What have we been up to?
Lordie, it's been a long time. Six fuckin months Jesus Mary and Joseph, that's an inconsistent truth.
I have just read the last blog entry entitled "After the Fair" which would be just as aptly entitled "After the Faire" pronounced Fairy. Tired and manic was I, but I love me just the way I are.
My idea of what would come next for the girls, i.e., the Contractions, was, then, last year !!!!! we would smoothly segue into recording a deep and profound studio album of new songs. I began with a magnum opus of ten minutes in length, using some shareware called Audacity and a cassette deck. Now for you young people, that's analog, and a royal pain the ass. Call it RPA. I was also using a RPA steam-powered G3 with a 3 inch monitor and the results were arcane, lifeforce-consuming, though useful as a sketchpad. But so is the back of a torn junk-mail envelope.
The good news is I am writing this on my new car, a 2007 iBook. The only thing that could be better than that would be a solar panel mortarboard on my head, but that wouldn't work because of my delicate complexion, so it would have to be biodiesel, a french fry odor would surround me, and I would feel good about my part in reducing global warming. By the time we all buy our carbon credits, there's going to be one rich motha fuckah somewhere in the Tenth World... But, I digress.
Recommended reading:
The Stern Report Executive Summary (full)
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
We were waiting on South by Southwest, and at the last cut, we made the wait list which is fine for transients and college dropouts, oh and the independently wealthy, but we had to pass. I am such a tour dog, I love touring, but that was not to be.
So, we began to develep new material by jamming at practice, playing new ideas, fairly floaty for me, but I went with it. Then somewhere in there, Dirk Dirksen died. We played at his wake. There's a big Dirkfest at Great America no correct that Great American Music Hall.
Oh man where did the time go? We did a party as The Senior Moments. (The Senior Moments are available for parties, the three members of the Contractions doing covers, Mary Kelley as an eightysomething acid casualty. Not to be missed. Worth every penny. Birthdays our specialty.)
We dropped in at Skip's, that blues bar on Cortland. Sundays, and Wednesdays, good pool players...
Intraband hubbub and furor over this and that, but that has never changed.
MOST IMPORTANT: CONTRACTIONS ARE SEEKING MANAGEMENT AND BOOKING.
Whatever transpired between now and then, we have a fairly fat set of new songs/unheard songs, and I feel that the Contractions are a theater experience of music, so get your booties down to the Hemlock Tavern for our next show, part of the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival and try to get a ticket to GAMH though I believe it is soldout.
I was kinda sorta homeless, kinda, bumpin' around, not writing. Then in March, got a good place, and my new car (see above...dear readers, my web mistress won't make this a link, so cast your short term memories back to the top regarding my new car, which is a vehicle, no doubt.)
Which brings us to my pitch for management:
What We, the undersigned, haw haw, want:
A bright youth, gazing languidly to the future, keenly aware of great art, music and theater, KNOWS THE SCENE, local, national, global, galactic, geometric, fuzzy, nano, and string, as well as the Internet (this is the 21st century version of "must have typing skills") who can help with bookings, publicity, our independent label stuff, our performances, merchandise, email, contacts, production details, some "running", i.e., go gets, go gives, schmoozing, GETTING TO KNOW THE SCENE EVEN MORE, brainstorming, research, soundchecks, hoo-hah at gigs, collecting money, some Quickbooks, interface with three musicians, and some others who are in the wings, doing telephone, scheduling, and quite a bit of fun and self-interest, KNOWING THE SCENE. We are getting this enterprise running more smoothly and successfully, which includes income as operating capital, as well as pay. Sob, you get paid more than me.
All these many tasks may seem a lot, but we are taking care of business, and would be clear and fair on the specifics of this job, as to its extent and limit, and remuneration. Besides, it really is quite entertaining, trust me.
So, as they said in Bali H'ai: "Come to me, come to me..." or I should say "Come to us, come to us..."