Questions? Comments? jake@tapemountain.com

Whenever Hale Zukas comes to town there's bound to be trouble. And was there trouble? YES!

HZ played on Thursday at Nocturnal, kind of a weird show, some half-assed noise combo, a grindcore band with strobe-lights and zebra-print spandex, the immensely energetic punk of Wives, and then whoa, Hale Zukas. As always, the showmanship of Rob, the wobbling-pillar-of-sound effect of John, and the frenetic amazing drumming of Mark = pure vigorous bliss. People were dancing! In Portland! It was so unbelievably hot.

Then last night (Friday) they played again, at Dunes. But before that there was an amazing amazing night of Portland all-stars (at least in our own minds) at the Red & Black. Steve took pictures. It was great to see S. Broox solo again: his songs are so sumptuous when he sings them alone in a low voice! Ross Beach's political songs seemed appropriate in the Red & Black and his voice projects like nothing else; it was a resonant experience. Then Celesteville played, acoustic guitar and accordion: droney songs, Malmo songs, and I even broke out the strap-on keyboard. Everything went right! I didn't forget any lyrics, miss any chords (well, not too badly), and the climactic cover of Minmae's "The Future of Lint" surprised even me; I didn't expect it to turn out that well (or that passionate!) But then things always happen at a Celesteville show. The Tuftees ended the night with more melodica and more Casey than I've ever heard, and their songs are getting even more pleasing, and such love! What fun, we were almost spent but then we went to Dunes anyway. Hale Zukas had not played! But Djin Teeth (Fangs) were playing and I was impressed: hot bass clarinet/accordion/violin/musical saw/drums zeal and clangor, played with a sloppy enthusiasm that made it inappropriate for the usual gypsy-violin-music NPR crowd, this stuff had a real and toothsome appeal. Plus everyone at the show was kind of out of their minds, all the more perfect for the Hale Zukas Reckless Show of Amazing Doom. Which it was: HZ in a small space, drunk goth girls doing the spider dance, the crowd pulsating like John's bassar lines, Mark finally not being sick, like a go-kart on some sort of angelic methamphetamine, buzzy and frantic and surprisingly in control for being so seemingly out of control.

Hale Zukas came to town and there was trouble, and oh what sweet trouble it was, as always!

Yesterday, two servings of "cheap crap that no-one else wants that I nevertheless could not resist":

(1) The overwhelming blandness of "It's Pasta Anytime!", one of those Grocery Outlet purchases that somehow make it into my cart under the rationalization "well, sometime I'll be going off to work, or Joanie will be late for work but still want to pack a lunch etc. etc.". I remember when this product came out (and check out the "grain-based meal solutions" copy in the press release): I thought "my god, how hard is it to boil pasta?" The answer is "not very" and so I thought "this product is for total nincompoops." But here I am, grabbing it off the shelves at an attractive 89-cent price point. Well, anyway, this product is, indeed, for total nincompoops. Bland, bland, bland: dairy-flavored white sauce atop white bland noodles; even massive amounts of fresh-ground pepper cannot save it. But get this: At the bottom of the "Smart Cooker" tray, the folks at Borden had the audacity to put "Freshly Cooked Meal", with a little ribbon insignia. Wow! This almost one-ups the Bush administration in the "complete bullshit presented with straight face as gospel truth" category! Anyway, this is exactly what you'd expect from a "grain-based meal solution;" my sympathies go out to grain for being dragged into this one.

(2) But we here at Tape Mtn. love to end on a positive note: Yesterday I went up to the University of Portland to tutor someone, saw the usual assortment of raingear and camouflage (U of P has a distressingly large ROTC population). I saw a bunch of people clustered in front of some US Postal Service mail trays, and I thought: oh wow, the U of P radio station (which I did not know existed) is having a promo-CD sell-off! Well, it turns out that they were giving them away, and I plunged straight in, buttcrack-exposing-record-collector style, and I think I'm glad I did because: (a) University of Portland students tend to have some fairly relatively mainstream musical tastes, which means that the good stuff was completely unpicked-over, and (b) some of the good stuff included the Pastels' Truckload of Trouble, whose "Thank You for Being You" and other pop hits I can't get enough of; the Derailers' Reverb Deluxe, whose slavish devotion to the Buck Owens and his Buckaroos sound is to be commended; and about 30 others, all worthy. Wow! It was like going to MobyDisc* in the late-90's with Ned, but free! I went over to the Tulip Bakery and had a doughnut in the rain: now there's a "grain-based meal solution" I can agree with.

* Note: has MobyDisc been bought out by Django's? Weird! So strange to see a Portland institution buying out a California institution!

