This blog contains music, cats, and things of less importance.
Here’s a nice little write-up from Aidin Vaziri about Matt Jaffe & The Distractions in the SF Chronicle. It’s a local paper so I picked up a paper copy for my wall of course! I love Matt’s songs, and it was really great fun playing guitar with the his band the Distractions, on their latest recordings. See these guys on tour if you get the chance, they’re phenomenal!
Playing the Gilman Street Project as it was then known, is unlike playing any other venue. It’s all-ages and volunteer-run and there’s no booze inside. All of the energy of the audience pours onto the stage and is amplified by the band and launched back in a way you don’t often find in mainstream clubs. There’s a sign that says “NO STAGE DIVING” and that’s pretty funny. We played two sold-out shows in August of 1989. Beserkley Records got ahold of a recording of the 2nd night, mastered it up and released it! You can pickitup at iTunes.
I decided to start fundraising for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, so I created a page at ActBlue.
It’s called, of course, “Eric’s Virtual Bernie Sanders Fundraising Bus!”
You can donate directly to his campaign through my page, or make your own and spread the word even further.
I set an initial goal of 100 people, and 8 of us came up with over $250 in 3 days! Thanks friends!!
I agree with Bernie Sanders’ policy positions. I also favor him because rather than change course with the political winds, Bernie has been singing the same tune for his entire career.
The number of contributors is important. A thousand $3.00 contributions means more, in some ways, than one $3,000 donation. The whole point is that the Bernie campaign runs on people, not corporations. That’s why Bernie is the ONLY presidential candidate in the 2016 race so far with significant and growing momentum.
I’m on the bus. Hope you’ll join me!
Update, Dec. 3 2016:
We tried, we did good. The campaign was stopped by the Dem Party who clearly thought they knew better than the VERY PROCESS AND IDEA OF DEMOCRACY ITSELF, YOU SELF-ABSORBED MYOPIC TWITS!! Ahem. My little ActBlue page there with the Bernie Bus raised over $3,300 for the Sanders campaign (THANKS, FRIENDS!!) and we would have almost certainly won the general election. Now we’re doomed. Thank you DNC, thank you 3rd party “protest” voters, thank you apathetic lazy stay-homers and, apologies to polar bears and all life on earth. Whoopsiedaisy
The UPTONES recorded “Skankin’ Foolz Unite!” live-in-the-studio with Matthew King Kaufman and Michael Rosen producing, at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley in 2008. We went in with the intention of capturing our live performance energy and not messing around with a lot of overdubs or studio trickery. It turned out to be one of the most exciting and fun recording sessions I’ve ever been involved with. We played some songs from our early years like “Radiation Boy” and “Get Out Of My Way” and some new ones like the title track “Skanking Fool,” and “Bad Men Of Bodie.” Covering The HEPTONES’ “Book Of Rules” was an out-of-body moment, and it just felt great to make a record in the old-school method which I always thought would be best for the band, but somehow we never previously completely achieved. You can hear some songs from it or order a CD direct from us at uptones.com, or pickitup pickitup at iTunes for instant ska satisfaction.
Very happy to receive a copy of this whopping 3-LP vinyl set and double CD in the mail yesterday from Elvis at Smelvis Records. “The 11th Hour” – a song I wrote with Tim for the “…And Out Come The Wolves” LP, is track 2 on “Hooligans United,” as covered by THE INTERRUPTERS. They did a cool version, faithful to the original but with a very ska twist. The record is a fun listen – it’s great to hear all these different bands interpret their favorite RANCID songs. EL GRAN SILENCIOS’s “Time Bomb” cover en español is epic, and INSPECTOR’s “Ruby Soho,” also en español, is dub ska disco beauty. Available from Smelvis Records!
The headline says it all:
At the Uptones’ Skanking Fools Dance Contest, Ska Reigns Supreme
When the Uptones finally appear after 11 p.m., the energy in the room seems to peak. “Y’all ready to skank? ‘Cause that’s what we’re here for,” announces guitarist Musashi “Moose” Lethridge. …Again the dance floor is abuzz with energetic young skankers, a flurry of flailing limbs and bobbing bodies.”
Read the whole story at East Bay Express.
Thanks Nate, and thanks everyone who skanked it up at our shows.
One of my favorite gigs with The Fashion Slaves was at de Young Museum, as part of the finale for their Jean Paul Gaultier exhibition in 2012. Aidin Vaziri interviewed our lead singer Emily Jayne and wrote a preview for the event, which ran in the San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate:
The Fashion Slaves at de Young Museum after-party
Thanks Aidin, and thanks de Young for including us in this unique and fabulous occasion!
