Well, SXSW is over. It was exhausting, I must say. But it was fuckin fantastic, so I ain't complainin'.
I missed out on a lot of the action because I had so much work to do in order to put on the Wiretap Music CD release party for the compilation we're releasing on April 14th. The party went down on March 20th on Austin's East Side, at The Art Project, a really rad up-and-coming gallery/studio. You can hear some choice cuts from that show on my Bay Area Live program airing today!
Of course, when I say I missed out on a lot of the action, I mean that I only saw like 40 or 50 bands that week, instead of a couple hundred. So it's relative.
I was there for all of BTR's showcase, no doubt! Head over to BreakThruRadio.com to check out the recordings my fabulous DJ colleagues have put up from the BTR SXSW 09 showcase, especially Bay Area boys Lemonade!
3.26.2009
3.03.2009
Giving them hell
The past eight years were rough, man. I remember very distinctly the feeling when George W. Bush got elected. I remember wondering what atrocities would be committed, wondering if I'd even recognize my country after he was done with it. And aside from the fact that he didn't install himself as supreme fascist dictator in perpetuity, I gotta say that most of my fears about the Bush Administration were validated. He really and truly was the worst president ever in every way possible.
But it's a new era. I don't advocate that we fight dirty, cuz that would put us on the level of the Bush Admin and the rest of the American Taliban: conservatives, corporatists, and the Religious Right — the free-market and religious fundamentalist fanatics that were the Bushies' chief backers and enablers. I don't advocate lying, manipulation, or violence as tactics. We can't operate under the assumption that the ends justify the means, like they do. But we gotta play for keeps all the same.
The American Taliban will do and say anything to build and preserve their power. And they're getting desperate. We've got them on the run, at least for now. But that doesn't mean they're any less dangerous. We need to be prepared to fight fire with fire. We can't let them drag us back into the Dark Ages, as they're so intent on doing. We gotta push them, willing or not, into the 21st century. We can't wait for them to "get it" or try and convince them that we're right and they're wrong or waste time building "bipartisanship" with folks who are on the wrong side of history.
It would seem the progressive movement gets that and is gearing up for the fight. Now is the time for us to press our agenda and make durable changes that can't be easily undone in order to secure a sustainable, happy, and healthy future for all.
Gay activists have realized that "The time for saying please is over" (h/t AmericaBlog).
Commenting on the largest civil disobedience on global warming in U.S. history, a colleague of mine recently explained, "We’re done asking nicely."
I'm glad we're done asking nicely. But we also need to be prepared to stand up for ourselves. We can't shy away from this fight. The American Taliban wants to secure the future for themselves and their way of life. We want to secure the future for the Earth and all its creatures. Our ends must not be used to justify abuse of power, violence, or corruption. But they certainly justify fighting like hell.
If people want to be on the wrong side of history, leave them by the wayside. What we're fighting for will benefit them in the end as well. We'll create a better tomorrow with or without them.
But it's a new era. I don't advocate that we fight dirty, cuz that would put us on the level of the Bush Admin and the rest of the American Taliban: conservatives, corporatists, and the Religious Right — the free-market and religious fundamentalist fanatics that were the Bushies' chief backers and enablers. I don't advocate lying, manipulation, or violence as tactics. We can't operate under the assumption that the ends justify the means, like they do. But we gotta play for keeps all the same.
The American Taliban will do and say anything to build and preserve their power. And they're getting desperate. We've got them on the run, at least for now. But that doesn't mean they're any less dangerous. We need to be prepared to fight fire with fire. We can't let them drag us back into the Dark Ages, as they're so intent on doing. We gotta push them, willing or not, into the 21st century. We can't wait for them to "get it" or try and convince them that we're right and they're wrong or waste time building "bipartisanship" with folks who are on the wrong side of history.
It would seem the progressive movement gets that and is gearing up for the fight. Now is the time for us to press our agenda and make durable changes that can't be easily undone in order to secure a sustainable, happy, and healthy future for all.
Gay activists have realized that "The time for saying please is over" (h/t AmericaBlog).
Commenting on the largest civil disobedience on global warming in U.S. history, a colleague of mine recently explained, "We’re done asking nicely."
I'm glad we're done asking nicely. But we also need to be prepared to stand up for ourselves. We can't shy away from this fight. The American Taliban wants to secure the future for themselves and their way of life. We want to secure the future for the Earth and all its creatures. Our ends must not be used to justify abuse of power, violence, or corruption. But they certainly justify fighting like hell.
If people want to be on the wrong side of history, leave them by the wayside. What we're fighting for will benefit them in the end as well. We'll create a better tomorrow with or without them.
2.25.2009
It's on, bitches
I'm putting on a SXSW this year! And my band is playing! Along with a lot of other fanfuckingtastic bands. And free beer. Be there or be somewhere else.
2.10.2009
Scatterbrain Jamboree 2009!!!
Scatterbrain Jamboree 2009 is nearly upon us, folks. I'll be playing with my band Black Paintings on Saturday, the 21st. Proceeds are to benefit the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, so you can feel good about drinking in the middle of the day! Starts at 3:30. We'll probably play around 6:00 or 7:00. A map to the venue can be found below the flyer.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
7.09.2008
Enviro rights
We've got to get rid of rights that provide for corporate personhood and codify the rights of the natural world to exist into law. Ecuador has just drafted constitutional language doing just that, which will become law when their new constitution is ratified. Read more.
6.11.2008
It's been too long
I blog for so many other folks I kinda stopped blogging for myself. That's gonna change right here and now, by god, even if I simply provide links to the many interesting posts I write elsewhere.
