Intricate splatter folk prophets The Books, whom rarely tour these days and assemble a mindblowing A/V show that’s essentially a live art installation, are coming to Lexington on Monday, September 21st. First… holy shit, right? Better yet, a portion of the proceeds from the show will go toward renovating the architecturally significant Miller House. And The Books will be playing at The Miller House as well, so expect a very intimate vibe.

I have two tickets to giveaway. You probably want these said tickets. Here’s how to enter:

You may either leave a comment below or shoot a message to kb [at] thedecibeltolls (dot) com telling me about your favorite book (see what I did there?!). The first person to name a title I have on my bookshelf claims the tickets. You must live in the area (i.e. reasonably be able to drive to Lexington the day of the show) to be eligible.

I will name the winner by Monday, September 7 via email, so if you comment, leave a valid address. Finally, if you’re going (and you should), please click the “map that shizz” link below to find out where it is if you haven’t been there. It took some digging because Google Maps and Mapquest have the Miller House’s address incorrectly listed.

The Books with TBA
Monday, September 21
Doors @ 7 p.m. / $15 (available at the door or by reservation – griffin@bullhornwill.com)
The Miller House
832 Lockmere Place, Lexington (map that shizz)
Sponsored by WRFL and Bullhorn Will

MP3 :::
The Books – A True Story of a Story of True Love

The Dame Music Hall, the Lexington venue that housed many amazing acts and was my employer/second home for years, will take a final bow on August 23. It doesn’t surprise me. Since the entertainment block downtown was leveled for a development yet to be built (thanks Mayor n00berry) and the venue was relocated, it seemed from talking to the employees, various musicians, patrons, and Nick himself, that the vibe there categorically changed. Moreover, with the new Buster’s opening a 1,000+ capacity hall that can host 18 and up shows (something we never were able to figure out how to do per liquor licensing), in addition to the vast array of all ages shows at Al’s Bar, The Dame, which was the only game in town for the middle part of the decade, just could not compete. Lexington might not be big enough to host three big music venues with nightly live entertainment. I’m mega sad to see it go – I certainly had many warm memories there. At least it goes out while still on top. Gonna miss you, lady Dame.

Including an MP3 below from the group who played my favorite show there, as a final salute.

MP3 :::
Mogwai – New Paths to Helicon, Pt. I

…or Malachai Destiny, or Malach, or the 13th Century Boi. He answers to a multitude of monikers. Malachai is a Kentucky-based filmmaker who has built a rather heavy mystique around himself – everything from cultivating various personas to creating his own lexicon in his film dialogue and music. He’s sorta like Tolkien in that sense I suppose.

Malachai, academically speaking, creates unusual, rad, tongue-firmly-in-cheek abstract short form narratives. The actors come from a music and art talent pool known as the Manforest. Malach would never divulge to me what exactly a Manforest is, and perhaps I don’t really want to know. Malachai describes himself in his own words:

The Quest series is somewhere between art film, surrealistic humor, and a delightful coming of age piece about broship and finding yourself. Get lifted, mang:

Malachai is on MySpazz here. If you wish to speak to him directly, though, you must contact Shooting Star Talents of Beijing. You can see some of his other work at Viemo.

Yes, Bonnie Prince Billy’s latest releases, Beware and his Among the Gold collaboration with Chyenne Mize, are excellent. But Bachelorette’s My Electric Family (The Deicbel Tolls review) is next level shit. This is your heads-up to arrive early to the show tonight at The Red Mile in Lexington. Doors are at 9 p.m. Get there at exactly that time, render your $12, and have Annabelle Alpers destroy your brain for 45 minutes (show info).

Congrats to Alex for gripping the tickets in last week’s giveaway. Enjoy this video of “Intergalactic Solitude” from Isolation Loops in Brooklyn. Yay for mushrooms.

And man… I. Just. Can’t. Stop. Listening. To. “Instructions For Insomniacs.” Good gawd, ya’ll. Enjoy this too.