Saved! By the assiduous room-cleaning of Ms. Joanie L! I had lost my Palm Pilot--couldn't find it in the mess of my car, the mess of my room--both of these ordered messes--so I was just reduced to writing on my hand, entering things into "Palm Desktop" on my PC. I felt like I had lost half of my brain, the half that remembers appointments and phone numbers. But then what sweet relief it was to be in the basement with Joanie, after midnight: she lifts up my old non-functioning Game Boy and beneath it: it is Palmy! (note excessive usage of the diminutive suffix: a tip of the hat to Sarah Wilmer). Palmy and I are reunited and I will never be parted from my little digital memory bank ever again, or at least I hope not.

I've picked up the old nylon-string guitar lately and I think I might have been barking up the wrong string for a while with the excessive-effects-and-five-electric guitars thing: there's a lot you can do with just a nylon-string and excessive use of drones. Very satisfying.

I can't believe she found my Palm Pilot! Now to contact the people with whom I missed appointments...

Oh my lord, what writer's block I experienced trying to put together the Gang Wizard biography for our upcoming LP and tour! I think I went into fits thinking about the smarmy, trite "one-sheet" style of writing--I read so, so many one-sheets as a college-radio music director! But after several extremely awkward attempts at it, I finally came up with something I kind of like. So that's good. I went to the "Portland Coffeehouse" next door this afternoon to write it, and holed myself up in a corner with a cup of their pretty decent (and Mercy Corps-connected coffee, TRS-80 Model 100 in hand. All the while, there was this pretentious kid yammering on about "fractals" and "shamanism" and so forth in a very loud voice, clearly trying to impress the woman across from him. Ultimately it was both entertaining and annoying; it reminds me both of what I love and what I hate about this town...

But if we want to talk about what I love about this town (and we do), we need to head back to Friday evening at the Produce Row Cafe: the Sauvie Island Moon Rocket Factory played an amazing, energetic, dizzying set of their bouncy pop songs, interspersed with Dave's strange political comments. Joanie and Charlotte and I sat in the cozy little smoke-free room, drinking beer from their vast selection of inexpensive bottled microbrews, and the four-piece Moon Rocket Factory fired on every cylinder. Wonderful.

At bowling on Monday night, Rachel had noted that I looked "dadlike" in my Pokemon sweater; I had thought, wow, that's interesting, I thought I just looked like a dork! Perhaps both were true. But anyway, I decided to test my theory at the Produce Row. Rachel, I said, does Sauvie Island drummer Nathan look like a dad in that cardigan? (Because he is!) No, she said, he looks more like a hipster, and anyway I know where you are going with this line of questioning, she said, since I know he is a father. Rats! I thought. And furthermore, she said, you look very dadlike in your current stripey blue sweater. Joanie and Charlotte and I scratched our heads, but hey, perhaps she has a point. Weird to think about it, though. Certainly it is better to look "dad-like" than it is to look like Warren Christopher, as per a very drunk Gene Park at the Olde Club in '92 or so...

Today the Joanie/Jake/Charlotte triumvirate went to an estate sale at 18th and Washington, in the spooky green-bamboo house that I used to live across from. I knew that place was full of weird spooky things but I was unprepared for how much musty-mildewy stuff lurked within: every single room was full of weird crap that smelled bad and happened to be overpriced. What a weirdo! Charlotte noted that "the ghost of Christmas Future was in that house for you, Jake," and I kind of recognized that myself--it's only a difference of quantity and time between said packrat and myself. I need to get rid of some stuff and pronto, before it is too late!

Final thing: Look at the pictures page on the Minor Thirds site for a fantastic picture of me in front of a motorcycle, plus many sexy pictures of the rest of the Minor Thirds. Ooh la la!

Tonight I am going to be a ghost. Only the sheet is black and fitted and there are no eyeholes. So I guess I will be a black blind ghost. I've never liked Halloween, but it is nice that I can go around in public with a sheet over my head.

This morning Joanie and I drove up to the Portland Expo Center to go to Catlin Gabel's annual rummage sale. But when we got there, we found out, to our amazement, that parking was $7. Seven bucks! I wouldn't pay seven bucks to go to the rummage sales I've seen in my dreams, where, depending on the vintage of the dream, I would see either some unbelievably rare and/or non-existent Atari game, or an effects pedal with a trillion knobs, or some sort of incredibly odd ethnic stringed instrument. Well, maybe I'd shell out the seven bucks to go to those sales, but I'd have to make sure that I was wearing my pajamas before I paid up, and then I'd figure out: damn, my wallet is in my pants! Anyway, we took the seven bucks and went and got amazing donuts at the Tulip Bakery, which is always closed whenever we're in St. John's. We sat down, ate what are without a doubt the best donuts in Portland, and relaxed, and thought: this was a good idea.

