I moved here in part because of Shawn Kemp

I know it's a pain the ass to drive on Denny (or to go East-West anywhere in this North-South city) so while I'd welcome the absence of traffic, I think it sucks that the NBA allowed all this to happen to the Supersonics. If any of you ever meet Howard Schultz, and if you have my phone number, please do this:

1. Call me.

2. Grab Howard.

3. Hold on to him tight.

4. Don't let him buy his way out.

I'll be there as soon as I can. Leave the rest to me.

I threatened to do it

and so now I am. For your "enjoyment": here's a recent reply-all e-mail thread between the 7 Brothers of "Awesome" and Dubtrain Pete, who has totally been champing our hyper-fun sessions of late. This is a crucial aspect of our artistic process laid bare, folks. Read at your own peril.

On Feb 22, 2008, at 11:19 AM, David Nixon
wrote:

Hey Pete! what's our start time tomorrow? Noon?

Pete wrote:
Sure, noon is good. Either that or 5 am. Your choice.

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 12:12 PM, john ackermann wrote:
FYI, I'll be a bit late on Saturday- probably be there
by 1pm. I assume that we'll probably have time to
finish up vocals for What They Do & Magic Mouth, as
well as horns for What They Do.

On Feb 22, 2008, at 2:35 PM, John Osebold wrote:
Should we just make it 1pm? I could use the later start, but if
there's need to start earlier, fine with me. Doc/Rob, may I borrow a
feeling with wheels to the Dubtrain?

Evan Mosher wrote:
i wouldn't mind a soft start time of 1pm, speaking personally for the me within myselfness.

On Feb 22, 2008, at 3:10 PM, David Nixon wrote:
EXECUTRON-3000 [EXECUTIVE DECISION MAKING ROBOT] says, "1 pm it is! Yippie!"

Don't forget to pack a lunch!

And I can give JOhnO a RiDe. But I might have to pick you up at 12:30ish and then you'd go with me and Jen to pick up a metric ton of organic free range meat parts.

ANNOYTRON-3000 says, "Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying? Hey, is this annoying?”----truncated

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Basil Harris wrote:
UNSUBSCRIBE-O-BOT would like a word with ANNOYTRON-3000 in the punching tent if he has a moment. Bot.

On Feb 22, 2008, at 3:17 PM, John Osebold wrote:
Blandor sigh. *sigh*

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:23 PM, Evan Mosher wrote:
Gondor will fall. *falls*

On Feb 22, 2008, at 3:24 PM, Kirk Anderson wrote:
oh hey, gondor, you've had too much. *takes keys*

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:30 PM, Evan Mosher wrote:
I'm Keytar! I'm here to rock! *farts instead*

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:32 PM, John Osebold wrote:
Okay, everyone put your goddamn keys in this bowl! *wife swapping*

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:33 PM, Kirk Anderson wrote:
hey, whose car is this? *george thorogood*

John Osebold wrote:
oh no! not again *bad to the bonin'*

David Nixon wrote:
Hey where's my wife? Damn you thorogood! *slowly pisses pants*

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:52 PM, john ackermann wrote:
I think you guys just wrote "The West". * *

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 3:54 PM, John Osebold wrote:
or did we? *yes you did **shut up, i'm trying to watch this ***when
are you two going to realize you're perfect for eachother?*** ** *

Kirk Anderson wrote:
****some walk by niiiight, soooome fly by daaayyy....***

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 4:07 PM, David Nixon
****some walk by niiiight, soo(insert band dance)oome fly by daaayyy....***

On Feb 22, 2008, at 4:08 PM, John Osebold wrote:
****some walk by niiiight, soo(insert ba***** Is this the Statue of
Liberty?--oh, sorry *****nd dance)oome fly by daaayyy....***

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 4:11 PM, Rob Witmer wrote:
(unsubscribe)

John Osebold wrote:
(automatic resubscribe) WACKYWACKYWACKYWACKY

On Feb 22, 2008, at 4:16 PM, David Nixon wrote:
(romantic autoscribe) LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE
LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE
LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE
LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE
LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE
(insert barn dance)

On Feb 22, 2008, at 4:20 PM, Evan Mosher wrote:
by the way i plan on posting this entire thread to the blog next week. keep it going!

Hi, Pete!

On Feb 22, 2008, at 4:25 PM, Pete wrote:
*pokes head up, looks around*

*heads back to underground den*

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 5:32 PM, Kirk Anderson wrote:
hello, creative capital?...hey, it's 'awesome'...yeah, we're gonna need more money...

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 5:33 PM, John Osebold wrote:
guys! creative capital just wired something to my bank account! it's a basket of bunnies!

