Monday, October 19, 2009

new album coming...recorded in my apt...to be mastered by dave fridmann...featuring me & my friends...will be available on itunes etc via Groover Records...perhaps it will be reified into an actual corporeal 'thing'....perhaps not...who knows... (the well written song is objet a)

tracklist:

1call my name
2guitars strum in dejection
3lower yer heart
4done my head in
5not too crazy
6drink 'em up
7belano'74
8you mean well
9underground
10us vs. them
11burn the world
12his death was our punishment
13uptight
14one moment please
15here they come
16good luck
17ballad of the late great satan








Wednesday, October 14, 2009


went to see slavoj zizek speak at cooper union....counterrevolutionary forces called in a bomb threat!....bummer!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

germaine


Wednesday, May 6, 2009

catastrophic gig


This was maybe the most degraded rock show I've played in recent memory... Why must I indulge in 'the narcissism of a lost cause' to quote the Great One? ...

The singer from ?? (not sure which band) was some kind of demented egomaniac who demonstrated his musical profiency by playing, in succession, every instrument on the stage, while grinning and hamming it up a la Paul Shaffer....it was clear that every member had a degree from the Berklee school of music...and all sported Supercut- emo-hairstyles and velvet jackets from h&m...they were adherents to the new gospel of ugliness

...professionalized amateurs....

The crowd in public assembly was not unlike what you would find in a casino in Atlantic city...

The entire evening was an offense to the eye, the ear, the nose, the brain, the tongue..

Williamsburg is a meat-grinder of late capitalism and it's flourishing pathologies...

Of course Grand Mal played a miraculous set; the ransacked corpse of rock and roll was resuscitated by my words, my melodies and the classic stagecraft that I'm known for-
I've perfected the art of non-movement...

...

the Grand Mal Story



"I'd like to manage your band Bill, but I've seen comedy albums with bigger budgets" - Jerry Jxxxxx , 199x, over sushi, in a restaurant that no longer exists...

Monday, May 4, 2009

His Death Was Our Punishment

...the last modernist guitar player...a human paradigm....
after his passing we are left with a rock music that is homologous to air conditioning...
his genius was never truly captured onstage or on record, and yet he was seemingly the apotheosis of rock and roll.
the toxic effect of his legend reduced him to a terminal hollowness -the consequences of which no human being could survive.
ultimately, he became a vicious parody of a rock musician.
his death was our punishment.


Sunday, May 3, 2009

-Although rock shows in their various sizes and permutations can resemble political rallies, generally speaking, attendees (the fans) are not encouraged to participate in or contemplate collective action but instead are urged inwards, on solitary, quasi-spiritual journeys of false transcendence. Fists are pumped, beer is drunk, boyfriends and girlfriends hold hands and look past each other with glassy, unfocused eyes.

-Atomization is encouraged due to the frequent consumption of rock music by the solitary listener. A universal experience of the rock fan consists of consuming rock music while alone in one's bedroom etc. (or alone in a crowd while wearing headphones) and partaking in a pseudo-spiritual communion/identification with the rock performers. Physical response to rock includes a rise in blood pressure, increased heart-rate, adrenal response, feelings of ecstasy and well being. Rock music is often consumed (in the same way that alcohol, caffeine or other drugs are consumed) in a solitary fashion in preparation of and prior to important events in the listener's life, such as: work, exercise, social activities, dating, mass murder, sporting events, war etc (it is also consumed in conjunction with these events).

Common themes in rock songs:
-Rugged individualism
-Nihilism
-Misogyny
-Greed
-Depoliticization, the encouragement of apathy
-Commodity Fetishism
-Enshrinement of bourgeois sex roles
-Encouragement of false transcendence via drug and alcohol abuse
-Violence
-Revenge
Punk Rock, as both a style of rock music and as a product of the groundbreaking Punk era, is widely viewed as Rock and Roll's most revolutionary moment/movement. It is, however, the embodiment of counter-revolution in rock and roll. Reactionary in musical form, fashion and outlook Punk began during a period of world-wide economic turmoil (similar in circumstance to the beginnings of other populist, reactionary movements) and following the end of the Vietnam War and the subsequent de-mobilization and demoralization of the anti-war Left. Punk was, according to its adherents, theorists and players, a direct response to the 'excesses' of the 'hippies'. Song lengths were cut from ten minutes to two minutes. Tempos were doubled in speed. Long hair was shorn and replaced by close cropped quasi-military hairstyles. Punk fashions evolved from the torn t-shirts festooned with safety pins favored by Sid Vicious to the military chic of the (unabashedly left wing) Clash and others.Along with the martial beats that characterized the music, Punk bands and fans flirted with overt fascist imagery (Swastika chic)*. Transgressive nihilism was embodied by songs like "No Feelings", "Holidays in the Sun" (an incoherent mish mash of Situationist slogans) and "Beat on the Brat". Self-mutilation and mortification of the flesh were fashion accessories common to both the practioneers and fans of Punk. Punk Rock as a cultural phenomenom channeled the anger of disaffected, angry working and lower middle class youth away from political activism, a significant component of the previous decade, towards an all embracing nihilist world view that accentuated the meaninglessness of one's own life and actions. Violence was common at many Punk shows and narcotic and alcohol abuse were celebrated. Before it could become a truly mass movement Punk was watered down and 'liberalized' by a more consumer friendly version of itself called New Wave. Thatcherism and Reaganism followed on the heels of the Punk era.…

Rock and Roll, like Christianity, with which it shares the worship of long-haired, bearded men, is a source of solace and spiritual/psychic regeneration for the bruised psyche of the worker and executive alike. It is a mechanized folk music for the thrill seeking inhabitants of the hi-tech, capitalist West…and when one considers the apathy and political disengagement that this folk music encourages, and it's constant reinforcement of patriarchal, capitalist values, it seems reasonable to think that Rock and Roll was not the ideal personal soundtrack for a member of the SDS, but instead it was and is far better suited for a member of the Rotary Club...



*Punk's NYC pioneers/progenitors (Richard Hell, Television, Patti Smith etc) were acolytes of the hermetic, hyper-atomized Bob Dylan school of rock and roll and eschewed fascist imagery and martial, hyper aggressive musical styles.