In the last 3 weeks we have enjoyed a potpourri of climatic variation. We had a little bit of rain, but not too much. We had one or two blazingly hot days, but not too many. We’ve had a few days that merited an extra shirt – cool, breezy, bordering on chilly if you’re from here or just done got too used to it – but only a few… Though the evenings have been a little on the “cold” side as standing-around-outside-a-venue temperatures go. In the main it has been pleasantly warm, not too hot, not too cold, and a little more motion in the air than I expect to find here, which is especially nice cos it keeps the breathing a little easier.
Yesterday there was a raven on the next street up (Marathon?) making that sound like an African gourd xylophone that I never heard them make until a few weeks ago … And in a few weeks into the future we are moving into a house which will allow more cool in, keep more hot out, and be surrounded by more in the way of vegetation which means birds, squirrels, and lots of the color green.
EDIT: The mockingbird is DEFINITELY back. I was playing along with him on the guitar yesterday.
{March 12, 2010}
I had the opportunity to play two wonderful shows this week, both with Amanda Jo Williams.
The first was held at a place called the Echo Country Outpost, which co-owner Chris insists is “not a venue”! What it is, is, is a funky little store on Echo Park Blvd (corner of Duane, out past Chango a ways) that I couldn’t tell exactly what they sell but I am certain it is cool, whatever it is.
For the occasion (perhaps the first show held there? perhaps it will be a monthly event from here out?) a stage existed at the back of the main room, on which played first a group (in this instance a duo tho sometimes they are larger) called Verb The Adjective Noun. Originally from Boston, temporarily not living in their bus, they were very tight and propulsive, not just for a duo but all around. One of them played guitar and sang, and the other played guitar, banjo and lap steel with equal and impressive facility. Good vocal harmonies. Rootsy without spilling either too far into tradition or too far into singer-songwriter ickiness.
The headliners, Abilene of whom I believe set up the show, were called Sundays Soundtrack. They had a wonderful upright bassist and two wonderful women and they were vibey and moody and harmonistic and bouyant and I enjoyed them a lot.
We played in between.
So, a little show in a little store, but there were at least 60 people in there which made it FULL, and I don’t think I’d ever met more than a half dozen of them before. We had a rough set, new bass player (he did a fine job, but it was his first show with us) and tuning issues for me and Amanda, but the people really dug it, they laughed with us not at us and by the end we had a wonderful energy going, the best energy I’ve felt in a room yet at a Los Angeles show. Score one for Echo Country!
…
OK, and then last night we played at the Echo Curio, which is very possibly my favorite in-town venue to play at. It’s run by the awesome Grant-and-Justin dynamic duo, there’s an amazing stream of art that passes across the walls and a room full of weird records for cheap, we played at the top of a bill of ridiculously talented women (which was a new and wonderful context to hear Amanda’s music in) and once again a room full of 60 total strangers and a few good friends just dug us to death, kept us going for an extra tune or so past what Amanda had intended to play. Let me tell you, we felt GOOD. And the new bass, upright Jef Hogan (with one ‘f’), really makes it.
Also on the bill last night were Fort King (who I didn’t get to hear cos I was eating a burrito next door, but they were very nice) … Beliss, a duo of sisters (I am told) whose vocal harmonies are unusual and beautiful and who feature lush acoustic guitar voicings and electric-upright bass-playing to die for. Or at least to swoon about … and Ora Cogan, who might be a cosmic parallel to Elizabeth Cotton or Karen Dalton, who sings like no one else I’ve heard (beautifully, swoopingly, in a round and full voice) and who coaxes lovely rich tones from an electric hollowbody Gibson tuned in an array of unusual manners.
For the evening of March 4 we assembled a group including Jef Hogan (electric bass), Jon Franco (drums), Jennifer Ng (percussion), Woody (acoustic guitar) and myself (acoustic wah-wah guitar).
I had one rehearsal with Jef and John (who also play bass and drums for Greg Franco’s Rough Church), one run-through with Woody, and a loose jam with Jennifer, in the few days before the show. Many of the band members had not met each other until they arrived at the venue. This is less unusual for me than might be suspected.
Viento y Agua in Long Beach is a “coffee house” with wonderful energy, constantly changing art on the walls, the occasional model skeleton, many books, and a warm and inviting stage (and sound system) which was conceived and assembled by Angie Evans. I’ve played a few shows there, by myself and also with Cricket and with Amanda, and every time I’ve felt good and played well.