I wrote a post on my Greenpeace blog about Radiohead's green tour, of which I am quite fond (the band, the tour, and the post).
Also, if you're in San Francisco you can catch me on Pirate Cat Radio tonight at 6:00 pm discussing the greening of the music industry. 87.9 FM on the radio dial. Ya dig?
I wrote a post on my Greenpeace blog about Radiohead's green tour, of which I am quite fond (the band, the tour, and the post).
Also, if you're in San Francisco you can catch me on Pirate Cat Radio tonight at 6:00 pm discussing the greening of the music industry. 87.9 FM on the radio dial. Ya dig?
1.08.2008
Velocity Matters
This NYT piece about what’s been called “Google’s assault on Microsoft” is a really good read, mostly because it does a good job of outlining the concept of “cloud computing.” Google has bet at least a sizable chunk of the farm on cloud computing, and if their gamble pays off it will mean that the way we all think of and use computers will undergo a major transition.
Essentially, Google has begun offering software online that Microsoft has always kept firmly chained to the deskbound PC. Because Google Apps, which is what the company calls its suite of email, instant messaging, calendar, and text document and spreadsheet editing software, exists solely online, it resides on a multitude of servers that are accessible from any number of devices. In other words, the software and hardware you use for your computing needs are as nebulous an entity as the clouds. You will be as free as the clouds, too, as opposed to stuck at your desk where your PC exists. It promises to be an epic business battle, one that we will all be aware of on at least some basic level, as it will play itself out very publicly in the marketplace.
Google, of course, is on to something, despite the protestations of Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s business division. Raikes says his company has loads of market research that proves Google is being arrogant and brash in thinking they can force such a transition on the software market.
On the contrary, Google is just astutely anticipating the current trends in technology. This is a business war, of course, but it has implications for more than just how we work, so I think it’s important to look at larger trends. To whit: People don’t just sit at home and listen to music any more, they take it with them everywhere they go on their iPod, just as they aren’t content to send email or IM their friends and colleagues from their personal computer, they want these functions on their Blackberry or iPhone so they get their messages no matter where they are.
People are on the move and they want their software to keep up with them. Google is trying to guess what form software-on-the-go will take. They may be wrong and they may be right that Google Apps is roughly it, but at least the company is mobile enough to change quickly if they need to. Microsoft, on the other hand, has to wait for their next product release, then they have to evaluate that release, and start another two-year development cycle to respond to the new demands of the market.
A long time ago, before computers, and even before books, people got most of their information from tribal storytellers. People would go to a communal space and hear stories that informed them of their culture, their history, their identity. Books, audio recordings, and TV have taken over as the chief way people get this kind of information today, and all of these formats require us to be alone in our houses, or at least secluded in a cozy chair at the café, while partaking in the culture that surrounds us. This has always struck me as quite the conundrum, one that is solved by the Internet.
I think we are coming to a phase of our culture where we need to come full circle, to reconnect with some of the fundamental aspects of our existence on this planet. That is the real promise of the Internet, and that is essentially what Google is trying to anticipate. I’m not saying I’m pulling for them over any other corporate entity, just that they seem to be actually attuned to the zeitgeist better than Microsoft’s legions of market researchers. I think that anything that gets people to congregate and experience the world communally is a good thing.
So-called “thin clients” are another trend toward communal computing. We waste a ton of energy while our computers are on but not actually computing. So the thinking is that if we create thin clients, devices that do no processing of their own but instead allow you to send and receive data from some shared processing center, we will not only conserve energy but reduce the amount of materials we use. According to a post on the blog WorldChanging from a while back, “Sun Microsystems is trying to push the world towards systems like this; they say existing thin-client systems use a tenth of the power and reduce raw material usage by a factor of 150.”
The NYT quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying “Velocity matters,” and basically sets it up as the guiding principle of Google’s product development. I quote it mostly because I like the phrase. But also it’s fairly poignant: As the software industry adjusts to the realities of the demand for products in today’s marketplace, velocity certainly does matter. Not only in how quick companies bring products to market, but also for those products themselves. If they don’t have the velocity to keep up with consumers, those products won’t go very far.
It’s also relevant because the Earth will be in increasingly bad shape if we keep consuming energy and raw materials the way we have been. The velocity with which we respond to this situation matters. Only by coming together to solve this problem communally will we ever really be able to solve it. Interesting, then, that a chief solution to the problem might very well be bringing people together to share their computing power communally.
Essentially, Google has begun offering software online that Microsoft has always kept firmly chained to the deskbound PC. Because Google Apps, which is what the company calls its suite of email, instant messaging, calendar, and text document and spreadsheet editing software, exists solely online, it resides on a multitude of servers that are accessible from any number of devices. In other words, the software and hardware you use for your computing needs are as nebulous an entity as the clouds. You will be as free as the clouds, too, as opposed to stuck at your desk where your PC exists. It promises to be an epic business battle, one that we will all be aware of on at least some basic level, as it will play itself out very publicly in the marketplace.
Google, of course, is on to something, despite the protestations of Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s business division. Raikes says his company has loads of market research that proves Google is being arrogant and brash in thinking they can force such a transition on the software market.
On the contrary, Google is just astutely anticipating the current trends in technology. This is a business war, of course, but it has implications for more than just how we work, so I think it’s important to look at larger trends. To whit: People don’t just sit at home and listen to music any more, they take it with them everywhere they go on their iPod, just as they aren’t content to send email or IM their friends and colleagues from their personal computer, they want these functions on their Blackberry or iPhone so they get their messages no matter where they are.
