUTION

THESE ARE THE ROOTS OF RHYTHM AND THE ROOTS OF RHYTHM REMAIN

The kitchen where I sit and write this is very real. Before me a table. Behind me a barrelhouse piano that has been turned into a speaker cabinet for the record player. That was a fun night. The laptop running out of battery. If you could have made a time lapse video of the majority of my encounters with Evan Francis I would have been sitting on this bench. That's not to say I don't go places, but its where I like to sit. Your video would show Evan, blurred and suited, horn in hand, buzzing in from rehearsals and whizzing out for gigs. You could slow the video to see stills of Evan eating spinach straight from the bag or calling upon science. If you checked the timecode, the single pattern that emerges is that it keeps happening, expanding exponentially according to logarithms I don't quite have a handle on yet. Day or night. Piling on the gigs. The man stays busy.


And, for a reason. As one of the consigliere in the local SF Jazz Mafia, Evan Francis leads his six piece Spaceheater's Blast Furnace crew as well as holding down a chair in the flute, clarinet, and sax sections of other mafia incarnations in their self-described "sonic jihad." You can catch Spaceheater's Blast Furnace at Yoshi's SF the first Tuesday of the month or at their record release show September 29th at the Independent hosted by Bay Area rap icon Lyrics Born. The name is no lie; these players make bikram yoga look like making snow angels.

Spaceheater's Blast Furnace new self-titled album is the musical equivalent of being on deck, stepping up to the plate, and rounding first base all at the same time. The CD confidently shapeshifts between danceable afro-latin and hip hop rhythms, icy cool melodic lines, and playground jazz often with an unexpected warmth and immediacy. If I were you I'd download that shit right now.




thanks to Lauren Stower (photos)

REPOST FOR THE DECEASED

repost from last year in honor of Marvin, R.I.P. 08/09/2009

HOW TO SIDELINE A MULE
I wouldn't say I grew up with mules plural. We had one, Marvin, and briefly two, but she died while giving birth. One day a trailer from Nebraska pulled into the drive, backed up to the calf barn and dropped her off, heavy with colt. Marvin would bray from the adjoining lot and drag his dick on the ground. With age, he has mellowed. I learned that, like all animals, including us, if you feed him, Marvin will be your friend. Some mornings, Marvin will nudge his feedpan out under the gate as a gentle reminder. He still serves as a combination rooster/watchdog.

I remember Dad tying headstrong little steers to Marvin to break them to halter. It was an entertaining tandem. If the mule wanted to drink, they would get to drink. Same for eating and generally anything else. If the mule wanted to. Stepping out of line meant getting donkeybit along the ridge of the neck or kicked. A day or two on the mule's schedule was enough to strip a young calf of its' will.

But how to break a mule, an animal long noted for its stubbornness? On smokebreak near Council Bluffs, Iowa, an old horsetrainer just told me. It's called sidelining.

How to Sideline a Mule:

1. Attach one end of the rope, noose-style, around any of the mule's legs. Pull it tight. The best place is the joint just above the hoof. A sheepskin or leather tie is best because nylon can break the mule's skin.

2. Pull up on the leg and once it is raised and bent at an angle approaching 90 degrees, tie the other end of the rope around the mules neck. The mule is now rendered three-legged. As soon as they lose balance, they lose confidence.

3. After your mule has fallen over, place a tarp over it. Make sure it is completely dark under there. Give it a couple hours.

4. Remove the tarp. Your mule will be a blank slate. And always carry a knife like this in case something goes wrong.

FREESTYLE RAP BATTLE CHAMP 2009 HIT ME

my name is chris, I love roast beef
I got a peppercorn stuck in my teef
to save my cheddar I eat at home
the sound of me chewing is my new ringtone
hit me

I WOULD TELL YOU IF YOU WERE MY DOCTOR

Quinn is an Oakland, CA guitar rock trio that sounds like they did their homework. Their self-titled EP opens up with the spooky "I Don't See You Anymore" which about two minutes in completes the warm wet slide from heartfelt indie rock plea into Beatle-esque timing shifts and counter-melodic lines. Quinn features Nate Brenner on drums, the nexus of the connection between a circle of Oberlin College alumni and Indiana musicians. If you were to join me in constructing a Venn Diagram of the two, together we would see an ever increasing overlap to the point of impending concentricity. Brenner uses his drums like a theater manager uses effective set design and lighting, bringing out the flash only when it calls for it in the script.

My highlight is Andrew Conklin's "Doctor" which comes strutting in like it owns the place. Guitarist Emery Barter hovers above musical touchstones like a UFO, suspended briefly and cemented into your brainpan before jetting off to collect the next specimen. "Dangerous Miss," begins like a swanky toss-off Bond theme, brings out Matt Nelson, suspected affiliate of the San Francisco Jazz Mafia and known Warriors fan, to touch on some Morphine saxophone territory before time-traveling into a section that dares to call on your suspension of disbelief as Quinn welcomes you to THE carribbean retro lounge of the future, replete with alien and terrestrial scat singing and technicolor fizzy umbrella drinks brought directly to your floating table. Haaayyyyy. Closing it down with an obvious harbinger of their future direction, "Soul" uses a modern indie/r&b synthy guitar line as a catchy point of departure into velvety hinterlands of their choosing.

Click to Download Quinn EP

Check them out live:
8/5 Portland, OR TBA
8/6 Tacoma, WA The Den *early*
8/6 Tacoma, WA Doyle's Public House *late*
8/7 Olympia, WA ABC House
8/8 Seattle, WA Cafe Racer
8/9 Eugene, OR Sam Bond's Garage

Or Check them out online:
www.quinnsounds.com
http://www.myspace.com/quinnsounds

MY FRIENDS DO AWESOME STUFF

My friends do awesome stuff. I'll start posting more of it. Above is the art of one Mr. Max Kauffman, a current Denver-ite and Hoosier ex-pat, who has the ability to please women with only a glance. I would just post our last g-chat here as an example of the man's inherent genius but I would fear for your soft parts and their exposure to the terrifying shrapnel of truth.

Above is a piece inspired by Buckydomes. If you would like to see this little slice of ocular heaven levitating on your very own wall, please send me Three Thousand Dollars in American Currency. No sequential bills. No bills from the bottom. No dyepaks. The money, and I mean all the money, will be put to good use to outfit Max's new batcave-style "Art Grotto." The whiskey fountain is nearing completion. Act fast.




Seriously. There are no chairs in here yet. We are sitting on stacked case after case of Diet Mountain Dew. If Max ends up with bad posture, that will be on your conscience, dear reader. So to recap, we have: Pleasuring women with merely a glance; Buckydomes; and the new batcave-style "Art Grotto," of which I will be released from if I can come up with three thousand dollars. HELP!