Plenty of Tape Mountain orders have gone out recently; if yours is still pending, have patience: we are catching up and it will go out soon. Of course you are always welcome to bother me via email if things are too late.

The Minor Thirds practiced the other night and I realized just how out of shape I am in the finger-callus department: I played the upright bass for like 45 minutes and all of a sudden these two big bouncy blisters were blooming on the fingertips of my right hand! I need to discipline myself to practice more frequently. In the meantime, I am typing this with these weird bouncy pads beneath my index and middle fingers--a very weird sensation.

The Tape Mountain is once again swimming in orders thanks to the weird Internet: many many Ned Raggett orders, many people trying to figure out: what is this Ned Raggett, what does he sound like in person instead of through ASCII? I admit that I would be fascinated as well if I swam in the same electronic pool as Ned. Thoughts for the next Ned Raggett CD:

• Ned Raggett: Pi
• Ned Raggett Reads Raunchy Young Lepers Song Lyrics
• Jacob Anderson Pretends to Be Ned Raggett Reading The Almanac

I'm very fond of Billis luv(sic)'s new bird cartoon:

More are available on this page. Actually, if you aren't visiting this page every Monday you're missing out on Steve's fantastic and bizarre series on psychic mastery as well.

Is Pokemon fever real? Some would say that Pokemon is totally dead and Yu-Gi-Oh is what's for real (if we are to believe the words of third-grade-teacher Jason Goat-Boy Aspy) but some of us, who are forever condemned to repeat the past, a couple generations later than the early adopters, children, and rich glamorous types, are just now getting into Pokemon: Special Pikachu Edition for the Game Boy. Very silly, I know. Speaking of the Goat-Boy: Now just about finished is the amazing triple 3" CD-R by Wankatorium: total wank-instrumental, like some crappy Greg Ginn side project but good, available soon on your favorite promoter of self-interest, Tape Mountain! Watch out, it will be a monster of self-indulgent and untamed wank that is still somehow listenable.

Okay, I've got a CD burner coming in the mail, hold your horses on orders: they will be filled soon.

Once again I have caught some bug that is going around (it's probably my job, which involves contact with a lot of young people) and it made for some fun teaching experiences this weekend. On Sunday my voice was cracking whenever I tried to raise it above a low, conversational tone, and cracking voices are, of course, hilarious to high-school juniors, which made teaching the high-school juniors in my PSAT workshop a less-than-ideal situation.

Then last night I taught my SAT class (with my hair in a bizarre Phil Oakey/John Cale/skaterat home-job courtesy of the courageous Joanie L, first-time haircutter), and my students were kind of out of control (one of them was stabbing his copy of 10 Real SAT's repeatedly with a pen, really not an inappropriate response but kind of distracting) and I couldn't raise my voice without sounding like death: it was all "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream". Fortunately, like all weird dreams, this one ended. Joanie transformed my haircut into something shorter and less bizarre, and we walked off to the bowling alley, and although I could barely speak, I could express myself through bowling, five straight spares and then four straight strikes, 205 total: that is eloquent and clear-voiced enough for me.

The funniest search string I've ever seen on my web-statistics page: "tweety bird gender". I love the fact that someone took the time to search for that!

Joanie and I were talking last night about Neil Patrick Harris (of Doogie Howser, M.D.) and I postulated that there would be multiple Doogie Howser "fansites". But there really are no true fansites devoted solely to this show! Then we got off on this very silly tangent about Soleil Moon-Frye and the question was asked as to whether Mr. Harris and Ms. Moon-Frye ever experienced sparks of attraction toward one another, whether they even inhabited the same time period, and you know, "Punky Brewster" sits in that weird corner of memory--I don't really want to devote any groups of neurons to remembering this show because I do not care about it, but if I'm going to waste brainpower on this damn show I at least want to remember when it aired. Bah! And does the Internet care? No, the Internet does not cry about the failings of one aging person who should be doing better things with his mind, the Internet only taunts with the Semi-Official Small Wonder Home Page and its shocking completeness. But for the record, Punky Brewster: The Web Page holds the answer to the question I asked (though not the one about Mr. Harris and Ms. Moon-Frye), but opens up many other questions.

Malmo is new and it is waiting! Order now!

Wednesday morning Joanie and I were lingering over coffee and looking for some donut shop in the Yellow Pages--but it was not to be found. So instead we decided to look through the "dentists" section and see who had the funniest name. The winner was "Brock Van Gordon", which is pretty hilarious, although there was someone with the last name "Bangsberg," and we tried to imagine some junior high kid taking his bracey face to Dr. Bangsberg, huh-huhing like crazy, and that was pretty funny too.