Saw this.
Absolutely brilliant. I can’t recommend it highly enough. There’s also a movie of it in the works, so you’ll get a chance later. He’s taking it on tour too. Very proud of my fellow Berkeleyan, Aaron Davidman.
Aaron does all these characters, channeling people he met in the Middle East and on both coasts of the US and elsewhere in his travels. They argue with each other, in between powerful monologues, wrestling strongly held ideas. But it’s all performed by one actor, who is on stage for ninety minutes, changing roles seamlessly, and sometimes very quickly. He even cops their accents, he assumes their impassioned voices. And the way it’s written, they are talking to him. He performs them, saying, “Aaron, you must understand that.. etc.. “ They tell him their arguments, share their stories with him. Only, it’s him acting, and then giving his own reactions, as himself.
He must have put in so many hours to rehearse that! It’s musical. He sings and dances in character too, as these folks he met in Hebron and Jerusalem and elsewhere did. A tour de force. And it carries a profound message of peace, love and compassion.
Will be interesting (or horrible) to see what zealots on any “side” of these issues might complain about, once they get word of it. But a person would have to be pretty thick not to be moved by this. I hope it’s seen far and wide. I think it will do some good. Actually, it already has.
Here’s a preview:
WRESTLING JERUSALEM – Stage Trailer from Aaron Davidman on Vimeo.
Gutenberg would be posting kittehs, you know he would. Einstein would be liking Oppenheimer’s existential freakouts and Lewis Carroll would wonder why Freud never friended him. James Brown would tweet “I feel good!” and Ian Curtis would ask “why?” John Cage would post three minutes of silence and Miles Davis would play some stuff with his back to all this and never explain his process.
Right, I had heard the kerfuffle, people were annoyed that U2’s new album came free with new iPhones. Some of the reactions seemed a little extreme to me, I mean, OK someone gave you an album, you can delete it, big deal. Maybe it’s even good. I was curious and I was going to get around to listening to it. I really like some of U2’s records. I finally went and got an iPhone two months ago. I like the thing, I’m getting used to it, I love having iTunes in a unit with my phone and email and blah blah, welcome to iSociety, I’m digging it, but THEN!
I’m driving on the freeway, listening to MY playlist, with music I selected, you know, songs I CHOSE to listen to, and this tune comes on I don’t recognize. WTF is this, I’m thinking. I can’t skip over it, or even look at the iPhone screen, because I’m driving, but then I hear Bono’s voice and immediately realize what has happened. The free download invaded my device. It didn’t wait for me to choose to download it. It crashed my party. It hijacked my iTunes playlist. And I was seriously enraged, just so much more angry than I would have expected. Yelling expletives at U2, I turned off my car stereo, the only thing I could safely do in that moment. I was just NOT going to listen to something that one of the biggest bands in the world forced me to. It turned me off to U2 instantly and properly.
Now here’s the thing. U2 doesn’t need me to like them. They don’t really need to care what any of us think of this. Apple Inc. gave them 100 million dollars to exclusively distribute that record for a period. Of course U2 took the money. Because even if you already have more money than God, as U2 has had for a long time now, you still accept a check for let me say it again: 100. Million. Dollars. I don’t resent them their success and I don’t blame them for taking the dough. But they lost me. I just have no interest in a band that would take my personal music set, that I am deejaying, for myself, and put their record on in an ambush. I don’t even care if it’s any good or not. It could be Sgt. Pepper for all I care.
When this happened, it really surprised me how much it offended me. But on reflection it makes sense. Our music collections are very, very personal. We each have unique, subjective, significant meanings attached to the records we love and the playlists we assemble. Bono, I can forgive his relentlessly self-aggrandizing Jesus cozying up to war criminals to Save The Children schtick, I want to think his heart’s in the right place. Edge, he wants to build a vast compound castle fortress whatever where he’s not supposed to because he can afford to buy the moon and Mars twice, fine, OK, he likes shiny things. Do not jump into my music collection like you are welcome and wanted there automatically for some reason. How fantastically arrogant. No.
I downloaded the delete U2 app. And ran it. I am sure the 100 million dollars more than makes up for pissing off a fan who bought WAR on its 1st pressing, and tickets to see them live several times in the 80’s and 90’s, and listened to Joshua Tree hundreds of time, joyfully and willingly, because I wanted to, and chose to.
This was an amazingly tone-deaf move on Apple and U2’s part, in my perplexingly strong opinion. But I gotta call it as I felt it. My music playlist. Mine.