MP3 :::
Bachelorette – Instructions For Insomniacs

This entry is categorized under “Noise Consultations” because that’s where all the feature-based writing tends to end up. But the story of Steverino – who he is, how I met him, and how it is that this guy actually exists, probably deserves its own category. Nevertheless, I’d like to introduce you to Steve Hayes, who performs under the name “Steverino.” As foreshadowing to this story, it might be relevant to add that I made the graphic above from a picture Steve uses as the background on his website. The file is called “steverino4u.jpg,” for what it’s worth. This tale of indescribable weirdness is 100% true.

Steverino is a stalwart gentlemen, roughly Roman in proportion, and in his plainclothes motif is conventional in fashion and appearance. He’s probably in his 50s, if I had to guess, with sandy and graying hair, spotted wrinkles and crevasses in his face. His casual wear generally consists of Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts. Just a dude, ya know.  I later found out he’s in some faction of the military. He has a flat tenor of a voice, sounding like a corn-fed laggard Midwestern boy, a product of growing up in parts of the country not intimately touched by the latest diffusion of innovations (or I have to assume). This explains a certain naivety or obliviousness that borders the pencil-thin line between endearing and obnoxious.

I first encountered Steverino in 2006. At the time, I was the promoter for The Dame in Lexington, Ky, a music venue that specialized in hosting indie rock, punk, alt country, and some hip-hop shows. On Monday nights, unless we had a national act coming in, The Dame would usually host an open mic night as a means to assuage the need to have some sort of music on a slower weeknight. Lots of white dudes playing shitty blues and acoustic covers was the usual fare.

The pervasive mood of stagnation and apathy was shattered one spring evening when Steverino came in to perform – and nothing was the same. This is not hyperbole – skies parted, food tasted differently, et al.

No one remembers when he and his friend came in, but we all certainly remember when they stormed the stage.  Steverino brought with him a woman who doned an intense mullet about her dome and spoke with an airy, soft-spoken voice. They did not perform together on stage on the first night (or any subsequent evenings), but rather, it seems as if the ladyfriend was an “opener” for Steverino. An opener for your open mic gig is a ballsy move that I have to applaud. That first performance was described by one of the trusty barkeeps as something from a dream sequence in Twin Peaks.

The lady, Lee, sings quietly and about a half-octave under her background music – a blanket of Christian contemporary praise music, half of which is in German. We were quite astonished from seeing her for the first time. Nothing… nothing could have prepared everyone for what Steverino had to bring to the table.

Enter stage left… a shorter-than-average sized stocky man wearing a zoot suit, top hat with a radiant red feather that looks like something almost symbolic. He begins each song with the redundant phrase “write all these songs myself, and I wrote the music myself” (his version of Wesley Willis’ “Rock Over London, Rock On Chicago,” though I’m sure he has no idea who Wesley Willis is). He boogies, strikes an emotive stage presence, and sings karaoke-style over his own music. And his music?  In essence, it’s a background of pre-produced, low-key, MIDI keyboard melodies and repetitive synthetic beats (which included samples of his own voice).  On his MySpazz page, Steverino escapsulates his music thusly: “My taste for music is both in beauty and beat. I try to write my songs and compose his music with the best of both worlds. For example, the beat of Sugar Ray, but with the beauty of the music of Enya. My taste is diversified in the genres of pop rock, smooth jazz, rhythm ‘n’ blues, hip-hip [sic], some alternative rock, some southern rock, some hard rock, and some country rock.” He cites Al Jarreau, Seal, Chicago, and Outkast as other influences.  Steverino “has also been impacted by a Japanse techno psychodelic [sic] music artist, Isao Tomita.”

