Monday, December 31, 2007

WOW

You guys?  At Neumo's last night?  I think I'm falling in love with all of you.  Way to party like it was actually NYE!  Thanks to Sean and the Harvey Dangers for keeping our streak intact, thanks to Toucan Pete for champing Basil's bass parts, thanks to Tim Hyland for understudying Basil during the Bathroom Monologue, thanks to Tracy Repep for kissing my tie and then singing her head off, thanks to BOAT for making the people bounce, thanks to John Roderick for the bottle of water and for playing Lennon to Sean's McCartney in "I've Got a Feeling", thanks to the Missus Auer for drawing a happy face on my blood blister, and thanks to the Very Mister Auer for shredding his fantastic guitar during Wurm.  Speaking of, for those of you who would like to know what the absurd prog anthem surrounding "American Boyfriend" was:  "Starship Tr00per", written and performed by Yes on their 1971 powerhouse The Yes Album.  Yes!  They're considered spiritual leaders of a sort around here.  If you'd like to hear what we sound like doing this epic when we have a studio in which to play our parts, go over here.  (Happy Strangercrombie '06, Thomsen!)

I think I speak for all "Awesome"s everywhere when I say that you, reading this, are awesome as well.  We all wish you the happiest of new years.  2008 contains all our beautiful futures.


Saturday, December 29, 2007

COW

Cornucopia of Whatever: coming this fall! (thanks Rob)

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

The Doctor and the Ladder

Part 3 of 3.  

I feel that this punctuates the end of my Xmas vacation... but maybe that's because I'm blogging from work.


Whadjegitferchristmas?

I got a baby.














This is Nora.
She was born on Dec. 22.
She's pretty rad.
Thanks to Molly for the threads.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

John O's Album Gets a Review!

See here where the Seattle PI gives a review to our man John's recent Fly The December Skies. My favorite songs are Little, Snowflake, The Start and the End, Push On, and Madison. But they're all fucking great. What a jerk.

-David


P.S. on a totally different subject, what has our resident Stephen Sondheim expert (Mr. Mosher) got to say about the new Sweeny Todd movie?

Narcotic Exquisite (with Apologies to Wallace Stevens)

As the droozy dew of Vicodin
Brings forth
The wet-glazed palm
And yellow dream’s appetite for life,

As the droozy dew of Vicodin
Brings forth birds and birds
From the Nebula,
Nebula unfolding jubilant curves
And mad curves of jubilant curves,

And unscrupulous effluvia,
Shine though the lens of the vast playpen,
And pontifical frost
So, in me, comes wringing
Wrinkles, rules, and the ruin of rules.

-David

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Stairway To Heaven? Hell, yes.



Pete (aka not Basil) laid this on us last night during a break from mixing some Half Brothers tunes. This seals my vow to never listen to the original again.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

People in Japan do this for fun and money



My wife tells me that a friend of ours is one of the black-clad puppeteers. I always knew we had the coolest friends.

Destroying walls exactly where they used to be

It's my day to blog so here I am with Part 2 of 3:  Doc Nixon's Entropy Express!    


Thought of all of you at the Rendezvous last night - I was chillaxin' in Iowa City with our man Johnny K., who's there studying to be a Master of the Fine Art of Directing.  Things I noticed: A) nearly everyone chain-smokes in the bars here.  It made me homesick.  B) I still have a difficult time succinctly describing what we do to folks with no context other than a common friend, even if that friend directed one of our... entertainments.  C) Hunky Dory is a good album to rock while driving home on tiny Iowan roads at 2:30AM.  

Oh, I miss you pretty things.


José Bold & The Anderson One

So how many people think J. Osebold isn't such a bad songwriter after all? The solo (plus guests) show at the Rendezvous last night hosted by Mister O of Awesome was one of the best musical experiences of the year! Kirky Kirk was a top-notch foil as usual, what with the singing, playing, and general tomfoolery.

A brilliant attempt at shooting for the stars.

And he would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for you lousy kids.

-- Pete (aka Not Basil)

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Oscar: worthy?

Apparently not worthy of a waiver from the WGA, reports Annie at Slog.

Take that, Dick Clark Productions!

Judging from the comment thread on that post, I'm not the only one who CANNOT WAIT to see what this writers' strike will do to Hollywood. And especially to the Academy Awards, the most bloated, asinine, self-congratulatory industry stroke-fest of all the Awards. Truly, I'm filled with gleeful dread and anticipation. Like when you put your army men in the microwave - nothing really happens at first and then - EWWWW!! Awesome!!
 