People are on the move and they want their software to keep up with them. Google is trying to guess what form software-on-the-go will take. They may be wrong and they may be right that Google Apps is roughly it, but at least the company is mobile enough to change quickly if they need to. Microsoft, on the other hand, has to wait for their next product release, then they have to evaluate that release, and start another two-year development cycle to respond to the new demands of the market.
A long time ago, before computers, and even before books, people got most of their information from tribal storytellers. People would go to a communal space and hear stories that informed them of their culture, their history, their identity. Books, audio recordings, and TV have taken over as the chief way people get this kind of information today, and all of these formats require us to be alone in our houses, or at least secluded in a cozy chair at the café, while partaking in the culture that surrounds us. This has always struck me as quite the conundrum, one that is solved by the Internet.
I think we are coming to a phase of our culture where we need to come full circle, to reconnect with some of the fundamental aspects of our existence on this planet. That is the real promise of the Internet, and that is essentially what Google is trying to anticipate. I’m not saying I’m pulling for them over any other corporate entity, just that they seem to be actually attuned to the zeitgeist better than Microsoft’s legions of market researchers. I think that anything that gets people to congregate and experience the world communally is a good thing.
So-called “thin clients” are another trend toward communal computing. We waste a ton of energy while our computers are on but not actually computing. So the thinking is that if we create thin clients, devices that do no processing of their own but instead allow you to send and receive data from some shared processing center, we will not only conserve energy but reduce the amount of materials we use. According to a post on the blog WorldChanging from a while back, “Sun Microsystems is trying to push the world towards systems like this; they say existing thin-client systems use a tenth of the power and reduce raw material usage by a factor of 150.”
The NYT quotes Google CEO Eric Schmidt as saying “Velocity matters,” and basically sets it up as the guiding principle of Google’s product development. I quote it mostly because I like the phrase. But also it’s fairly poignant: As the software industry adjusts to the realities of the demand for products in today’s marketplace, velocity certainly does matter. Not only in how quick companies bring products to market, but also for those products themselves. If they don’t have the velocity to keep up with consumers, those products won’t go very far.
It’s also relevant because the Earth will be in increasingly bad shape if we keep consuming energy and raw materials the way we have been. The velocity with which we respond to this situation matters. Only by coming together to solve this problem communally will we ever really be able to solve it. Interesting, then, that a chief solution to the problem might very well be bringing people together to share their computing power communally.
12.18.2007
Rick Rubin and the Future of the Music Industry
There was a very interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about Rick Rubin. He’s a fascinating man in his own right, but the real crux of the piece was whether or not the music industry could be saved from itself.
Rubin is a pioneer. He produced and helped launch the careers of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, the Geto Boys, and LL Cool J, and in doing so brought hip hop to the attention of the music industry. At the same time, he was producing Slayer and Danzig, including such classics as Reign in Blood, Seasons in the Abyss, and Danzig’s first three albums. Later in his career, he discovered System of a Down and produced most of their albums, and also helped revive Johnny Cash’s career while producing the Man in Black’s last five albums. The labels he has founded – Def Jam, Def American, and American Recordings – are responsible for too many legendary recordings to name.
Yet Rubin tells his interviewer: “‘I have no training, no technical skill – it’s only this ability to listen and try to coach the artists to be the best they can from the perspective of a fan.’” I have never known much about Rick Rubin personally, except that he had worked with a ton of great bands. I assumed he was an engineering wizard, to have risen to such prominence as a producer, and think it’s really quite interesting that he essentially reduces what he does to being the ultimate fan.
Given his track record of consistent innovation, it was an especially adroit move on behalf of Columbia Records to hire Rubin as their new label co-head. Apparently it wasn’t an altogether easy sell, either, because Rubin had sworn never to work with Columbia again after an album he’d produced for Neal Diamond, 12 Songs, which Rubin was especially proud of, suffered heavily in sales because Columbia’s corporate paymaster, Sony, had decided to load it with DRM software that doubled as spyware. (I told you this article was interesting!)
One of Rubin’s first accomplishments at Columbia was to convince them to “go green” and stop using plastic cases for all of their releases. For an industry that is completely out of touch with the present and mired in a vicious rear-guard action against the future, it was a nicely symbolic if inadequately small bit of acquiescence to the reality of where music is heading.
Of course, no one knows exactly where the music “business” is going, but everyone agrees that the majors seem bent on securing their profits even at the expense of allowing themselves to become completely obsolete. The actions of the Recording Industry Association of America have been thoroughly pilloried enough that everyone is aware of its crimes. Few people with half a brain still have any respect for the labels that use the RIAA as their attack dog against all those nefarious file-sharers that are “destroying” the music business. How does Rubin propose to pull Columbia out of this quagmire?
To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, [Rubin], like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. “You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”
Obviously there’s a lot that would have to be figured out to put this system in place. There will be many complexities to such a system that Rubin does not touch on, so it will not be anywhere near as simple as he describes it. But a virtual library does have its attractive points, such as the idea that all your favorite music will be on one universal platform and you can listen to it anywhere you want. Also, as a musician, I like the possibilities this would give me to put out my music however I choose: I could upload every show my band plays, for instance, and my music would be available to my audience as the ever-evolving entity it is, as opposed to something static that I recorded at one point in time.