His influences are, however, a bit far removed from his actual product (and for my money, better).  As far as my personal assessment, think punchy dance beats that resemble some sort of downtempo, future shock-informed Devo with a touch of insanity by way of Daniel Johnston and zaniness by way of Frank Zappa (sans the commentary), all wrapped in a rainbow-tinged, David Lynch-crafted Molotov cocktail of bizarro lounge singers-cum-prophets who have seen the true face of God.  His songs are all love songs – written sincerely, but all radiate an air of creepiness that Gary Wilson mastered in his pinning for the mysterious “Linda.”  My journalism B.A. did no justice in trying to comprehend, much less describe, the ethereal, astonishing shit I had just witnessed that night.  It was truly Biblical.

Fascinated, I run after him.  I had to get this guy’s contact information, so I asked for his e-mail address. He obliged and wrote it down on a cocktail napkin… twice (”just in case” he said cryptically). Since that debut, Steve became a staple of open mic nights, and my friends started to come out to see what I was talking about.

At this point, it’s worth noting that during my visits with Steverino during his rise to open mic stardom, I discovered that his performances were not exactly performance art – he didn’t create some kitsch stage persona. No facade, no pretension. The “Steverino” of the stage is the real Steve Hayes, and “Steverino” is his earnest attempt to be a pop star.

Steverino’s candidness in tandem with his complete lack of awareness creates this serendipitous, curious brilliance that makes him and his music really fascinating (to the right person, of course). Steverino does not understand that his music, though elementary in the way The Shaggs were elementary, is truly intriguing… though he probably wants his music to be cool or popular, not intriguing. There is certainly an audience for this, especially the kids into noise and who might listen to WFMU.

Never once was he made fun of (intentionally) by us, our regular Monday night patrons, or our friends – we all thought Steve was decidedly awesome.  Irwin Chusid, author of Songs in the Key of Z called this “outsider music,” a small faction of musicians who play honest songs way too far outside conventional performance and scope for the masses. Some could go as far as to say that they live in their own universe. However, such esoteric music garners a cult audience interested in something entirely against the grain, even visionary, while building a sympathy to the artist’s endearing demeanor. Steve is outsider music to the Nth degree.

In June of that year, the club’s general manager and I decided that the rest of the world needed to know about Steverino and his fruits. I called him inquiring about a performance, to which he agreed. I labeled this show as “A Truly Cosmic Concert Experience” because, well, that was the most concise way of describing it. Then things got really weird…

I added the show to the website with a fairly generic public domain image next to the show details. Steverino calls within five minutes. “I don’t understand, that’s not me.” Okay, then. So I tell Steve to send me some photos of himself. He calls later to let me know that he e-mailed me “three fabulous pictures.” He sent three files with the same picture – one in color, one B&W, and one in color that didn’t look any different than the first one.

While I had him on the phone, I asked him if Lee, his mulleted companion, could open the show, respecting their traditional open mic protocol. I, evidently, mistakenly called her his wife. “No, she’s not my wife, she’s just my friend… and you need to make sure that everyone knows that she’s just my friend. I am single!” Okay Steve, I’ll make sure everyone knows you’re on the market.

Within the week, Steverino requested a wireless mic, so that he can traverse about the tables, and possibly sing on the bar. We had to rent a wireless mic. At the open mic the week before Steve’s headlining show, Lee pulls me aside and mentions that her name, despite the fact that her heinous Christian karaoke is the opening act, should not be mentioned on the website, calendar, newsletter, or any other promotional material. “Why?” I ask. “Well, Steve has a serious ego. He’s a star, you know.” Yes, he sure is, Lee.

The day before the show, Steve took a huge stack of events calendars, circled the square with his date on it using a Sharpie I provided him, and took them to his friends and cohorts. He also requested a lengthy sound check. So at this juncture, questions starting racing through my mind: what kind of friends does Steve have? And what the fuck is actually going to go down on June 27, 2006?