Maybe after the strike is done microwaving Hollywood, there'll be something better to make out of that puddle of green plastic goo. Or at least people will realize that the writers (and musicians and actors, for that matter) who devote themselves to making things pretty, clever, thoughtful, entertaining and (ugh, okay) "magical", deserve the right to make a decent living at it.  

Monday, December 17, 2007

The Pentagon has no bathrooms.

That's what my dream told me last night.

Also, that Evan can turn into a bumblebee at will.

Dream interpretations anyone?

-David

Evan! Make Sure Your Dad Is Okay!

Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg dies at age 56

Thursday, December 13, 2007



FLY THE DECEMBER SKIES!

Guilty Pleasures

So, there are many days here when I leave my desk 6 times or less, to empty my bladder and refill my Nalgene bottle. I try to combine these trips for maximum efficiency. Sometimes I just pee into my Nalgene bottle to stay really efficient. Yesterday was one of those days.

And I listened to a lot of music. Thanks to the iPod shuffle, I remembered how much I like the song "Hurricane Amore" by the Ocean Blue. It really needs a harmony vocal, though. Then I thought about how often harmony can 'sweeten' a song. The power of Garfunkel should never be underestimated.

One thing I'd like to do with the rest of the band in 2008 is to create song that has a lot of choral elements, something where at least one person is singing throughout. There are a lot of good singers in the band, and quite often we get carried away with making intricate arrangements for our myriad instruments, which is sometimes a detriment to our vocal abilities.

I learned this when we recorded Trooper. Am I not supposed to leak that yet? Anyway, it's really nice to stand around a single microphone with three other really good singers. We haven't done that in a while. I'm looking forward to that again. It almost makes me forgive my mother for driving me to Hudson to take voice lessons from the woman who made me sing "The Rose." Nothing kills your chances with 7th-grade girls more than singing Bette Midler in a higher register than they can.

And finally, if you haven't heard Jose Bold's new CD, "Fly the December Skies", you must do this now. He's even giving it away. Just put your cursor up in the URL of this page, highlight "home.php" and replace it with "december". This will unlock a world of beautiful sweetness. If you don't think "Madison" isn't amazing, then you're made of wood. I'm calling Zach Braff now to get it onto his next soundtrack.

I don't know why this post was called "Guilty Pleasures."

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Exercise Your Right to Vote

By stuffing the ballot box!
Just kidding. Unless you live in Panama.
Good times.


The fine bloggers at Three Imaginary Girls have opened up their "Best of 2007" poll for the voting

And a little radio station known 'round here as KEXP has got one too.  

As a reminder: 
The band is called "Awesome"
The album is called Beehive Sessions
We will accept nothing less than total world domination.


Fear! Does not Exist! In this dojo!

P.S. We're also auctioning off an original song for The Stranger's Annual Benefit Auction. Why haven't you bid on it yet?  


Saturday, December 8, 2007

Did you see the comet last night?

Thanks to all who stuffed themselves into the legendary Comet last night. It was a rite of rock passage to play there with you. Things I learned:

I. Eux Autres is pronounced "Ooz oh-truh"
II. The windows at the Comet can withstand the monster drumming of John from Fishboy
III. BOAT is catchy music, 'tell you whut
IIII. Don't eat Italian before a show
IIIII. Capitol Hill chicks could totally beat the crap out of Fremont chicks
IIIIII. I need a new amp...with lasers
IIIIIII. Brian Flobosh is in town

Holiday cheer all 'round ye'all.

Friday, December 7, 2007

Finally Finshed


I've been working on this damn painting for over a month.

Now I can get to work on the piece Kirk commissioned me to do. I found the perfect "canvas" for it in the as-is section of Ikea. That place is a goldmine for things to paint on! A GOLDMINE I tell you!

Look at old weird art of mine at docnixon.com/art!

-David

Reminderinder

Don't forget:
Tonight at The Comet!

We'll be sharing the "stage" with BOAT, Fishboy from TX and Portland's own Eux Autres (which is a fancy way of saying "no overnight camping without a permit", if our recollection of high-school French is still accurate which I believe it most certainly IS).
The whole thing is presented by the very real Three Imaginary Girls.
We can't wait to see you there! 

(And by "We", I mean "They", which includes "This guy". 
I'm still on administrative leave. Hold all my calls.)

PS:  Here's a link to Fishboy lip-synching a song on some Chicago-based kid's show.  Here's a link to the Stranger talking about the show.  Here's a link to a pug puppy.

