dog blog #1: the first few dog days

hello folks. i'm typing to you from the frozen tundra also known as buffalo.
we've hammered through 5 dr. dog sets so far, each one with it's own distinct personality.

revolution hall was my first "real" show, so it's kind of a blur. i remember feeling kind of sick because I inhaled a black-bean barley burger beforehand (alliteration alert). my pre-show coffee wasn't strong enough so I cautiously drank a red bull - my first in about a year or so. it was a good show, but my anxiety was somewhat overwhelming at times. it must've been the taurine shock.

burlington, vermont provided us with frigid air, the return of liggy, backstage catering (served by the lovely jasmine), and the inaugural growlers g-wash. i'll never forget this night! i've always wanted to play the higher ground ballroom. on my first tour with project/object, we played the smaller room the same night as the wildly popular disco biscuits. i never thought i'd play there, but i suppose dreams can become realities if you just speak them into existence.

ANYWAY. general consensus: great crowd + solid set = super-chouette.

lupo's heartbreak hotel has a massive stage. it's about as deep as it is wide. the ceiling is also way higher than you'd expect. you can experience vertigo by looking down from the 3rd floor dressing room! later we ate dinner at Fatty McGee's. fried veggie-mush burger with steak fries. excellent crowd. there were some technical difficulties here and there, but we made up for it with good old fashioned charisma.

syracuse was a rough one for me. i felt like tony danza from "angels in the outfield". my arms were not functioning properly. great crowd though. big thumbs up to strong hearts - the all-vegetarian cafe down the street from our fancy hotel.

OF NOTE: our merch master forrest introduced us to the veracruz breakfast burritos. half of us went vegetarian, the other half ate chorizo. a smelly day. let's just say that the air was awfully "thick" in the van. mexican food seems to be the theme of this tour. we have 500 taco bell dollars. unlimited crunchwrap supremes. enough said.

last night's show at the mohawk place was certainly a turning point for the band. the sweltering heat of the onstage lights helped propel the evening to punk rock heights. great hanging out with the fans afterwards, even though i soaked through my new shirt.

we're moving at a frenetic pace. off to pontiac, michigan.

dr. dog: beginning of the tour

more later!

2010 is the year of the tiger

well, this'll be the year that we won't forget
2009, ano domini
anything goes
be what you want to be
long as you know consequences are given for living

i feel like i'm going through another transitional phase. 2009 was an exhausting year, probably more so than 2008 (although technically i was in transit for many more days in aught-eight). the first half of 2009 is completely lost in my memory. the details are gone, which makes me sad because there were some excellent moments. it's not that i intentionally erased it, it's just gone.

a period of time that is floating in space somewhere.

the second half of my year was dominated by 4 months of worldwide touring, which led to a 3 week long sickness. in fact, i got so sick that i had to cancel a legendary northeastern run with project/object.

in those 3 weeks, i had some personal breakthroughs. i've been working on music everyday, completing songs that were once considered worthless. it's therapeutic. i have a lot to look forward to in 2010. two new projects have been absorbing most of my free time: paper cat and lithuania. paper cat is an instrumental post-rock group with julie slick and robbie mangano (papercat.bandcamp.com). lithuania is my avant-pop song project with dominic angelella. i'm also excited for some of my solo compositions that have been blossoming out of the dust - especially because a piano is being delivered to my house this week. i didn't purchase it. it's an upright baldwin that belongs to my roommate tony. i can finally practice the "mikrokosmos" on something besides a MIDI keyboard. 2010 is going to be great, i can smell it.

IMPORTANT NOTE: if you can, please help andre cholmondeley's partner cheri jiosne. some of you may know andre from project/object, or his tech work with adrian belew and al dimeola. he is one of my best friends.

cheri is also an incredible human being - intelligent, humorous, gifted with an unparalleled warmth. she is currently fighting breast cancer. as you may know, the united states healthcare system is in complete shambles right now. cheri's medical bills are ghastly, and she needs all the help she can get.

you can donate thru paypal.com and make payments to projectobject (at) earthlink.net
You can send a check or money order written to CHERYL JIOSNE to:

Cheri Jiosne Cancer Fund
PO BOX 16672
Asheville NC
28801

that's all for now. i'll post some pictures from this year in a few hours. i love you!

grand canyon

inspiration

data is not knowledge

no rest for the weary.

let's rewind back to june. i was complaining that i didn't have enough work, and now i can't stop working. i've essentially been on tour since july, with very few breaks in between. i guess we're all hypocrites, right?

i don't have much to talk about at the moment. we go through phases, don't we? we constantly absorb all kinds of data, which then gets transferred into information, and then that becomes knowledge. if you're lucky, it turns into wisdom. i had a fascinating conversation about this with juilliard composition professor philip lasser. he believes that the iphone, or the internet in general, has ruined that critical process. the terrifying ubiquitousness of a website like wikipedia allows us to import all kinds of data into our digitally wired brains, and most of time it slips into some synaptic cleft without advancing to the "information" stage. as an ambassador of the A.D.D. generation, i agree with this sentiment in some ways. when i want to "learn" about something, i type the search words into google. i peruse the first 3 websites, and then i feel sort of satisfied. the problem is that i can't back it up with any empirical wisdom - it just gets lost in the constant influx of data. my memory is intrinsically selective, and although i'd love to retain information about the minutiae of russian futurism or even the different genera of tree finches, i simply can't do it.

hmmph. unless i read a book on the subject. that's where the argument takes an interesting turn. is it the medium or how we digest it? perhaps other people take away true knowledge from wikipedia summaries, but i find myself getting distracted too easily. i aimlessly click on links within links. for example, i may start with a search on the personal life of james joyce and end up guffawing at the synopsis of pee-wee herman's troubled career!

this is why i've been leaning more towards books this year. they stick to the ribs. here's last month's reading list for all you nerds out there:

magritte by bernard noel
the way of liberation by alan watts
straight man by richard russo

right now i'm reading 20th century harmony by vincent persichetti. oh boy!

and here's my list of listening:

tyondai braxton - central market
bela bartok - string quartet no. 4 in c major
micachu and the shapes - jewellery
skeletons - money
kurt weisman - spiritual sci-fi

that's all for now. if anything crazy happens on this tour, i'll write about it.

zappanale = utopia

a painful 10AM wake-up.

much like the "red alert" signal on a punctured submarine, my iPhone alarm is loud enough to wake up the entire crew of the U-96 (even after its demise). i wipe the crust from my unabrow and head to the lobby. grab a cup of strong coffee from my cafe dance partner. she seems wistful, but i'm sure doing the robot will get her out of it.

10 of us scurry into an 8 passenger van. one of us has not showered for days, which makes the drive comparable to being put into a 4 hour headlock by a homeless prizefighter. no worries though, we're on the way to one of my favorite places in the whole world. a quaint village called bad doberan. it's 15 kilometers west of rostock, and it's the home of zappanale, a week long festival dedicated to the genius of frank zappa: composer, filmmaker, guitarist, politician, iconoclast.


i wish i could describe the festival in full detail, but it's difficult for me. it's as close as i've come to some form of heaven. an endless supply of vegan food, a bizarre collection of avant-garde LP's. loud dissonance and difficult rhythms. art. weird girls. hangmatten. clean air. a lifetime of memories.

this year marked my 5th visit to the mecca of zappa. it gets better every year. there were two stages this time around! i still say it's the most organized festival in the world. you can quote me on that. i rubbed elbows with some of the all time greats, such as david aellen (of gong fame) and kawabata makoto (of the mind-melting acid mothers temple). eating a continental breakfast with roy estrada was hilarious. i will never forget it!

i also became best friends with the fine people of discorporate records. discorporate is one of the leading avant-garde labels in europe. coincidentally, they signed my close friends capillary action, a group led by oberlin grad jon pfeffer. jon and i played in a band together when we were 10 years old. it was called...well, the name was crude, perhaps even downright offensive. nevermind.


zappanale ended with a smashing late night performance on the second stage. johannes (drummer of schnaak and co-founder of discorporate) led the most inspired zappa/doors tribute group i've ever seen. their regular set closed with a rowdy cover of "L.A. Woman". for the encore, they played "girls just wanna have fun" - in the nude.

and that concludes my recap of the project/object european tour.