Well, this video will give you some idea:

Cue the night of the show. We opened the doors at 8 p.m. People usually don’t show up until an hour or so after doors for a local artist. But this wasn’t an average evening, and Steve’s friends were waiting outside for the doors to open. I kinda assumed, judging by appearance, that these were probably Steve’s church friends (all in their Sunday best, of course). They probably weren’t the type who appreciate Jandek, and they probably came out to support Steve without knowing exactly what he did.

It turns out that he didn’t have enough material for the 45-minute slot he was granted. Instead of taking his bow and exiting the stage though, Steve asked if anyone had requests – that is to say, if anyone wanted to hear any of the songs again.  At this point, the Baptist congregation left, but my friends and various stragglers were still around shouting track numbers “play six,” “do three again!”  And he obliged until after midnight.  This next level astral theater was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen there (up there with the time Mogwai partied with us after their show and their merch guy ended up in a tree shouting curses at each passerby).

Since then, Steverino released an album, Sweet Perswazion. A true soft rock meets outsider music artisan with an acumen for pandemensional music, his debut is nothing less than oddball interstellar brilliance, a monumental gander at the “other side,” if you will. Listening to Steverino’s enchanting canticles of lovelorn whimsy and longing will provoke your brain to take a voluminous shit.

He still plays in Lexington to my knowledge (supposedly at his last show, he called upon the crowd to “bring on the new age”), and maybe this post will generate some interest in him elsewhere, too. I also anticipate Steve finding and reading this entry sometime soon, as he strikes me as the type of guy that would Google himself. Whether he will understand how my adoration is different than perhaps the type of fan sycophancy he seeks – well, that’s another story.

I started a FaCeBoOk group for Steve not to long ago. I encourage you to join if you can dig on some “Candy Mint.” Also, you should venture over to Steverino’s website. It’s pretty great, and rather revelatory. If you read the fine print at the bottom, his music is supposedly registered in the Library of Congress. In a perfect world, that certainly would be the case.

MP3 :::
Steverino – Candy Mint

Just got word that famed music venue The Dame in Lexington, Ky. is relocating after three months of uncertainty. You heard it here first.

Probably can’t say much right now, but when I know, you’ll know. I’ll say that it involves pairing with another club in Lexington. Just thought I’d drop a bug in your ear. Details to come. If you’re reading this and not sure what I’m talking about, czech this.

The posters above are past Dame shows, designed and printed by my buddies Brian and Sara at Cricket Press.

Alright, so… have an MP3. It relates to bars, which is sometimes synonymous to music venue, so it works.

MP3 :::
The Left Banke – Bartenders and Their Wives

Thanks to Backseat Sandbar for this horrendous photo:

Since I’m in Chicago, I haven’t been able to report much of what’s been going on. However, my friend Joe at Barefoot and Progressive, and of course Matt at YANP, are still in Lexington and have coverage on this treachery.

I have so many emotions running through my head. Personally, working at The Dame throughout college was such a cool, rewarding, indescribable experience. Between the Dame’s high profile in Lexington, the quality of music we were able to provide, and the support we had from so many people, I felt like we were helping to really make Lexington a much more unique place. I am proud that I had a hand in helping local bands build audiences, as well helping to create a really welcoming environment for national acts, which for many, led them to reroute their tours to play Lexington. That’s pretty special. And that’s the type of loyalty and service that’s hard to just up and recreate. It truly stings to know that, at least for the foreseeable future, it’s not there anymore. I’m not sure what Kubler-Ross stage of acceptance I’m in right now.

But I do know that I’m a living example of what is wrong with the city of Lexington – people come there to go to school, the city shows absolutely no concern toward the 18 to 24 year old demographic (or the arts community in general), they grab their degree, and they leave. The Vice Mayor of Lexington, Jim Gray, understands this notion. Unfortunately, he’s a minority. Lexington has become so bourgy, it’s absymal.

