Glaze rocks Stella Blue!
So I broke my vow of steady updates until September. I put an honest effort out there to do it, and I’m going to keep putting forth the effort to update the blog everyday.
Last night I played with my old band Glaze (notice the link) at Stella Blue. The show, from what I have been told, was pretty good. My bass sounded about as good as I’ve ever heard it last night. It had this nice deep thumb with just enough Mike Watt-like growl to it.
Now that the show is over, I honestly feel like crap. I think I over extended myself yesterday with stress, adrenaline and a pretty overwhelming and uncompromising amount of heat and my body still hasn’t recovered. I feel nauseous, tired, and my knee and ankle are swollen up. I don’t know what is wrong with me, but it is seriously ruining my weekend.
I have a mountain of photographs and video to pour through so to post here, so check back later on and hopefully it’ll all be up.
Until then, be good.
Where I Be.
Sorry for the lack of updates, I’ve been working a ton this week. I don’t know if I put this on here, but I got the job I’d applied for. No, not the Xpress job, but the other one. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it’s at a non-profit just down the road and I work helping people finding jobs. So far, I really like it (although with me being a night-owl the 7:00 AM start time is a bit challenging).
The job is nice, but it’s just a small bit of change that seems to be happening. I don’t know, maybe it’s because of spring erupting all around me but I have spent the past week or two examining and reexamining what I’m doing, why I’m doing it and what I want to do. After much consideration I’ve decided that I really don’t like the whole peddling my writing for dollars thing.
Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing. I enjoy it so much that even now as you read this I am probably writing. I just, over the past year to year and a half have really hated the “freelance writer as street urchin” lifestyle: looking for entertainment and art in cities that vaguely interests me, contacting a newspaper editor in that city or town, agreeing to write about it for a price, contacting the artist in question and talking to them about it, writing about the art and sending it to an editor. The whole process seems rather trite and dumb to me right now. I think right now I want to worry about the art and artists in my own neighborhood and work with them. I don’t want to try to make money off of someone else’s creativity for the moment. I want to make money off of my own brain and mind, off of my own ideas.
Right now that means writing things for me: this blog, a comic book (hopefully something online that I’m scheming right now with a really talented artist that a sibling of an ex girlfriend introduced me to), some small bits of fiction and even some music. That’s right, music.
I’ve been playing about once or twice with my friends John Biggs and John Starling. It’s been rewarding and challenging just getting down into the music room and making a noise. The best part is that the noises aren’t like the noises I’ve made in past bands. Instead of writing three minute punk rock songs, these are rhythmic and complicated pieces of music full of dissonant guitars, funky bass, and rock solid drumming. The songs we write aren’t songs per se, but just blasts of creativity that only exist when we are playing them. I don’t know if we’ll ever play a show or record a proper song, but the music we do create is some of the most satisfying stuff that I’ve ever been a part of.
So, I know that I do one of these State of the Bugg entries every few months here, but just keep an eye on this blog. It is growing and changing along with me. I hope the few of you that read this will stay along for the ride.
Saturday the 28th!
Here’s the latest flier for the show my band is playing with Everything Falls Apart and Hoss. Do me and yourselves a favor by stopping by, saying hello and maybe sweating off some of that turkey.
My costume for this year’s Halloween came together less than 24 hours before I put it on, and I have to say that I look damn good as a fat, belligerent Clark Kent.
In other news, NaNoWriMo is moving right along, and I’m plodding my way through the intial parts of my planned novel. It’s funny, I planned something action packed and pulp-y, but it’s starting off as a quieter dialogue driven thing. I hope that someone reads it and likes it as much as I am enjoying writing it. I’m already behind on my 1,700 words a day, but I’m sure that this weekend I’ll hit a groove. Quality over quantity, I say.
I’ve got so much on my plate right now, what with real life work, articles, trying my best to update Fuzztone every day, an idea for a web initiative for Flagpole that I hope they’ll like, this novel project and the impending Glaze show at the end of the month. Also I will finally be getting my bass guitar. Yahoo!
