The Ragged End Of Nowhere: November 2006

More YouTube Joy

A short bit of footage of Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli. Notice how Django has 2 deformed fingers and is still one of the the greatest guitarists ever.

Tom Waits on Australian TV, April 30, 1979

Tom Waits on Letterman. Amazing.

The Thunder & The Roar

Tom Waits has a new 3-CD set out called Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards. This guy is the closest thing I have to a hero. 30+ years of unbelievable music, a string of brilliant performances in various high-qualitiy films and just basically being the coolest motherfucker alive. He was on The Daily Show the other night which is definitely worth downloading from iTunes. I do wish that Jon Stewart had asked more questions as opposed to gushing his admiration but in all honesty I can’t blame him for a second. He then performed a song called Day After Tomorrow. It brought tears to my eyes. Unbelievably they faded out before he was done but it was still as good as anything you’ll ever see on television. If you’re not familiar with this man’s music go buy some now. The new one is a good cross section of his different styles (one disc is ballads, one blues/rockish and the other the can’t-be-categorized stuff) but Closing Time, The Heart of Saturday Night, Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones are all good first bets too. He’s got 20-some albums and virtually all are worth the time and money. Go on and get some.

Inspirado

“You can’t manufacture inspirado”….Tenacious D

I’ve obviously been slack on updating lately. I’d like to claim it’s because I’ve been too busy but it’s mostly been just a lack of inspiration, both to write and take pictures. I finished up with Damien Rice, spent a week off in NYC and flew to the UK for a 2 week tour with the Futureheads which is where I am now. Birmingham to be precise. It hasn’t been too bad given the time of year. The weather’s been better than it was in NY when I left and I’ve actually had 3 great meals in a row. 2 of them were Indian which is definitely your best hope of a good meal in the midlands of England. In fact, I’d wager they have the best Indian food anywhere outside of India. I had dinner at one of my absolute favorite restaurants last night in Wolverhampton of all places. It’s called Bilash and they have this award winning dish called Goan Tiger Prawn Masala. It’s ridiculously expensive given the current exchange rate but is easily one of the greatest things you could ever hope to put in your mouth. If you ever find yourself in the area, seek it out.

It’s been good to be back with the ‘Heads but I’m really losing my ability to cope with the constant touring. This is certainly not news to those who know me but it’s reaching a critical point. It’s more than a bit ironic that after all of my free-wheeling years of rejecting the wage-slave lifestyle that I’m just as locked in by money as anyone in a 9-5.
But hey, I get paid to go to Japan and Russia and meet people like Lou Reed and Dennis Hopper while I’m working. What’s a good day at your job? Exactly.

“So here’s to feeling good, and here’s to feeling bad. Here’s to feeling thankful and sorry for the pleasures that we had.”…Townes Van Zandt

In A Strange Land

I've finished the first few days with Damien Rice. We're in LA doing promo stuff. First we did Jay Leno. There isn't much for me to do at TV stuff so I mostly did nothing. Borat & Martha Stewart were on too so that made for good fun. She tried to teach him how to make a bed. One of Jay Leno's "things" is that he drives a different, crazy car to work every day. The last time I was there he pulled in a weird tube thing made by Indian. This time he rolls up in a 1930-something Bentley roadster. Nothing says "Look At ME!!" more that Jay Leno's massive head sticking out of this car.

Next we did Morning Becomes Eclectic which is a great morning music show on KCRW. Again not much for me to do so I just paid attention and got my head around their music a bit. They did a few great stripped down versions of some new songs. It was pretty sweet. The next day had us in Long Beach doing an instore at cool little record shop. This was my first time really mixing them. The prep was a bit of a pain in the ass (as in stores usually are) and the gear was less than great. All in all I thought it sounded pretty good and the band was great. Damien is really talented and has surrounded himself with great musicians. Lisa Hannigan sings with him and has the most beautiful voice I've ever put through a speaker. They're all really nice people though it's always weird being the new guy coming into a tight-knit group. I'm also finding being in a hotel particularly depressing. I'm going to be kicking myself in a couple weeks when I'm on a stanky bus in the midlands of England. I suppose I should enjoy LA while I can.

More Truth To Power

Keith Olbermann takes another swing at Bush. It makes me wish that anybody actually watched MSNBC.

Oh How We Laughed...

So I braved opening night and went and saw the Borat movie last night. This may be the funniest movie I've ever seen. Definitely not for everyone but if you like that cringe-worthy type of comedy of the Office or Curb Your Enthusiasm variety, you'll love this. It's half Jackass-style gross-out/absurdist pranks, half disturbingly cutting satire. I literally had an athsma attack I laughed so hard for so long. Good times.

So Much For Homelife

Despite all my best intentions of taking the rest of the year off from touring and spending some real amount of time at home, I've managed to commit myself to being away for the rest of the year starting on Wednesday. First I go to LA for 5 days to do some promo with Damien Rice, then on to NYC for the same thing. The day after Thanksgiving I leave to fly to the UK for 2 weeks with the Futureheads. Then back to NYC to kill time until Xmas. Matt's going to be away on tour with Albert so I'll have his place while I'm there. So now my time in SF has once again turned into vacation time. I've been taking advantage of the rain by slowly getting the apt. together and seeing movies during the day. Today I saw Old Joy, a quiet sort of indie film about 2 old friends who venture out of Portland, OR into the woods to find a hot spring. It's one of those slow, moody films that most people would be bored by but I thought it was great. Yo La Tengo did the soundtrack which never hurts in my book. I just bought tickets to see Borat tomorrow night. I usually hate going to movies on opening night but Borat can't wait.