Handywork:

Saying The Dame had character is like saying that space is vast – it’s such a gross understatement. Every night, something totally out of the ordinary happened, and that’s really what gives a city character – having a place where you know you can see something you can’t find elsewhere. I mean, stuff you couldn’t make up. So rather than recite the tragedy that occurred or analyze what this says about mid-sized cities in Middle America, I’d like to cross-post something I wrote in the CHIRP blog a couple of months ago. I didn’t specifically name the venue for this article, since the Dame was still functioning at that point and I wasn’t sure if representatives from some of these artists would get all livid about sharing this information. At this point though, I think that’s probably a moot concern. The post was titled “Promotions Confidential,” though perhaps a better title is “The Secret History of…” Either way, here’s just a small sample of some of the real mind-puffing shit that goes on behind the scenes in putting on shows.

Some MP3s of my favorite artists who’ve performed there are found below the story, acting as an abridged history of The Dame in sonic form that spans the five years the venue was open (a full history can be found on the Dame’s MySpazzz page)…

::: ::: :::

Show business is a strange business, and music is probably the strangest of them all. From working in college radio, to becoming a promoter and talent buyer (jargon for booking agent lackey) for a recognized music venue, I’ve had the fortune of witnessing some truly astrophysical phenomena. As a quick bio, I spent close to five years heavily involved in the music scene of my old stomping ground, a quaint college town in the south, before uprooting to the city with broad shoulders.

I’ve always felt I could write a sitcom around these experiences, and I might just fax over my pilot to Lorne Michaels in the next couple of business days. The owner of this particular club also had this idea, and he wanted to consolidate his thoughts into a book called… “Bar World.” For serious. I think this blog post will work better for this purpose.

Anyway, most of following instances occurred at a 400+ capacity music venue and bar that shall not be specifically named to protect the innocent and to protect me from defamation claims. Not that any of this counts as defamation because it’s all true. But I have no way to prove it. The people that were there could certainly provide expert testimony to every detail, but since most people who work in music are invariably drunk half the time, I’m sure you start getting into witness credibility issues. Undoubtedly there are more bizarre stories out there, but these are mine and I find them quite entertaining. So without further ado, here are some nuggets from the other side. Rock stars, woot.

Mogwai

As brazen Scotsmen, Mogwai’s contract and rider provided the same delightful sense of humor that their song titles do. Some of their requests included “drawing by a gifted child” and “five football tickets,” as well as the usual smorgasbord of food. However, they all were very gracious and polite people. Mogwai was one of my favorite bands ever – someone who believed that anyone who had friends that didn’t “get” Mogwai weren’t really your friends – so I certainly was starstruck while getting to meet them and take them around looking for computer parts and random effects. Stuart describes everything as “wicked.”

While loading beer into the green room, Stuart and company were hand-making T-shirts, in complete and foreboding silence, for sale later that night. I apologized for all the noise I was making while stocking up, to which one of them retorted “Oh that’s fine, we apologize for all the noise we’re going to make tonight.”

This much was true, as Mogwai parted seas with tridents in hand, challenged everyone’s physiological fortitude toward rock, and used all the building’s electricity in the process. The power from the office and other non-essentials were rerouted to the stage. Though a 32-channel sound board was good enough for every single act that’s ever played there before, Mogwai needed a 64-channel board (that we had to rent from a company who stated “no one has ever asked for something this insanely large before”) with an additional, smaller auxiliary board that was set up on a platform to the side of the PAs, impeding the bathroom line. None of the five members could move around on the stage due to their equipment arsenal. A strategy was developed in the event that Mogwai completely blew the power – how we would get people out safely, and how we would keep the fans from chasing after us with pitchforks and goedendags.

All went smoothly, fortunately, and Barry, Dominic, and Lee (the merch dude) joined us afterwards at a friend’s birthday party two or three blocks away. They chugged brews whilst party guests inquired who the Scottish dudes were. By the time I left, Lee was roughly 20 feet above in a tree, wearing a top hat, and cackling at each passerby. They were really fun dudes. Mogwai uber alles.