This was the first time I’d played some of this material in a long time, and the first time I’d ever played some of it with a band. The two acoustic guitars kept the energy closer to the ground than usual, and the songs and improvs worked together for a change instead of fighting for space. The existence of dual percussionists also contributed to the effortless momentum of this group’s sound. We had momentum without frightful velocity.
It’s unusual work, for me, lately. I am proof-reading a forthcoming book release for Tarpaulin Sky. I used to do this with my own work, with that of my friends, and once with a lengthy book in the true crime genre, written by my father, which is called Stalemate. But it’s been a while since I did all that. I don’t try to publish my own writing, when there is any, and besides I would probably ask Zinnia to do the proofreading if I had any that needed to be done.
I am enjoying the work. Partly, because it is interesting work. Editing. Spotting the flaws in something and getting rid of them so it can be what it set out to be. Partly, because it is an interesting book. More on that later, when it is out and you can buy it and find out for yourself. Let’s say it this way: I am not sure that I would have read this book were I not proofreading it. But I am glad that I am reading it, and I would recommend this book to anyone that likes innovative, strange, or offbeat short fiction that is not entirely abstract or deliberately nauseating.
But I’m not going to tell you what it is. Not until it is out, and you can buy it and find out for yourself.
*
Meanwhile, I am recording an album with a band called Rough Church. Rough Church is led by Greg Franco. Greg plays the guitar, writes songs, and sings. He’s been doing this for years. We met sometime last year and he asked me to play with his band and help record their new album. I said OK. The other band members are Jef Hogan (bass) and Jon Franco (drums). Jon and Greg are cousins.
We’re recording in Echo Park, which is where I live, which is very convenient. We rehearse in Washington Heights, which is further away but not prohibitively so. Greg has a nice place with a fine view and the air up on his hill is always clear.
The engineer working on the album, in whose studio we are recording, is brilliant. He is doing amazing work. I can barely think sometimes because my ears are so finely tuned and Andrew Bush (the engineer) has ears which are even more finely tuned than my own. But it doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s had his own studio for time which can be measured in decades (at least one-and-a-half of them, I believe) and he knows how to get great sounds out of it.
He also knows how to nudge sounds around digitally to make a better take out of a few not so good ones. This is probably a good skill to have, and he is applying it effectively with us, but I also feel that this is a good skill not to overuse. I am not saying that Andrew overuses this skill, and in fact his results so far with Rough Church have been brilliant. I have no complaints. But I am keeping an eye.
Greg thinks that Andrew made some minor digital changes in one of my guitar solos on one of our songs. I have mixed feelings about this. If I played badly but he liked the ideas and thinks he can make something good out of them, then I am all for it. But if I played something deliberately and well that just sounds a little off to finely-tuned ears (and I am wont to do such a thing as that) then I want to hear it the way I played it.
I have listened to the track where Greg says this happened, before and after versions, and I don’t hear the difference. I will ask Greg to point it out to me, and if I hear a problem I will make a note of it. But on fairly close listening I don’t hear it, myself.
*
So what Andrew appears to have done, if anything, is a bit like what I am doing: proofreading.
When a writer (or a guitar player) likes to work in a style that is not specifically normal all the time, then it is not always apparent where a comma should go, or whether or not a musical phrase is off-time.
Proofreading. A word which sounds to me increasingly like a stifled sneeze. I have to get familiar enough with the writer’s style to know when she meant to do things a certain way and when she just got excited and distracted by what she was writing and overlooked a few details.
With any luck, Andrew is doing the same thing with my guitar solos. And with any luck, he and I are both good enough at our jobs to know how to leave it alone when it should be left alone and also to make the correct changes when necessary to bring out the purest possible flowering of the artist’s original intent.
I am not used to having my guitar solos proofread. I would think that a writer would be more comfortable with this, as it goes with the territory pretty much from day one. Then again, even as a writer I have had my issues with proofreaders. I often feel that they do not understand me or my intentions. I don’t think there’s a good or bad to it, but regardless of whether I am writing or playing the guitar, I think one of my aims would have to be to do it well enough in the first place that proofreading is unnecessary.
