john ingram – Page 35

Whew!

It was Gay Pride weekend here in the Emerald City. I didn’t realize that until this afternoon when I took the kids out to eat downtown, and ran into the obstacle that was the Gay Pride Parade. After I saw the kids safely off with their ride home, I hit up some friends and wound up paying an exorbitant cover to get into the happening gay bar in the neighborhood. The good news is that my friends are cheap and shifty, so we were drinking tailgate style at someone’s car, instead of paying for drinks in the bar. The bad news is that I’m far too drunk, now, to be productive.

I’m going over the submissions for the Mental Hygiene League release, and trying to determine a proper order for the tracklist. We’ve got the cover art done, the one-page history done and now I’m just hacking out the tracklist and the accompanying one-page for that. Then the project will be finished.

I also got a sound file from Joseph today. If everything goes according to plan, this will be the second track for the new Nests of Disorder album. I’m using this tentative collaboration as an excuse to invest in the Zoom H2. I need a better method for capturing field recordings than my current hodge podge of miniDisc and microcassette recorders.

Yeah. In the words of David Yow: “EEREERERYOU BEEPUP OOGUH EEF NUN SHOGUH MUGULEE!! ROOOOOOOOOWWWWWR!”

Good news, everybody!

Last night was the premiere of the first two episodes of the new Futurama run. While not largely laugh-out-out-loud funny, they were certainly far more entertaining than most of the garbage on Comedy Central – and did have a few guffaw inducing lines. I get this creeping fear that they’re going to make Bender as obnoxious as early 90s Bart Simpson, but that may just be due to the fact that Matt Groening had his hand in the story this time around. I’m looking forward to new episodes, and more thinly veiled homosexual jokes about Zapp Brannigan, with much gusto.

Working on the Mental Hygiene League compilation over the next few days. Didn’t get as much material as I had hoped, but still have a fair amount to document the existence of the collaborative. Which leads me to mentioning that Joseph and I have just started working on some new Nests of Disorder material.

Off to check on my ragout…

Hell or… Wha?

It’s time for the very first edition of “What The Fuck Am I Drinking?”

Today’s entry is Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer, by 21st Amendment Brewery. It’s a top-fermented wheat ale brewed with watermelon concentrate. I have to say, it’s a really odd brew. It seems to me that this is what it would taste like if you dissolved a watermelon flavored Jolly Rancher in a can of PBR. Not meaning to say that this beer is PBR quality, but that aside from the watermelon flavor, there’s not much else going on in the taste department. It’s a tad sweet, without being sticky, so it has a relatively clean finish.

We’ll see how well it holds up as I work through this six pack.

http://www.21st-amendment.com/beer/hell-or-high-watermelon

DEVO – Something For Everybody

It’s really difficult to articulate my feelings on this album. I was still in diapers when DEVO was at their prime, and they had long since stopped being an influential force in music (or even good, for that matter) by the time I discovered them as a teenager. So, to say that I’ve been waiting a long time for this album would be disingenuous. I never, in my wildest fantasies, anticipated that this album would happen, and now that it’s here, I find myself with mixed feelings about it.

First, it is very much DEVO in their purest pop form. The sound is unmistakable early 80s era DEVO. And this may be where I’m slightly disappointed, since that era was never as appealing to me as earlier DEVO efforts. Inevitably this album will be compared to Freedom of Choice, which is absolutely a fair assessment, but it does have some small elements of Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO!. It’s those little touches of aggro, the abrasive use of ring mod and Bob Mothersbaugh’s brutal guitar work (whenever it’s audible) that elevate this album above the din of similar work. As a collection of songs, it’s uneven: the first four tracks are rock solid, followed by a handful of decent tracks and ending with two tracks that really should have ended up on the cutting room floor. But, I won’t begrudge them one or two bad tracks on their first studio album in 20 years.

Ultimately I hope that this is the first in a series of new albums from the Forefathers of De-Evolution – us spuds sure could use some guidance in these times. If nothing else, I hope it serves as a reminder to the guys in the Faint, that this is how synthpop is done.

And yes this score is favorably weighted because it’s fuckin’ DEVO.

[Rating:4/5]

Random update

Finished mastering my submission to the Of Places and Moments compilation. Turned out a little better than I anticipated – even though I stuck with a relatively familiar deep ambient style.

I haven’t been invited out to play live in a few months, and I have a stock of Controlled Dissonance CDs that are collecting dust here in the apartment. I may have another Controlled Dissonance Giveaway Contest, similar to the one that I had when I released Thoughts Made of Sound; Sounds Made of Hell. If I opt for such an endeavor, you’ll find details here.

My contract with AT&T is up, so it’s time to ditch the old Blackberry and move into the 21st century. I’m definitely going with an Android phone, but I haven’t made up my mind which I want. The Droid has a terribly reviewed camera, and is huge, but I’m not sure that I’m ready for a touchscreen keyboard. I have until the end of the month to figure it out, so…

Until then, etc. etc.