DJ Funk

It certainly could be considered par for the course for “booty house” pioneer DJ Funk to copulate with a fan or two. No qualms with that. But why did he have to choose the booking office for this engagement; and on my nap couch nonetheless? DJ Funk has no concern for subtlety.

Suicide Girls

Specifically stated in the rider: “no whipped cream, no show.” Serious business.

Pete Best

Though some Beatles maniacs may feel sorry for Pete Best due to the nature of “being a human footnote,” I don’t. Pete still makes a rather handsome living playing songs that he had only a minor role in creating. When an artist is booked, their management usually sends a press pack with various information, CD, and glossy black and white press photos. Press photos are usually set to a theme, and feature a band or artist looking somewhat stoic. Sometimes it’s shadowy, sometimes it’s diffused (depending on the artist), but always done with some sort of thoughtful composition and artistic motif. Pete Best sent a bunch of 35 mm color photos of him on a jet ski.

Pete will sign autographs for exactly 30 minutes. After that, all bets are off. No dice, easy goer.

Carlos D of Interpol

Carlos does DJing gigs throughout North America and Europe. He charges a large sum of money to spin records that you probably already own (Violator, Unknown Pleasures, et al). When he arrives, he specifically requests to not be seen. He wants to be on the far stage left or the back away from line of sight. No lights are to be shown on him whatsoever, presumably since he is afraid of light. Nobody would even know he was there. As a matter of fact, I had a friend that looked similar to him and the club manager and I considered (sorta jokingly) to just let my friend slam the decks like Carlos, save a few thousand dollars, sell out the room, and no one would ever know. He’s just as Nosferatu looking of a dude as you would expect. As most philosophy majors I know, he likes to ask anyone and everyone about their bookshelf.

Devin the Dude

According to the sound engineer that evening, in the time it took for him to walk from the green room to the walk-in refrigerator and back, a distance of about 80 or 90 feet (approximately 24 to 27 meters for you metric types), Devin had cut, gutted, packed, fastened, and ignited a massive, voluminous, triumphant blunt. Sweatshops don’t even work that efficiently. Pothead ingenuity is a hell of a thing.

Dark Star Orchestra

The first thing you notice with jam bands is that an entire culture surfaces from beneath gnarly depths. Outside, hours prior to the show, a gaggle of rather crusty fellows sold weed pipes and all-natural, homemade, organic, vegetarian-friendly, $3 burritos to any and all who pass. As for the performers on this most groovy of evenings, the jam heads have come out for Dark Star Orchestra who, as some may be privy to, don’t just cover the Dead, goddammit – they recreate a specific Grateful Dead show, with instruments that represent all the members present at that performance, set list, and identical stage banter. They bolster themselves as “the world’s most enthralling Dead tribute.” Personally, I hate the Grateful Dead. Paying money to watch longhairs noodle on the guitar is lame.

There were two extraordinary personality types in this band. The first one we encountered was just before the show time. One of the members was in the backstage stairwell smoking. The club manager approached him to inform him that he cannot smoke in that area of the building. “I’ll just go outside,” he responds. “Right, but you guys are getting ready to start in five minutes,” my boss said. The guy takes a drag and exhales: “that’s fine, I hate this band anyway.”

I encountered the second type when trying to find my friend’s designated driver. It turned out she had taken off to a neighboring bar, with DSO’s vocalist, and was sucking face in front of all the inebriated Irishmen. We waited for my friend’s ride (and old dude, I suppose) outside the bar. When they exited, the vocalist has his arm around her, looking longingly from his Bonnaroo ravaged eyes, and said in the most cheese-dick of inflections “so, if you and your friends want a couple of free passes to the gig tomorrow night, I got you, babe.” Gig? Babe? Jesus. Then, when he leans back down for more lip action, he turns to my friend and I – “you all can get lost now.” At this point, I end up taking my friend home, and spent the next couple of days spreading the gospel concerning how astonishingly retarded DSO is. Fucking cover bands. The burritos were righteous, though.