It’s certainly an interesting idea, but several issues raise themselves immediately, the most important being: Will people be willing to pay a subscription fee for digital copies of music, even if that money grants them access to a virtual universal library, rather than continue to freely share music digitally with their friends and online peers? I assume that, like with TV shows, hard copies will still be made available to those of us who insist on such archaic things. If CDs are available, how can the RIAA stop illegal file sharing altogether and force everyone to pay a subscription fee? It seems like they can’t, not without continuing to sue every starving student and single mother who “steals” music from them, a practice that is the single biggest factor in ensuring their steady path into obsolescence.
But Rubin does say, after all, that the iPod will be obsolete in this future industry. Are the major labels, in fact, thinking about not making CDs and vinyl albums at all?
Without the option of hard copies being available, you will inevitably have two distinct music businesses develop: The majors who only put their stuff online because that’s the only way they can squeeze the money out of it; and the independent artists who won’t play that game and still love and cherish the recorded artifact as much as the exposure and convenience of digital file sharing, free or otherwise. This would, again, ensure that the major labels remain the province of the mainstream, while all the true innovation continues to happen under their radar – in other words, a type of limited obsolescence, but obsolescence all the same.
I mean, sure there’s big money in Hannah Montana CDs, and the teeny-boppers who listen to that kind of thing are also entirely likely to buy into a subscription model because they don’t buy hard copies of music anyway. But if the majors insist that their artists cannot release CDs of their music, what self-respecting independent artist of today is going to agree to sign to them in the future? This is what I mean by limited obsolescence: the majors will only be able to continue serving up mainstream pop crap, not the kind of innovative music Rubin has a knack for producing.
This could actually be a great thing: Let the majors cater to the teeny-boppers, which is pretty much what they do best anyway, and let everyone else figure out their own way forward. I’m kind of liking this subscription model more and more…
Rubin is a pioneer. He produced and helped launch the careers of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, the Geto Boys, and LL Cool J, and in doing so brought hip hop to the attention of the music industry. At the same time, he was producing Slayer and Danzig, including such classics as Reign in Blood, Seasons in the Abyss, and Danzig’s first three albums. Later in his career, he discovered System of a Down and produced most of their albums, and also helped revive Johnny Cash’s career while producing the Man in Black’s last five albums. The labels he has founded – Def Jam, Def American, and American Recordings – are responsible for too many legendary recordings to name.
Yet Rubin tells his interviewer: “‘I have no training, no technical skill – it’s only this ability to listen and try to coach the artists to be the best they can from the perspective of a fan.’” I have never known much about Rick Rubin personally, except that he had worked with a ton of great bands. I assumed he was an engineering wizard, to have risen to such prominence as a producer, and think it’s really quite interesting that he essentially reduces what he does to being the ultimate fan.
Given his track record of consistent innovation, it was an especially adroit move on behalf of Columbia Records to hire Rubin as their new label co-head. Apparently it wasn’t an altogether easy sell, either, because Rubin had sworn never to work with Columbia again after an album he’d produced for Neal Diamond, 12 Songs, which Rubin was especially proud of, suffered heavily in sales because Columbia’s corporate paymaster, Sony, had decided to load it with DRM software that doubled as spyware. (I told you this article was interesting!)
One of Rubin’s first accomplishments at Columbia was to convince them to “go green” and stop using plastic cases for all of their releases. For an industry that is completely out of touch with the present and mired in a vicious rear-guard action against the future, it was a nicely symbolic if inadequately small bit of acquiescence to the reality of where music is heading.
Of course, no one knows exactly where the music “business” is going, but everyone agrees that the majors seem bent on securing their profits even at the expense of allowing themselves to become completely obsolete. The actions of the Recording Industry Association of America have been thoroughly pilloried enough that everyone is aware of its crimes. Few people with half a brain still have any respect for the labels that use the RIAA as their attack dog against all those nefarious file-sharers that are “destroying” the music business. How does Rubin propose to pull Columbia out of this quagmire?
To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, [Rubin], like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set. “You would subscribe to music,” Rubin explained, as he settled on the velvet couch in his library. “You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home. You’ll say, ‘Today I want to listen to … Simon and Garfunkel,’ and there they are. The service can have demos, bootlegs, concerts, whatever context the artist wants to put out. And once that model is put into place, the industry will grow 10 times the size it is now.”
Obviously there’s a lot that would have to be figured out to put this system in place. There will be many complexities to such a system that Rubin does not touch on, so it will not be anywhere near as simple as he describes it. But a virtual library does have its attractive points, such as the idea that all your favorite music will be on one universal platform and you can listen to it anywhere you want. Also, as a musician, I like the possibilities this would give me to put out my music however I choose: I could upload every show my band plays, for instance, and my music would be available to my audience as the ever-evolving entity it is, as opposed to something static that I recorded at one point in time.
It’s certainly an interesting idea, but several issues raise themselves immediately, the most important being: Will people be willing to pay a subscription fee for digital copies of music, even if that money grants them access to a virtual universal library, rather than continue to freely share music digitally with their friends and online peers? I assume that, like with TV shows, hard copies will still be made available to those of us who insist on such archaic things. If CDs are available, how can the RIAA stop illegal file sharing altogether and force everyone to pay a subscription fee? It seems like they can’t, not without continuing to sue every starving student and single mother who “steals” music from them, a practice that is the single biggest factor in ensuring their steady path into obsolescence.
But Rubin does say, after all, that the iPod will be obsolete in this future industry. Are the major labels, in fact, thinking about not making CDs and vinyl albums at all?
Without the option of hard copies being available, you will inevitably have two distinct music businesses develop: The majors who only put their stuff online because that’s the only way they can squeeze the money out of it; and the independent artists who won’t play that game and still love and cherish the recorded artifact as much as the exposure and convenience of digital file sharing, free or otherwise. This would, again, ensure that the major labels remain the province of the mainstream, while all the true innovation continues to happen under their radar – in other words, a type of limited obsolescence, but obsolescence all the same.
