deep-yet-macho.

Yes, it's just as easy as you'd think:

How to start your own nu metal band.

Jump on the bandwagon today and start sucking!

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the weekend, in a basket of rockin' nutshells.

What happened this weekend? I'll tell ya wha' happened.

getting the led out with Stairway Denied.
Friday night Jose, Candace, Sebastian and I went to see a local Led Zeppelin tribute band. The band's name comes from their decision to not play "Stairway to Heaven." The cool thing is that they played damn near everything else, and their sound was dead-on from start to finish. ...But they messed up the lyrics on "Going to California." Bastards.

modern rock education with The Fearless Freaks.
Chad, Luke, Alexio and I traveled to Portland and took in the new Flaming Lips documentary. We took notes on how Wayne Coyne got held up while working at Long John Silver's, and how doing heroin sucks. Superman can make the blood go back into your head.

Melt Banana's repeating subterranean plane crash.
After the movie, our band of dorks went to Dante's to see some hyper-rockin'. The first band played painstakingly composed instrumental metal (or instrumetal, if you will). They was good, but they didn't move much. The next band played a 20-minute noise orgy, featuring a soft-faced twerp wiggling around and screaming indecipherable things. Finally Melt Banana, from Tokyo, came out and showed everybody what the other bands were doing wrong. The bassist was tiny but tight, the guitarist was an electric guitar surgeon on speed (complete with operating mask) , and singer Yasuko was able to command the sound without constantly screaming and wiggling. She rode the rock like Slim Pickens rode the bomb, which made the band's sonic explosion all the more engaging.

the pissed off Portland cop.
So downtown Portland there was this flashing cop car trying to get around the Luke mobile, but we couldn't find a place to pull over right away. When we did find a place, the disgruntled officer drove around us and spouted out his window "Stop...Goddamn it!!!" It was the funniest thing we'd seen all day.

urine locomotives under the sky-bridge.
Our band met up with friend and comedian Aaron Ross, who lives a couple blocks away from a sky-bridge; that is, a little bridge that crosses over the train tracks. Relieving yourself on the passing trains below is fun, unless a single caboose happens to stop short of the bridge and make you nervous that the conductor is reporting your fun to the authorities, in which case you and your crew must high-tail it out of there.

move Night to Luke twelve. Checkmate.
If you ever have a friend that is sleeping late and you wish to roust him, I recommend throwing chess pieces at him from a secret location. This way he will become disoriented and think that the objects are falling from some kind of dream-hole in the ceiling.



Melt Banana will...um...melt your banana.

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free-air gravity anomaly.

Here's a little photo review of the last few weeks:


Octavio has a radio show, so one Saturday I went in to see how the ol' studio is doing. I was glad to see that the vault, with all its glorious vinyl, was still there. I played an Upsetters record.


My living room. Before the weekend's destruction.


The view from my table in the library coffee shop.


I am contemplating either Smithson's concept of site and non-site art, or that girl in the blue shorts. We shall never know.


These are just pictures of a shoe and a pretty girl. I don't remember who took the picture of my shoe.

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what's been making me laugh.


Perry Bible Fellowship comics by Nicholas Gurewitch

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'ectomorph' supplement.

I don't even need to say anything. Just read this.

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the mouth is an eye is a camera.



I draw your attention to Ann Hamilton's Face to Face photographs. She took these pictures by placing unexposed film frames in her mouth, then opening wide and staring at friends and family while her "mouth camera" got the shot. The results are slightly creepy portraits that echo the shape of the eye, with the subject's face as the pupil. I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Hamilton here on campus a few weeks ago. Most of her artworks are installation pieces, like this crazy red peacock room, but I thought the mouth photos were something I should share with you all.

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long hours at the library.

Candace: I smell butter.

Sebastian: I smell popcorn.

Brett: I smell the rampant funk of a generation in decay.

I'm currently writing a paper on avant-garde performance art in post-war Japan, which is much more interesting than it sounds. And I should get back to work.


The Hi Red Center performing "The Ochanomizu Drop", 1964

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