More to come tomorrow. This is my new warm up zone.
Before they Kept It Weird
Those stairs probably mean nothing to most people, but for me they were a huge part of being younger. They were an obstacle coming and going, they were a place to hide from the noise, a dark corner to write in a notebook, a launching pad for schemes between my friends and I, a place to be challenged to fights by Dave Holstadt, where I sat with Jessica on a date back in 1996 and awhere I did my first (and only) interview as a musician. It was Vincent’s Ear and I was too young to realize what exactly it meant to me and the city.
Tonight I chatted with a few friends and wrote down some thoughts about Asheville in 1999 compared to today, and I thought I’d put them here so that the three or four people that read this blog can reflect on what an awesome time and place Asheville and Vincent’s Ear was.
For Dirk…
This blog is probably no different than any of the previous blogs over the course of the last month or so, but it is different in the sense that I am finally writing it from my computer once more. There’s something comforting about this ancient piece of crap that takes ten (10!) minutes to boot up. It’s mine, and when I use my ergonomic keyboard I feel like the ideas and thoughts come out of my head quicker, and with less hand cramps. I’m sure the keyboard has nothing to do with the former and everything to do with the latter. So in honor of my computer, I wanted to put down some thing s that I currently give it up for:
- hoodie weather: It’s approaching my favorite time of the year- the time when I get to wear a hoodie and shorts at the same time. There’s something about this weather that wraps it’s big, hairy arms around you like a muscle bear in the bathroom of a club and makes you feel warm, slovenly and comfortable. These are positive qualities. Well, except for the muscle bears, but then again, Jessie could leave me at any time, so it’d be nice to keep my options open. That’s right, bear community, there’s still hope!
- Routines and the fight against them: I know those two things may seem contradictory, but there’s something comforting about embracing a routine. Jessie and I cook a lot of the same meals from week to week and even watch the same television shows together (Seinfeld at seven on the SuperStation, bitches), but it feels like the aforementioned arms of the big muscle bear (let’s call him Dirk) gentling patting me on the back during a tender hug and telling me that it’s going to be okay (Dirk calls me “big fella”, right afterwards, but I will omit that for clarity). But the fight against those routines is sometimes nice. I think as the dust we kick up in our twenties dies down in our thirties, it’s real easy to resign yourself to being settled down and scared, to not want to challenge yourself, to play it safe, and to write off those things that you indulged in at a younger age as youthful exuberance or dalliances. But I think those things are important. That’s why I’ve started a band again. That’s why I haven’t sold out just yet and joined the square community. It’s why middle aged men play sports. I just think that the battle to stay vital and young has to go hand in hand with growing older and leaving some of the turmoil of youth behind.
- Billy Joel: I have never been a fan of the guy, he seemed like a pedestrian Springsteen, but lately, I’ve really been digging the guy. His music is still pretty blah, but I dig the hell out of it. I really think that I’m starting to suck.
- My job: yes it’s a corporate hellhole counter job, and some people who have read this blog and found out what I do for a secondary source of income have made fun of me for it, but I really love it. It’s nice to talk to people all day about something like books. It’s nice to see people’s reactions to writing and it’s nice to be out of the house and amongst the living.
- Sleepovers: Because of my job being a few miles away from home, I’m spending a few nights a week away from home. It sucks because I don’t get to be around Jessie, but it is nice because I get to hang out with Bort. We usually don’t do much of anything, but it is comforting sometimes just talking about mundane things with the guy. I miss living with him and it’s a nice thing from time to time.
- My new band. I don’t know if we have a name yet, but so far it’s been nice jamming with the guys. It’s not as much of a big muscle-y rock band as I’ve been in before. Instead we do this nice surf guitar/early R.E.M. thing that I dig.