I mean, sure there’s big money in Hannah Montana CDs, and the teeny-boppers who listen to that kind of thing are also entirely likely to buy into a subscription model because they don’t buy hard copies of music anyway. But if the majors insist that their artists cannot release CDs of their music, what self-respecting independent artist of today is going to agree to sign to them in the future? This is what I mean by limited obsolescence: the majors will only be able to continue serving up mainstream pop crap, not the kind of innovative music Rubin has a knack for producing.
This could actually be a great thing: Let the majors cater to the teeny-boppers, which is pretty much what they do best anyway, and let everyone else figure out their own way forward. I’m kind of liking this subscription model more and more…
10.15.2007
Looking on unemployment's bright side
Sci fi has always been my chief fascination/obsession. It must've all started with Star Wars, but The Transformers and Voltron definitely did their part when I was still but a wee lad, as did Spaceballs and Flash Gordon. By the time I was reading chapter books it was, naturally, Frank Herbert and Arthur C. Clarke. Those two carried me through college (with a little help from David Lynch and Stanley Kubrik, of course). Orwell was a titan in my universe as well (I prefer Terry Gilliam’s take on 1984 to Michael Radford’s, but was enraptured by both).
I started off as a computer science major at UT-Austin but eventually decided that studying English was a better way to qualify myself for a career writing for video games, which was how I had decided to sustain myself while scribing my own SF masterpieces. I worked on my first manuscript in Austin for a couple years after college while writing business information for a website by day. I moved out to the Bay Area about five years ago, where I finished my first novel.
I also got my Masters degree in English from San Jose State University, where I had the privilege of being the teaching assistant for an undergraduate course on sci-fi literature. I taught a whole new generation of sci-fi geeks both Orwell and Clarke! (Herbert didn’t make the cut, though the professor had thought long and hard about that decision, he assured me.)
My novel has yet to see the light of day – it’s really just the first of a four-part series, naturally – but I did manage to finally land a job writing for video games. For the past year and a half I’ve been working at Perpetual Entertainment, and among other duties I had the honor of writing various feature articles and press announcements for Star Trek Online, an MMO being developed by Perpetual that is set entirely in the Trek universe. I really was pretty much in heaven, until another game the company was developing got axed and they laid off half the workforce, me included.
I have plenty of free time now that I’m unemployed, which is pretty cool because I’ve been wanting to finally finish Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn series for a while now, and I’ve been re-watching all of the Firefly DVDs ever since I heard the latest rumors that a Serenity sequel might actually get made. Now I can do both.
I started off as a computer science major at UT-Austin but eventually decided that studying English was a better way to qualify myself for a career writing for video games, which was how I had decided to sustain myself while scribing my own SF masterpieces. I worked on my first manuscript in Austin for a couple years after college while writing business information for a website by day. I moved out to the Bay Area about five years ago, where I finished my first novel.
I also got my Masters degree in English from San Jose State University, where I had the privilege of being the teaching assistant for an undergraduate course on sci-fi literature. I taught a whole new generation of sci-fi geeks both Orwell and Clarke! (Herbert didn’t make the cut, though the professor had thought long and hard about that decision, he assured me.)
My novel has yet to see the light of day – it’s really just the first of a four-part series, naturally – but I did manage to finally land a job writing for video games. For the past year and a half I’ve been working at Perpetual Entertainment, and among other duties I had the honor of writing various feature articles and press announcements for Star Trek Online, an MMO being developed by Perpetual that is set entirely in the Trek universe. I really was pretty much in heaven, until another game the company was developing got axed and they laid off half the workforce, me included.
I have plenty of free time now that I’m unemployed, which is pretty cool because I’ve been wanting to finally finish Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn series for a while now, and I’ve been re-watching all of the Firefly DVDs ever since I heard the latest rumors that a Serenity sequel might actually get made. Now I can do both.
2.07.2007
musings on the NOFX show of 01/31/07
NOFX
Strike Anywhere
The Departed
01/31/07
Slim’s, San Francisco
When NOFX took the stage they immediately told the sold-out crowd at Slim’s that they were tired and didn’t want to be there. But of course no one took them seriously. The Bay Area-based punks have kinda made their careers out of not being serious, in fact. NOFX shows are always a boisterously good time, and this was just the first bit of the sarcastic banter that makes their shows completely unpredictable and as funny as they are rockin. Hell, the band has as much fun at their shows as anyone else.
That’s because they do things entirely their own way. From their music to their shows — even their record label, Fat Wreck Chords — they’ve never bothered catering to anybody else’s expectations.
Far too many punk bands do seem to cater to some accepted definition of punk. Another local (but lesser-known) group, The Departed, opened the night with a solid set of generic three-chord punk. Their style seemed to play well to the masses, but it lacked anything like originality or volatility. They broke up the monotony at one point by playing a song that was reminiscent of the more layered indie-punk of Sleater-Kinney, but, after that, frontwoman Michelle Lockneck told the crowd they were going to “pick the pace back up.” Apparently, she meant they were going to continue churning out different variations of the same standard punk tune.