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 5:42 PM, Kirk Anderson wrote:
[consolidating next few entries]

*covered in blood*
*chocolate blood*
*chocolate fountain*
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Fountain*
*New Orleans*
*Katrina*

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 5:47 PM, Rob Witmer wrote:
Pete Fountain is one of my favorite clarinet players. I can't believe he doesn't have a wiki entry.

On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 5:49 PM, Kirk Anderson wrote:
no wait, it's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Fountain
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patience
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On Fri, Feb 22, 2008 at 6:01 PM, John Osebold wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

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____________________________________________________________________________
Speaking of Wikipedia, here's a bonus for you intrepid readers. Thanks to Sasquatch, we now have an utterly empty wiki entry! It's on.

When in George

Today, we ask the question: Who's playing Sasquatch?

The answer.

When in doubt

Today, you need only ask one question: Am I awesome?

The answer.

(Courtesy of B. Shearer)

What happened to Basil's AMP STAND box?

It (like other pieces of cardboard I found in our building's recycling) became one of these. The banjos I had my class make.

Hey you in the back! You're out of tune!

-David

When you get caught between the moon and etc.

Three nearly simultaneous moments captured in all their low-res glory by my future-phone on the occasion of tracking horns for Yes/No last night during the dog-consternating total eclipse of the moon:

Special thanks to Doc Nixon for knowing how Photoshop works and having a better idea.

'Cause Boyz II Men pretty much INVENTED R & B

Or at least, that's what one of my students (age 19) said in class the other day. Since then I've been trying to look for some kind of easy-to-read genealogy of rock music, something like this picture here, from the movie School of Rock. (I found this one, which was okay but not great -- for one thing, it stops at 1978.) Anyone know of anything like that out there anywhere?

-David

What's in the box??

The stand I ordered for my bass amp was finally delivered yesterday.
I knew it was an amp stand right away. Observe:

Says so right there on the box:

Amp Stand! A stand upon which to put my amp!

Amp stand amp stand amp stand amp stand. 

It's fun to say, isn't it?

The weird part is that this was round two of my customer interaction with a normally great online retailer. 

In the first round, I got a box marked "Lg. guitar." Of course, I hadn't ordered a lg. guitar, I'd ordered an amp stand. Still, maybe the boys in the warehouse were re-using boxes. Whatever fits, and so forth.

However,  upon opening that box, I found neither an amp stand, nor a lg. guitar, but a speaker stand (not a stand for an amp. A stand for a speaker. Which I don't have).

Not a problem. The boys in the warehouse, hard workers that they are, must've grabbed the wrong box. Indeed, upon further inspection, I found bar-code stickers for both items on the same box.

Scanner error! Simple mistake! Happens to the best of us! If I had a nickel for every scanner error I've made! 

And so forth.

Those boys in the warehouse have a lot of boxes to haul. My hat's off to them.

In fact, I sent my hat back to them in the speaker stand box when I exchanged it. 

But after yesterday's delivery, I'm a little confused. Our boys in the warehouse, looking to fill an amp stand order, had not originally grabbed the box marked "Amp Stand" printed on two sides in big, black letters, but instead chose the box marked "Lg guitar." You know, the one with the speaker stand in it. The one with two bar codes on it. 

I think someone's messing with the good fellows working in the warehouse. 

Or else someone's messing with me, in which case, know this, whoever you are:

Amp stand! Amp stand! Amp stand! Amp stand Amp stand! Amp stand!

Anchor Dream

In my dream the other night I was a TV news anchor. When I woke up, I reached for the little book by the bed and immediately wrote down these words that I had said in my dream, as I looked straight into the TV camera:

In just a moment we're going to show you a clip so horrible that you may never recover. BUT FIRST, we're going to hurt your medical jiggle and see how you like that. Okay, now let's roll that clip.

-David

Robyn Hitchcock, monologist

I love listening to my iTunes library on shuffle, because there's invariably things that pop up that I would never think to listen to. Like this. It's from a movie called Storefront Hitchcock, a solo Robyn Hitchcock concert film directed by Jonathan Demme (whose film resume includes the Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense"). I highly recommend checking it out, not just for the songs, but for the surreal, mind-melting between-song tangents for which he's famous.

"If this song were a baby, it would have a glorious robotic mustache."

Each week I assign my students to do reviews of albums and of kunjabunjas. The above is a quote from one of these reviews. Here's some more from this week's crop of reviews:

"like a cat fighting with a frying pan."

"like a band of urban dwellers that have gone camping for the first time, and made the mistake of stealing a grizzly bear’s honey, and are now running blindly through the thick forest. "

"like spending a day with dumb farm animals: a young goat that is constantly “faerping” in a high-pitched squeak, a mindless cow that only says “oh” or “uh oh” instead of mooing, and an overly-warm dog that breathes heavily all the time."