This probably wasn’t the most exciting entry, but bear with me, I came home from work rather ill today, and I don’t have the energy to justify myself or to make this entry sing, like Dirk did on that summer night all those months ago.
Until later, be good.
The Decline Reunion
I survived it all. I survived playing my first show since a few one-off shows with Glaze back in 2003, I survived seeing the BFO and Tripod on one night and then witnessing On the Take and the Mathmatics the following night. I survived seeing old friends and some other associates and having tons of those “it’s good seeing you, what are you up to now?” conversations and I did it all with a smile on my face, just like I said I was going to.
But I’m still smiling now.
For those out of the loop, this weekend at Broadway’s was a reunion of sorts- Decline Weekend, as Bob Rest (one of the organizers) dubbed it. It was a chance for the people involved with, fans of, or connected to Asheville’s punk rock and out there scene from the early-to-mid nineties to get together and remind each other about why we mattered to each other. My band played, and from what I understand we played rather well.
But this weekend wasn’t about my band playing for me. Instead it was about appreciating something that I didn’t really appreciate when it was happening around me. It was about looking back at a time in my life that pretty much ended when I was 20 years old and it was about bands-not just my band- finally getting a bit of the spotlight shined upon them.
I guess there’s no real way to describe it. There were literally 3 clubs to play in Asheville back when Glaze was really going. There wasn’t an eager audience full of schmucks like me to help promote you for doing your thing. Instead it was cliques of hangers-on, girlfriends and people looking for the next party who were at shows. We played our asses off back then for little-to-no money and we had a ball doing it. We never “made it”, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to make a loud racket and to have fun doing it.
That’s what made this past weekend so great. I don’t know if I can put into words how great it felt to play Broadway’s at Bele Chere, or that people were still willing to pay to come see us and stand close to the stage while we played sloppy renditions of ten-to-fifteen year-old songs. I don’t know if I can tell you how great it was to see people and to tell old jokes and laugh, or to reconnect with other people who had just been faces all of those years ago.
Instead, I’ll tell you that it was powerful just hearing the cymbals sizzle, or the feedback from the guitars, or to stand on a stage with a shoddy P.A. and think this is just like Vincent’s Ear, or to hear BFO rev up an old song or to and look around the room for Tampa Dave’s ghost to be sitting at the bar having a few Sierra Nevada Pale Ales or even to hear Mathmatics songs and not think about all of the great shows I saw them play, but instead to think about driving around in John Biggs’ car listening to their tapes and talking about when we were going to start our party rock band (we never did-maybe soon).
I’m sorry if this blog is all over the place, but the weekend was that for me. It was never-talking-to-someone-for-more-than-five-minutes-because-there-were-four-or-five-more-people-that-you-needed-to-talk-to-type of frantic. But it was worth it. It was worth it to see Chris, my band’s lead singer/guitar player, forget the words to all of our songs, for Richard, our drummer, to break a stick and spend the last song pounding a single snare drum in time of the song, and it was worth all of my flubs and blistered fingers just to stand in that room. To be amongst old friends and new friends that had never seen me on stage before.
Glaze might get back together for a show here and there, and it will be awesome if it happens. But for right now, I’m basking in the glow of what we did. Not what we did Friday by playing shoddy (but fun) versions of those songs. But what we, my band and the entire community did all of those years ago.
I’ve always thought that the true test of creativity is if it stands up over time. This weekend taught me that the Decline scene mattered to people for whatever reason. Whether it was the parties afterward or the songs on the stage during, we did, and still do matter.
And I’ll take that any day of the week.
The week that was/still kinda is
Sorry for the delays, I’ve been busy. Summertime can make you irresponsible when it comes to pithy little things like blogging. For the last few days, I’ve tried to rationalize the whole thing by saying that what I’ve been doing in that newfangled slow blogging phenomenon that is sweeping the blog world, but it’s not. I’m not obsessing over every turn of phrase, every little sentence or every little moment. Instead I’ve just been a big ol’ lazy slob.