The Arcade Fire

I personally know two people who were, at the time, under 21 and couldn’t get in. Win Butler, from a little group of goodtimes friends called the Arcade Fire, snuck them in himself through the alleyway door. Both were in attendance at an 18+ show the night before, somehow met the band, and they agreed to help assist in this covert mission. So your questions are answered – yes, Win Butler is lawless.

KRS-One

Hip-hop artists, along with most punk bands, notoriously foster a healthy aversion to being punctual. The difference between KRS-One and his contemporaries, though, is that if his set time is 10:30 p.m., and he rolls through at 10:27, he still performs on time, without sound check or removing his coat. All while sporting some remarkable sweat pants.

Rhys Chatham and Tony Conrad

There’s still something rather amusing about seeing minimalist neo-classical and avant garde musicians rock a cerebral, challenging, often inaccessible art-ensemble performance while knowing that these dudes are really, really into eating pizza. Lots of it. You would think they would be about eating minimalist, sophisticated fusion food that you’d find in chic cafes dotted along Greenwich Village or Wicker Park sidewalks. But no, pizza. Lots of pizza. Maybe this isn’t that strange.

Robert Earl Keen

Typical of the archetypical Nashville, pony-tail-clad music industry two-bit charlatan, country music management really does (often) present a fascinatingly abysmal, shitty-ass attitude toward everything. When the tour manager refused to move Robert’s colossal tour bus from the venue’s storefront, located on a busy downtown street, we made sure that he understood we expunged all responsibility for what happens to that bus. When the police arrived about two hours later, they actually did a full search of the bus (though they found nothing). The tour manager spent the rest of the evening looking spooked and said nothing else to us. Moral of the story, the police do not give a shit and will search a large tour bus no matter how much No Depression loves you. Don’t be a meat head.

Low

This didn’t happen at the Dame, but at another show I was apart of. However, since we almost booked Low, this counts. And it’s a good story. Alan Sparhawk shows gratitude for booking a Low show by giving you a novelty Low refrigerator magnetic poetry kit. It’s awesome.

Animal Collective / Six Organs of Admittance

What was strange about both of these acts was that there was nothing strange about them at all. Dave (Avey Tare) kicked it on MySpace all afternoon. Noah (Panda Bear) helped me hang up the posters around the club and was an all around swell, chipper guy. They were nice people. Six Organs’ Ben Chasney was pumped about everything. He loved the green room, the venue, the scenic downtown, the Thai restaurant down the street, the stage, the sound, the posters we made, the cheap beer, his chakras, and life in general. Truly a hippie in the best regard. So why is it that artists like Animal Collective and Six Organs are normal, friendly dudes making freaky music, while straightforward artists like David Lowery and his Camper Van Beethoven act like total freaks? Let’s call this, for conversation’s sake, the Lennox-Lowery Conundrum. That could also serve as an excellent band name for some vapid white jazz fusion group.

::: ::: :::

Hopefully, when I get back into the world of arts admin, I can add many more cosmic experiences and oddities to the strange world of music promotions and booking. These are nefarious times – it can only get stranger from here.

Have you worked in music before? Have some stories? Or are you familiar with The Dame in Lexington and want to share your favorite memories? By all means, comment below!

MP3 :::
Mogwai – Batcat
Indian Jewelry – Bird is Broke (Won’t Sing)
Battles – Leyendecker
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Awake
Blue Cheer – Sun Cycle
Califone – A Chinese Actor
Holy Fuck – Super Inuit
Animal Collective – Lion in a Coma
Burning Star Core – I Wanna Make a Supersonic Woman of You
Six Organs of Admittance – Attar
Bonnie Prince Billy – Lay and Love
Growing – Innit

OMG MYSPACE LOL :::
Some of my favorite local bands over the years
Tight Leather
Eyes and Arms of Smoke
Wax Fang
Heartless Bastards