Now, if you’re really into punk then I can see how you’d like the Departed. They’ve got great energy on stage (and in the crowd after NOFX’s set, dancing to the house music), and drummer Nikki Stix carries a jaunty but propulsive beat with ease. I’ll be the first to admit that I am unfair about any music that I perceive as generic or pedestrian. What was really unfortunate for them, however, was that a video of a Dead Kennedys show was playing between sets. Jello Biafra’s hyper-manic stage show and the endless stream of stage-divers were a demonstration of the raw energy and power that punk once attained to. And, unfortunately, the Departed just didn’t measure up to that. They kinda got blown off the stage…by a DVD. Or at least would have, if the sound to the DVD had been turned up. Still, even without sound the Dead Kennedys were a lot more intriguing to watch than the Departed.
To be fair, few bands could measure up to the intensity of that Dead Kennedys show. Hell, NOFX didn’t either, in some ways.
Neither did the next supporting act, Strike Anywhere, who are nonetheless aptly named: them boys are damn near combustible on stage. They projected a fierce energy, jumping around and playing a much heavier and dense version of punk than the Departed. But still, they weren’t really offering anything that various other bands, like AFI and Strung Out, don’t already offer, which sort of negates any “outsider” status, a necessary component of punk, IMHO.
Whoever made the choice to play the Dead Kennedys video—whether it was the Slim’s staff or NOFX—made a grave error. Punk was supposed to be all about anti-establishmentarianism and outsider art, and at the time this video was shot, the Dead Kennedys come off as being punk as fuck, if only because they clearly are just doing things their own damn way. Right next to Biafra’s extreme animation, you’ve got Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray in the background meekly playing along. (Which makes me wonder how they ever earned themselves nicknames. Don’t you have to have character to get a nickname? I guess they’re much more interesting off-stage.) But hey, Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray were doing their thing, in a band where defying the status quo appears to have been the primary goal. And that’s what matters most.
The most impressive thing about the DK performance, though, was how they extended this anything-goes ethos to include the audience: the band’s complete acceptance of fans coming on stage, chugging their fists, knocking into the musicians, and then leaping back into the crowd was incredible.
The reason I say NOFX didn’t measure up to the intensity of the Dead Kennedys show is this: about halfway through their set, one single guy somehow got onstage, and not only was he not permitted to stage dive, but security guards quickly and roughly escorted him offstage.
That’s pretty damn lame.
But, to my mind, NOFX make up for it in many, many ways. And after all, if that’s not their thing then fine, it’s their show. For me, listening to singer/bassist Fat Mike’s satirical, sarcastic, and frequently hilarious lyrics (which have a lot in common with Jello’s, actually), more than makes up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to get onstage and do a swan dive onto the concrete floor. And NOFX’s stage presence may not be as rowdy as DK’s was in their prime, but NOFX makes up for it with a presence quite possibly unique unto themselves (at least I’m not aware of any other band that could pull it off), as well as an inventive musical style that draws equally from punk, reggae, ska, and hardcore. NOFX is a true champion of the DIY ethic and a torchbearer of the outsider punk tradition.
As they launched into a reggae-fied version of “We March to the Beat of Indifferent Drum,” guitarist/trombonist El Hefe affected a Jamaican accent and hollered, “Jamaica, Jamaaaica.” Fat Mike wasn’t having that, though. He stopped the song and told El Hefe to do the intro again, because they were recording a live album that night and he didn’t want that on the record. When someone in the crowd apparently took issue with Fat Mike stopping a song that had already been started, he told that person, “We can do whatever we want.”
In fact, that’s exactly what NOFX has always done. Stopping songs that you’ve already started is supposed to be a cardinal sin in musical performance. NOFX doesn’t care; that wasn’t the only song they stopped.
While in the crowd, I heard some dude complaining that “they talk too much between songs.” This is, of course, another bit of music industry “wisdom:” Talking too long between songs supposedly loses your audience. This is a bit of wisdom that NOFX flouts mercilessly at every show, though. I don’t know what that dude was talking about: the between-songs banter—mostly between Fat Mike and El Hefe—is just as worth the ticket price as the music. And of course that dude was pogo-ing along with everyone else a few short minutes later.
NOFX may not allow stage-diving, but they engage the crowd more than any other band I’ve ever seen. For instance, at one point, as El Hefe laid into his trombone to start a song, Fat Mike stopped him.
“Stop! Stop! Look at what that girl is doing!”
El Hefe stopped and looked.
“Whoa,” he said, “that’s means your father didn’t give you enough attention when you were a kid.”
I guess they embarrassed the girl, because after the song El Hefe noticed she was gone. By the end of the show, however, she was back, mostly because El Hefe went out of his way to assure her: “We were just having a laugh at your expense.” (He meant it in the best way possible.)
Another girl asked Fat Mike to say “Happy Birthday Amy.” When he figured out the girl making the request was Amy, he led the band into a quick rendition of their song “Happy Birthday, You’re Not Special,” even throwing Amy’s name in and mentioning several times that she’s a crackwhore.
Okay, so I guess that maybe you had to be there. And yeah, Fat Mike and El Hefe really are kind of arrogant dicks at times, but it’s all in good fun. You get the feeling that these are old pals just hanging out, shootin the shit, playing music. It just so happens they hang out on stages with sell-out crowds watching them. Though they can be a bit cocky, the guys of NOFX can’t be accused of taking themselves too seriously. There’s also plenty of self-deprecating humor going on.
When someone handed Fat Mike a joint, he took it and raised it to his lips. Two crew-members and Fat Mike’s wife rushed on stage—for a moment I thought another dangerous, nihilistic crowd member was attempting to—horrors!—STAGE DIVE!!! But no, they were just there to take the joint away, though they looked more like they were mauling Fat Mike. “They let me have alcohol, coke, and ecstasy all tour long,” he immediately quips. “But apparently no marijuana. Good lookin’ out, guys.”
