Category personal

Who would have thought that sustaining a deep muscle bruise and tearing several tendons would be the best thing that could have happened to me?
As many of you know, I was taking care of Tino (a parrot) during the December ice strorm
I injured myself when he flew down the hall and I chased after him
I tripped and knocked myself out for a few moments as well as falling on my shoulder and pinning my arm behind my back
This caused a great deal of stress and anxiety in my life because I consider myself to be primarily a drummer
It would take months for me to heal and I had to really limit the amount of time I played the drums
Many people advised me that it is easy to damage what takes weeks to repair so I had to completely change my drumming style
Luckily, GIRL is not a band that requires me to...

Tonight will be the third show that I have played with Scary Cherry and the Bang Bangs
This one is going to be much more challenging than the previous gigs
Those were 1 set shows that tend to go by very quickly and have a limited amount of technical issues that require me to pay attention
Most of the set so far has been songs with backing tracks and one transition
Tonight’s set at lee Harvey’s will be a 2 hour set with a completely different set list as well as several different transitions
All that require that I not make any mistakes

The steps leading up to this point have been hard ones indeed
Having to learn two sets of songs is stanard for the working musician and nothing too unreasonable but that’s when you have a whole band to rehearse and complete tracks to accompany the process
Th...

William had decided to move back to Minneapolis so I crashed at my sister’s house in Mc Kinney
I was there a couple of months when Darren from Voytek told me of this D.I.Y warehouse just south of downtown at Cockrell Ave and Lamar St
They had a room available and it was cheap

The last time I was in that area (before it became “Southside”) was when the Sex Pistols played at Dallas Music Complex but what I didn’t remember at the time was that I had been there when it was a place called “Dune Buggy Headquarters”
On that night, I watched the Austin band “Crust” perform for the first time
They had diapers on and had filled them with worm dirt from a bait shop
As they performed, the worms would fall out of the diapers
They finished by dropping their diapers and lighting their pubic hair on fire

originally posted 2009-05-10
One summer, when I was around 12 years old, my Father asked me if I wanted to attend workshops at the local science museum
I thought it would be cool and so I went to several
It consisted of watching a movie and then doing a workshop afterwards
The only two I can rember were the films “The Andromeda Strain” and “The Hellstrom Chronicles”
The first one was about a virus from space (and had boobies in it, the film, not the virus) and the second one ended in us little kids being given dissection kits (huh?)
It was The Hellstrom Chronicle which had the most impact on me
Those images played over and over in my head throughout my life
I developed an obsession with insect footage
It wasn’t until the film “Wax-Or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees” that I reall...

Originally posted on 2/7/2010
When I was a kid I….
-believed in god (and in santa claus too)
-worshipped KISS (I was gene or ace every haloween)
-was afraid of getting leprosy (after seeing a movie with lepers in it)
-wanted to be either a comedian or a rock star (and became neither or both)
-quit stealing when I got caught at the winn dixie (I gave them a fake address but, like a dumb ass, I gave them my real name)
-liked girls before any of my friends (never needed a cootie shot)
-was the hardest kid to tackle in “smeer the queer” (quit football when it became too serious)
-saw star wars when it came out (had star wars toys that would be worth a lot right now)
-looked forward to each saturday morning (sid and marty kroft muthafuckas!)
-got beat up very seldom (george tonroy and robbie go...

I had flirted with the idea of having a show on KNON for quite a long time
My first exposure to the station was when my friends Cabe Booth, Scott Miller and Danny Hollenbeck had a show
This was way back in the late 80’s and the station was very different back then
It was in a very rough part of East Dallas in a decaying old building that seemed on the verge of collapsing in on itself at any moment
There are too many examples to count when it comes to my musical education whilst listening to KNON
I always wanted a show but could never commit to the regular schedule

But then Dave Chaos called up two days ago and pretty much threw me into the deep end

He wanted to take the night off for the 4th of July and he thought I was ready to do the whole show by myself
Literally by myself because no on...

Originally posted Dec 13th 2007 at 11 am
One of the stronger emotions I encounter on a regular basis is the need to disconnect from the rest of the world
Things happen to frustrate or damage me and I just want to shut everyone out
I’m sure that everyone feels like this but my problem is that it happens quite frequently
My recent bout of drama has been particularly painful and it that withdrawl urge has been kicking in again
This lead me to listen to one of the most important albums in my collection
Gary Numan always seemed to tap into that emotion (or lack therof)
In an age where electronic artists were humans trying to sound like machines, Numan’s music seemed to assert the exact opposite
It wasn’t the precision robot-like music that Devo was performing (which FUCKING RULES!)
It was as i...

V Mercy from Apocalypse Theater posted that he needed someone to drive a second vehicle for their tour and I had nothing else to do so I volunteered
V asked me if I would do video and I thought that would be a great idea
So, I packed up the video rig and headed to Kansas City Mo
The first show was at Davys Uptown Ramblers club and featured Apocalypse Theatre, Mercury mad and a burlesque performance by The Bustle Review
I had my screen off to the side and that was cool because I was just figuring out what I was going to do for the show
Here’s a playlist of the burlesque performances
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD8BB55B835D35B4A
and individual APOX and Merc shows

Next was Topeka Ks and a club called the Boobie Trap
Some of the burlesque performers came along for this show too
Th...

Street performance has become more and more of a priority
Up until last weekend, I had just played my drums on the street but last weekend, I got to bring a full elelctronic configuration
I got permission from July Alley to use their electricity
I was expecting to set up over at Kettle Art (run by the eternally cool Frank Campagna) which had a different set of parameters to consider so I didn’t plan on getting electricity to MY SPOT
I had to locate some tape at the last minute to tape down the electrical cord
Saturday I brought some rubber slip mats

This was the first time I have ever gotten to put my electronic ideas to the test and I think I did fairly well
The setup consisted of the SPDS looping pad, a Kaoss pad and the BR864 multi-track as well as the Brock Spock electric Harp guitar (...

The last few weeks have been productive
A few weeks ago, I decided to get off my ass and pull my drums out on the street in Deep Ellum
Laziness was one of the factors that kept me from doing it but the biggest one was fear of all the negative variables that were swirling in my head
Would the cops hassle me?
Would someone try to rob me or start a fight? (this is Ellum)
After getting out there and doing it, I saw that none of those fears were correct
Not only that, but I never would have thought that I could play drums for 5 to 6 hours
My recent drumming-stamina issues have been a huge issue and I succeeded in adapting my playing for the long haul
I have an idea where I want to take this and will address it in a sec

Speaking of drumming stamina issues, I have isolated two of the main causes ...