23

Damn this Blonde Redhead album is good.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Sweet Melanie Pie Shoppe

Sweet, Sweet Melanie
Couldn't really see
Had a sweet tooth tendency
O my bonnet bee

Had a man, a handsome guy
Made entirely out of pie
Didn't fret a fretty dance, why
He just smelled real good and smiled real wide

But Melanie sought the sweeter meats
A pesky thing, temptation be
But when ye, if ye can't see,
Get the itch, ye answer, see? See.

So off goes she, Sweet Melanie
A teardrop lost for out-to-sea
And left us here, a' you and we
And husband pie, yes, he makes three

Of brushes with famous persons riding transit

My dad (Dave) went to high school in Peoria, Illinois, where he was involved in speech and debate and dabbled in painting. He would often ride the bus to regional tournaments, and on these buses he became acquainted with a competitive peer named Dan. Dan was another young actor and painter from a rival school in Peoria; one of those maddening people who are good at everything and probably have fame encoded in their genes.

There was eventually a tournament where my dad's lead role in a scene from Midsummer Night's Dream was matched against the scene Dan led. Dave's team won by two points (but they failed to make it to state by one point... O, cruelly elusive Fame...) On his victorious bus ride back to Peoria, Dave heard "Punky's Dilemma" from Simon & Garfunkel's just-released Bookends being perfectly strummed and sung by the unflappable Dan at the back of the bus. So he was a talented musician, too. Oh well.

A few years later, Dave bumped into Dan on a bus to Champaign. They recognized each other and started chatting about music; Dan had just finished recording some songs in Nashville, and Dave had embraced a hippie lifestyle with musical hopes. Dan was on his way to hang out with some friends, and he invited my pop to come along and jam with them. Dad can't really remember why he never followed up on the invitation. Who can say what would have happened had he gone? Life is a long, strange thing.

Thirty-odd years later, David Mosher is a popular pastor living happily and healthily in Iowa, and Dan Fogelberg is a retired multi-platinum musician living happily and (unfortunately) not so healthily in Colorado.

I will not attempt to extract a moral from this mid-afternoon tale, but I will admit that I have always preferred Christopher Cross's dulcet music to Dan Fogelberg's. Also, my dad plays guitar way better than I can. I'm hoping to get a lesson out of him during my holiday visit.

Visual reference: Three Guitarist Contemporaries

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Jean Stapleton!

Jean Stapleton!

If you're not paranoid, you're not paying attention

We interrupt Rob's riveting and elegantly minimalist live-blog thread to bring you this news update:

Due to recent so-called "precipitation-generated activity" (they're called landslides, you liberal media pansies!) here in the greater Seattle/King County/Puget Sound/Cascade/Olympic region, all train and highway access into and out of Seattle has been CUT OFF indefinitely. And while you might think, "that's cool, I don't need to get out of town anytime soon", remember this, hippie:

Now you've got nowhere to run from Canada.

Don't think they're not planning it right now either:
  1. Their dollar is finally stronger than ours. 
  2. They've legalized weed.
  3. Recruitment of young "hockey players" has been at an all time high for the past 7 years.
  4. What other reasons do you NEED?
Do you really think they've been doing nothing but socializing their healthcare and breeding improv comedians this whole time?

Wake up, America, the mild-tempered tide is rising and we are SITTING LOONIES down here. Who's gonna be laughing when they clear the the roads and tracks only to find THE SPACE NEEDLE FLYING A BIG, RED MAPLE LEAF?! FREEDOM ISN'T FREE! You can pry it out of my COLD, DEAD HAND!
ALWAYS REMEMBER! NEVER FORGET! USA! USA!


And now back to Blake Lewis or whatever.

Colbie Caillat (?)

Colbie Caillat (?)

Jonas Brothers (Disney pop band?)

Jonas Brothers (Disney pop band?)

Just picked up Blake Lewis

Just picked up Blake Lewis (American Idol)

talent driver

I'll be behind the wheel of a 15-passenger van today, driving artists to and from the KISS 106.1 Jingle Bell Bash at the Tacoma Dome. I'll post to the blog by phone to keep you updated as to which famous musical celebrities I'm encountering.

-Rob

Monday, December 3, 2007

If "Awesome" records a cover, then Naysayer has to record a cover.

Yes, Naysayer. The a capella heavy death evil-bad metal band that will destroy your face with its monster licks. And that cover should be Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do) by Christopher Cross.

-David

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Rok and Roll!


Drawn by one of my guitar students (age 5). Note the extra long rubbery guitar (JO, I'm looking in your direction) and rapt audience members.

-JohnA

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