Fat Mike also told a story about a guy who flew in from Minnesota to attend the show the night before, and afterward invited them to go golfing the next morning. But he warned the band not to dress too weird because they were going to a ritzy country club and he didn’t want them to cause a scene. So, because they really wanted to play this course, the boys of NOFX put on their best golf duds and showed up to play. But the guy that had invited them had apparently been partying all night long, and ended up ODing on the second hole.
“His heart actually stopped beating. There were two fire trucks and an ambulance. EMT’s right there on the second hole. We played through though,” Fat Mike assured us. “It was a really nice course.”
Then they launched into “Whoops, I OD’d.”
Which brings me back to the music. NOFX ripped through crowd favorites like “Lineolum” and a cover of Rancid’s “Radio,” as well as several songs from their new album, like “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” (which the band allegedly banned MTV from playing) and “Instant Crassic.” From the raucous, rockin’ punk tunes to their laid-back, reggae version of the Rancid song, NOFX pretty much nailed it all.
The true root of their individuality as a band is the fact that they resist any easy classification as just a “punk” band. What punk guitarist other than El Hefe, for example, would launch into a quiet, pretty version of “No Woman, No Cry” while the second guitarist is having technical problems?
Though a lot of Fat Mike’s lyrics aren’t meant to be taken seriously, some are exceptionally sincere and meaningful. Channeling the same contempt for the mainstream music industry that the Dead Kennedys were notorious for, NOFX played their song “Dinosaurs Will Die,” which lays out their vision for making music: “Music written from devotion not ambition, not for fame/Zero people are exploited there are no tricks up our sleeve/We’re gonna fight against the mass appeal/We’re gonna kill the seven-record deal/Make records that have more than one good song/The dinosaurs are gonna die and I do believe no one will cry.” Indeed, there were no teary eyes in the crowd that night.
Just in case there were any doubts left about where NOFX stands in relation to the establishment, they closed with their song “The Idiot Son of an Asshole,” an ode to the president.
Strike Anywhere
The Departed
01/31/07
Slim’s, San Francisco
When NOFX took the stage they immediately told the sold-out crowd at Slim’s that they were tired and didn’t want to be there. But of course no one took them seriously. The Bay Area-based punks have kinda made their careers out of not being serious, in fact. NOFX shows are always a boisterously good time, and this was just the first bit of the sarcastic banter that makes their shows completely unpredictable and as funny as they are rockin. Hell, the band has as much fun at their shows as anyone else.
That’s because they do things entirely their own way. From their music to their shows — even their record label, Fat Wreck Chords — they’ve never bothered catering to anybody else’s expectations.
Far too many punk bands do seem to cater to some accepted definition of punk. Another local (but lesser-known) group, The Departed, opened the night with a solid set of generic three-chord punk. Their style seemed to play well to the masses, but it lacked anything like originality or volatility. They broke up the monotony at one point by playing a song that was reminiscent of the more layered indie-punk of Sleater-Kinney, but, after that, frontwoman Michelle Lockneck told the crowd they were going to “pick the pace back up.” Apparently, she meant they were going to continue churning out different variations of the same standard punk tune.
Now, if you’re really into punk then I can see how you’d like the Departed. They’ve got great energy on stage (and in the crowd after NOFX’s set, dancing to the house music), and drummer Nikki Stix carries a jaunty but propulsive beat with ease. I’ll be the first to admit that I am unfair about any music that I perceive as generic or pedestrian. What was really unfortunate for them, however, was that a video of a Dead Kennedys show was playing between sets. Jello Biafra’s hyper-manic stage show and the endless stream of stage-divers were a demonstration of the raw energy and power that punk once attained to. And, unfortunately, the Departed just didn’t measure up to that. They kinda got blown off the stage…by a DVD. Or at least would have, if the sound to the DVD had been turned up. Still, even without sound the Dead Kennedys were a lot more intriguing to watch than the Departed.
To be fair, few bands could measure up to the intensity of that Dead Kennedys show. Hell, NOFX didn’t either, in some ways.
Neither did the next supporting act, Strike Anywhere, who are nonetheless aptly named: them boys are damn near combustible on stage. They projected a fierce energy, jumping around and playing a much heavier and dense version of punk than the Departed. But still, they weren’t really offering anything that various other bands, like AFI and Strung Out, don’t already offer, which sort of negates any “outsider” status, a necessary component of punk, IMHO.
Whoever made the choice to play the Dead Kennedys video—whether it was the Slim’s staff or NOFX—made a grave error. Punk was supposed to be all about anti-establishmentarianism and outsider art, and at the time this video was shot, the Dead Kennedys come off as being punk as fuck, if only because they clearly are just doing things their own damn way. Right next to Biafra’s extreme animation, you’ve got Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray in the background meekly playing along. (Which makes me wonder how they ever earned themselves nicknames. Don’t you have to have character to get a nickname? I guess they’re much more interesting off-stage.) But hey, Klaus Fluoride and East Bay Ray were doing their thing, in a band where defying the status quo appears to have been the primary goal. And that’s what matters most.
The most impressive thing about the DK performance, though, was how they extended this anything-goes ethos to include the audience: the band’s complete acceptance of fans coming on stage, chugging their fists, knocking into the musicians, and then leaping back into the crowd was incredible.
The reason I say NOFX didn’t measure up to the intensity of the Dead Kennedys show is this: about halfway through their set, one single guy somehow got onstage, and not only was he not permitted to stage dive, but security guards quickly and roughly escorted him offstage.