"A bass, the voice of the town elder, grunts commands at the executioners."

"I could picture this music being played in an alien porno and they are just about to get it on..."

"This sounds more like a recording of some very cold people riding the Tilt a Whirl at the annual fair in Antarctica. The melody is created by their uncontrollable shivering and teeth chattering, as they swing round and round in their little cars"

"But then came the rebellious twang of the banjo, and I was immediately pulled out of my exotic Amazon fantasy."

-David

Thanks to everyone to came out to the Tractor last night!

It was a sold out show, and we had quite a bit of fun up there. Happy Birthday to Miss Maimie Lavonna the Exotic Mulatta. And apologies to all those who couldn't get in.

Anyone have anything to report from the show?

Happy Valentine's Day!

With love from "Awesome" to you and whores yours.

xoxo

More-staches

Two Awkward Sideways Manmbraces, Avec Moustaches

That is all.

Oh, wait!  Anyone who hasn't seen the Sgt. Rigsby show in which I'm providing kooky karakter voices:  if you want to see it this (closing) weekend, I recommend you buy your tickets now.  We're likely to sell out.  Here's some reviews.  

Crackdown on Mustaches

Evan watch out!
This guy lost his job over his mustache:

You might be able to seek help from The American Mustache Institute. From their website:

"AMI is an advocacy organization protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against, mustached Americans by promoting the growth, care, and culture of the mustache."

Facebook makes your life so much better

Better even than MySpace, if you can believe it.

Believe it.

A Day In The Studio With Jon Auer

Here we are in the studio once again.

This time we're recording a special song with Jon Auer (of the Posies) -- that fellow who produced our Beehive Sessions album:



(Don't you love photobooth?)
Here's another picture of him:



The song we're recording today is a brand new one called "I'm on T.V.". It's for Puppet Entertainment Television -- they won a Strangercrombie auction so we get to make a song for them. It's all for charity and stuff. I love charity. Here's me loving charity:


Recording is fun. Oh yeah. uh-huh. You know it.

-David

Bing and a Bang

About a year and a half ago, I emailed Paul Gude to ask if we could borrow his video camera. We were headed to Helena, MT to perform noSignal, and we wanted to document our very first road trip. His response is printed below:

John, I will make you a bargin.

You may take this camera to Mon-tah-na, but in exchange you must complete a Paul Gude tribute album within one year.

The album will be entitled, "Paul Gude Made Me Do This So I Could Borrow His Camera"

It should contain the following songs:

Monocarbon Driver
Mr. Destructo
I Walk the Walk
Open My Arm
Two Grand in My Hand
150 Flea
Bing and a Bang
Not Your Friend
Monkeytown

I will provide copies of my versions and lyrics. You are under no obligation to make it good. You can just beat on a bucket if you like.

I'm a little behind, but I just finished the first song, "Bing and a Bang", and you can listen to it here.

Still No Name

Ragtime

One of my favorite historic locations in St. Louis is Scott Joplin's house. Well, it's actually an old apartment building on Delmar where he lived for six years with his wife Belle. It was here that he wrote such classics as "The Entertainer", "Maple Leaf Rag" and "Smoke on the Water". There are several pianos there of the 1800's vintage, including one with a lever that switches the hammers to a "tack" position for that jangly honky-tonk sound. Here I am, tickling the ivories with one of my favorite rags, "Careful With That Axe, Eugene". I can't help but think that if Scott Joplin were alive today, he would vote for Barack Obama. He might even write a song about him!

I got a name.

First, thanks to everyone everywhere who conspired to make yesterday the best day in recent memory.  Special thanks to you gang of lovelies who commented down below. Seriously, most satisfying birthday yet.  

In honor of the day, and as an inexplicable show of gratitude, I am eager to share the identity of my mustache.  Some of you might recognize the name from a past creative exertion; I now realize that even then I was unconsciously naming my future-stache, and in fact every iteration of facial manscaping I might ever have in this sweet life.

Without further ado:

Sir Duke of Flamboyantshire.

Carry on, friends.  

Happy Birthday to Evan Mosher!

I don't know exactly how old our trumpet player is today, but he'll always be 14 in my mind.

Things I know about Evan:
1. When he was a very very small boy, he would speak a funny gibberish while making weird gestures with his hand as if doing alien sign language. It was embarrassing to gramma.

2. I've been in a hot tub with him on a number of occasions. He's perfectly safe.

3. He was, in fact, not born with a mustache. It actually didn't emerge for several years.

What do YOU know about Evan?


-David

Man That Was So Much Fun

Anyone have pictures from Emmy's party?


-David

My new hero: Don Hertzfeldt

I am a banana