At first I rationalized my lack of contact with the blog by saying that I don’t feel the need to write down every little thing that I do, and that this blog is not part of my process, but I’ve come to realize, even in the short time it’s taken me to write these few paragraphs in this entry, that this blog is a part of my routine, and a big part of my process. Jessie makes lists, and I think this blog is my version of a list to organize my day and my brain and my brain throughout the day.
I guess this week was riddled with deaths more than anything. It seemed like every day the specter of the stuff was all around the news and people’s lives. To some I gave condolences, to others I just thought a quick quiet thought, but it seemed everywhere.
Michael Jackson died this week, and I didn’t believe it at first. I thought this was another wild media frenzy that would be rebuffed within a few hours, but it turns out that it actually was a death. I was going to come here and write about it, but I stopped. I didn’t want to put that out there. There are plenty of people who cared deeper than I did about the man, and plenty of other people who put it far more eloquently than I did. But instead I held off, I didn’t know what to say. Michael Jackson dying is like a house I grew up in getting torn down. So much of my youth revolved around the guy.
My uncle Tim loved him. His room was decorated from the top to the bottom with posters of the guy. But looking at who he was for the last 20 or so years is troubling. All of the plastic surgery and pedophilia rumors were just sad. I always thought that for someone to do all of that work to their face they had to just hate themselves, and the fact that this could be suicide just proves it in a way.
It just made me sad that someone so obviously talented was so prone to self loathing, some dark sexual habits and what seems like a childhood that was destroyed by the byproduct of his immense talent.
Looking back, we all should have known that this was his “Fat Elvis” period, that he was someone who was flaming out, and nobody bothered to catch him. I doubt that anyone could have.
But it all wasn’t sadness this week. I went to Atlanta Georgia to see Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam do a solo show. It’s funny, because for about two years I thought Pearl Jam were the greatest band ever. I was 16 and they seemed so real to me. But like all love affairs that happen while your heart is still dewy, fresh and new Pearl Jam and I were fleeting. I haven’t really listened to them over the years, but I keep seeing them in concert. I’ve seen them (including the EV solo show) 4 times since 2004. So very strange.
The show was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be. Liam Finn (the opener) was a thrilling concert to see and Vedder played a lot of fun songs and made me not think about how much money I had spent on tickets.
Also this week was the first band practice for my old band Glaze since around 2003. We rehearsed out set for an upcoming show and I have to say I was happy with the results. The entire thing made me realize how much I needed to create music again. Writing about it is one thing, but the sheer joy of standing in a room with a few other people and playing rock n’ roll is one of those things that keep you young.
This week I expect more of the same. Some writing, some music, some friends and some sweet lovin’ from my lady. I’ll do better about keeping my tens of readers satisfied. All I ask is that you leave a note saying you’re listening.
Also, to those of you who emailed me offering I help, I haven’t ignored you. I’ve just been air headed. Thanks for the offers and I’ll be in touch.
Until later today
be good.
Show of the Decade!
God I miss Tampa Dave
Six years ago, I swore I’d never play in a band again. I wasdone with music and the struggle of being in a band. But on July 24th,my former band Glaze is playing a reunion show.
This isn’t monumental by any means, but it has gotten me excited, and I’m referring to the kind of excited 6 year olds get about Christmas morning about the notion of the band even practicing.
I don’t know, I always had fun playing with Chris, the lead singer/guitar player, and Richard, our drummer. The music we played was a lot like us: there were Chris and Richard’s metal leanings, my taste for pop music and indie rock, and a collective desire to play punk rock. Although we never quite sounded like any of these things, we had fun doing what we did.
The other thing this show has made me excited about is playing a bass guitar again. I really miss how heavy the thing is, I miss the growl of the notes. Thankfully, I will be playing bass again soon.
Look for further updates about the reunion soon.
Until then, be good.