That’s pretty damn lame.
But, to my mind, NOFX make up for it in many, many ways. And after all, if that’s not their thing then fine, it’s their show. For me, listening to singer/bassist Fat Mike’s satirical, sarcastic, and frequently hilarious lyrics (which have a lot in common with Jello’s, actually), more than makes up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to get onstage and do a swan dive onto the concrete floor. And NOFX’s stage presence may not be as rowdy as DK’s was in their prime, but NOFX makes up for it with a presence quite possibly unique unto themselves (at least I’m not aware of any other band that could pull it off), as well as an inventive musical style that draws equally from punk, reggae, ska, and hardcore. NOFX is a true champion of the DIY ethic and a torchbearer of the outsider punk tradition.
As they launched into a reggae-fied version of “We March to the Beat of Indifferent Drum,” guitarist/trombonist El Hefe affected a Jamaican accent and hollered, “Jamaica, Jamaaaica.” Fat Mike wasn’t having that, though. He stopped the song and told El Hefe to do the intro again, because they were recording a live album that night and he didn’t want that on the record. When someone in the crowd apparently took issue with Fat Mike stopping a song that had already been started, he told that person, “We can do whatever we want.”
In fact, that’s exactly what NOFX has always done. Stopping songs that you’ve already started is supposed to be a cardinal sin in musical performance. NOFX doesn’t care; that wasn’t the only song they stopped.
While in the crowd, I heard some dude complaining that “they talk too much between songs.” This is, of course, another bit of music industry “wisdom:” Talking too long between songs supposedly loses your audience. This is a bit of wisdom that NOFX flouts mercilessly at every show, though. I don’t know what that dude was talking about: the between-songs banter—mostly between Fat Mike and El Hefe—is just as worth the ticket price as the music. And of course that dude was pogo-ing along with everyone else a few short minutes later.
NOFX may not allow stage-diving, but they engage the crowd more than any other band I’ve ever seen. For instance, at one point, as El Hefe laid into his trombone to start a song, Fat Mike stopped him.
“Stop! Stop! Look at what that girl is doing!”
El Hefe stopped and looked.
“Whoa,” he said, “that’s means your father didn’t give you enough attention when you were a kid.”
I guess they embarrassed the girl, because after the song El Hefe noticed she was gone. By the end of the show, however, she was back, mostly because El Hefe went out of his way to assure her: “We were just having a laugh at your expense.” (He meant it in the best way possible.)
Another girl asked Fat Mike to say “Happy Birthday Amy.” When he figured out the girl making the request was Amy, he led the band into a quick rendition of their song “Happy Birthday, You’re Not Special,” even throwing Amy’s name in and mentioning several times that she’s a crackwhore.
Okay, so I guess that maybe you had to be there. And yeah, Fat Mike and El Hefe really are kind of arrogant dicks at times, but it’s all in good fun. You get the feeling that these are old pals just hanging out, shootin the shit, playing music. It just so happens they hang out on stages with sell-out crowds watching them. Though they can be a bit cocky, the guys of NOFX can’t be accused of taking themselves too seriously. There’s also plenty of self-deprecating humor going on.
When someone handed Fat Mike a joint, he took it and raised it to his lips. Two crew-members and Fat Mike’s wife rushed on stage—for a moment I thought another dangerous, nihilistic crowd member was attempting to—horrors!—STAGE DIVE!!! But no, they were just there to take the joint away, though they looked more like they were mauling Fat Mike. “They let me have alcohol, coke, and ecstasy all tour long,” he immediately quips. “But apparently no marijuana. Good lookin’ out, guys.”
Fat Mike also told a story about a guy who flew in from Minnesota to attend the show the night before, and afterward invited them to go golfing the next morning. But he warned the band not to dress too weird because they were going to a ritzy country club and he didn’t want them to cause a scene. So, because they really wanted to play this course, the boys of NOFX put on their best golf duds and showed up to play. But the guy that had invited them had apparently been partying all night long, and ended up ODing on the second hole.
“His heart actually stopped beating. There were two fire trucks and an ambulance. EMT’s right there on the second hole. We played through though,” Fat Mike assured us. “It was a really nice course.”
Then they launched into “Whoops, I OD’d.”
Which brings me back to the music. NOFX ripped through crowd favorites like “Lineolum” and a cover of Rancid’s “Radio,” as well as several songs from their new album, like “Seeing Double at the Triple Rock” (which the band allegedly banned MTV from playing) and “Instant Crassic.” From the raucous, rockin’ punk tunes to their laid-back, reggae version of the Rancid song, NOFX pretty much nailed it all.
The true root of their individuality as a band is the fact that they resist any easy classification as just a “punk” band. What punk guitarist other than El Hefe, for example, would launch into a quiet, pretty version of “No Woman, No Cry” while the second guitarist is having technical problems?
Though a lot of Fat Mike’s lyrics aren’t meant to be taken seriously, some are exceptionally sincere and meaningful. Channeling the same contempt for the mainstream music industry that the Dead Kennedys were notorious for, NOFX played their song “Dinosaurs Will Die,” which lays out their vision for making music: “Music written from devotion not ambition, not for fame/Zero people are exploited there are no tricks up our sleeve/We’re gonna fight against the mass appeal/We’re gonna kill the seven-record deal/Make records that have more than one good song/The dinosaurs are gonna die and I do believe no one will cry.” Indeed, there were no teary eyes in the crowd that night.
Just in case there were any doubts left about where NOFX stands in relation to the establishment, they closed with their song “The Idiot Son of an Asshole,” an ode to the president.
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