It rained again, less dramatically, for a couple-few days. No tornadoes, little in the way of mudslides, the mania all wrought out in the first go rounds.
It was a spring rain. It was a subtle difference. It had less of a density to it, not so much in the way of sodden snowpants and slightly more along the line of still-wearing-those-wet-clothes-are-you?
Then it got clear, like it does. Best air here is right after a rain. I go outside just to breathe.
It got hot. I had heard it was going to, and then it happened, in the middle of the night. I could tell cos I woke up sweaty and had to take some clothes off. Sure sign of a heat wave.
And the next two days of February in southern California were as hot as Vermont ever gets in July (maybe a couple of hotter days in August). The heat was nice – got my first light sunburn of the year, it passed quickly when I applied Aloe, or Arnica, or Something – but also a reminder that it ONLY GETS HOTTER FROM HERE, HA HAAAAA!!!
Then two days that could be described as relatively cool (even bordering on chilly on at least one evening) and now it is raining again.
Sonic Youth has released a series of records on their own SYR label, many of which consist mainly of improvisations recorded in their studio during rehearsals or between and among album sessions. Most if not all of these releases are labeled in languages which are not English. The reasons for this are obscure…
I own two of these releases (#1 and #2, I believe …) and I like them quite well. I’ve had #2 for longer and played it more often, so last night I got out #1 to listen to while reading a short story by Irvine Welsh (which mentions heroin only briefly so sppbt to his reputation … we’ll see how the collection progresses, but so far the writing is really solid good and I would recommend it, the book is called The Acid House).
The Sonic Youth record was mellower than I recalled, pleasantly droning and pulsating, and after a minute or two a little light went on in my brain and I realized it was one of those increasingly-common large-sized 45rpm releases, which I was playing at 33&1/3.
I let it go. It sounded good. I will listen to side two today in the same manner.
It has become typical that I prefer those large-size 45rpm releases when played at the wrong speed. This first came to light during Marc Cantlin’s visit to Los Angeles back in the spring of 2009… said visit documented here:
Right around that time I had purchased a record by Akron/Family called “Set ‘Em Wild, Set ‘Em Free.” I sat down to listen to it and was really enjoying it a lot, really into it … and it took me half of side one (of four) to realize I was listening too slow. Or rather, the record was moving too slow. Perhaps I was listening too fast.
I returned the album to its intended speed and started over … to my great dissatisfaction. It was weak, lightweight, affected, even silly!* (On the other hand, I had discovered afro-grunge.)
Since that time I have found in my collection also a record by Omar Rodriguez Lopez called, I think, “Please Heat This Eventually” with guest Damo Suzuki which I’ve been playing on the wrong speed for years and never realized. It’s better that way, trust me.
* To be fair to Akron/Family, who are a worthy group, the album sounds pretty good, especially sides 2-4, if you have not just listened to it at the wrong speed first. Contrast is, in this case, everything.
Yesterday was a hair on the chilly side, tho not unpleasant… like Seattle in the spring. Like there’s a mild, debatably damp bite in the air. But not overtly damp. And not a nip. No teeth to it. Just a chill. And besides, it was sunny. I was outside mainly in the late afternoon, just before sunset, attempting to contend with what turns out to be a double-filament bulb in our 1999 Nissan Altima’s tail/brake-lights. Hassle upon hassle - but pleasant enough to deal with until you get a fix-it ticket. Which we haven’t got, so rite on it is.
Was also out briefly driving to Greg’s for Rough Church rehearsal. It was nice enough up his way, but not spectacularly so (measured by that I didn’t notice, and I usually do). I mean, it was clear and the air and temperature were pleasant. I just didn’t get any sense of the cosmic ambience. Which could in itself be telling.
Previous afternoon I was rehearsing on Simon’s Drum Satellite with Cricket & The 2:19. I brought an extra shirt thinking I’d need one. Didn’t really, though it wasn’t too much either. Also pleasant and cool, but a little drier in the air. Like, micro-clicks drier. Notably unnotable, also, except in relations to the days surrounding.
Micro-clicks of individuation are, I suspect, what I am after.
Today it is raining again. I haven’t been out yet. I will soon be on my way back to Greg’s, but I don’t see much to sample today in the way of meteorological micro-clicks. It is wet, and probably a bit chilly. I don’t mind.