Then later that day between tutees I went to that most ridiculous of electronics superstores (hint: it rhymes with "circumcise"--well, sort of anyway), drove down to Wilsonville with this Faust tape I got at a garage sale blaring through the Metro's little speakers, looked at a CD-MP3 player and a decent-sized hard-drive, and decided I couldn't afford either of them. Sometimes it is sad to be poor! But then I realized that I'd just had a swell time on the way down with my tape of Faust and that was fine, and I can always just clear off some of the crap from my hard-drive. Oh well. I turned up the Faust as I was pulling out of the parking lot--overweight employees were smoking and eating McDonald's in their cars--shrill skronky saxophones blared as the domestic subcompact made its way back to Portland, wiser and not much poorer.

So if you are out of the loop, I am more-or-less out of Bronwyn, at least for the time being--Julia is now taking over the bass/guitar role in said band, which is fine--I couldn't afford to go on the lengthy October tour and I wanted to spend more time on Celesteville, play real Celesteville shows, etc. Bronwyn is, however, playing with the Mountain Goats (!) tonight at Berbati's Pan and I'm definitely going--I mean, my god, the Mountain Goats and Bronwyn on the same stage: there are some dreams coming true tonight.

This is the weekend where we were not homebodies for once, oh no: we went out and actually did stuff. And it was fun! The Clientele played (along with Destroyer) at Dante's on Friday, and even though tickets were like ten bucks plus service charge, I'm a complete sucker for that Clientele sound, and Destroyer has meant a lot to me at points as well (especially the great album Thief). Well, Destroyer was kind of boring--the songs seemed good but man, the backing band just ruined it for me--the drummer hit the drums way too hard and was incompetent to boot--I'll take understated incompetence any day over loudass incompetence!--and the bassist played boring root notes and the guitarist soloed a lot: I wish I would have liked them more. But whatever, then the Clientele came on and I was instantly transfixed. On record they create this kind of rainy haze, but in concert one becomes aware of just how good they are at what they do. Alasdair MacLean is a hell of a guitarist, which I wouldn't have expected--some genuine passion in his (fingerstyle!) guitar playing, a great sound and the songs were great and the rhythm section was distinctive and restrained. It was swoony. A couple was making out right in front of Mr. MacLean and, although I've railed against make-out sessions at concerts before (see February 12, 2001 Crown of Trinkets), this time it was annoying but kind of appropriate: if anything, the velvety-blanket textures of the Clientele are suited for making out. So I guess it was appropriate that my arc of Clientele appreciation has arced thus:

• Hear their music in desperate but hopeful and lonely end of 2000 on mp3:
• Wait several months (almost a year?) to buy CD at Ozone Records going-out-of-business sale
• Listen to album over and over and over again in desperate, unhappy times at terrible office job
• Buy second album right as it comes out (used though)
• Watch show with sweet girlfriend, happy and underemployed
• Walk home across bridge, realize just how meaningful this band is, feel great pleasure at the feeling of actual passion about music

New development in the working world: I've started working for the Pr-nc-t-n R-v--w Onl-ne and it's pretty great: I sit and goof off in my room for hours, wait for a few IM chats to come in, and get paid for it. Wow! The weird shift (and, of course, the only regular one) is Saturday night/Sunday morning from 3 to 9 am--I dragged the featherbed and sleeping bag into my rock and geekery den, waited for the chat-alert sound to ring--but it didn't. The only ringing sound was in my dream about getting a chat--this kid was asking about the LSAT but not You Zing eh Knee Ack Chewl Werds--yeah, it was weird but it was nice to wake up and realize that the only ringing sounds I was hearing were from homeless folks around the corner looking for empty bottles in the trash.

Ned Raggett Reads the Almanac and Celesteville's Malmo will be out very soon--watch the catalog page for details!

I'm sitting in my room at 6:30 pm and the sun is reflecting off the whale (upright bass) and casting this really weird brownish-pinkish glow on the back wall, behind me. Very freaky: one does not ordinarily think of wood-colored things as being reflective, but the bass is, and it's what, thirty-five, forty years old? Sweet! I hope to be that reflective myself in five to ten years!

So the recent poop is that I turned thirty. This outstanding milestone was reached with the aid of a fan-freaking-tastic party here at the Belmont house last Sunday, in which, get this, luv(sic), who are (a) from Seattle and (b) have never played a live show in front of an audience before, threw all their equipment into a Honda Civic hatchback (an amazing feat) and came down and played a show in my living room! Oh man it was sweet: they were the picture of wistful composure on "stage", all of them settled thoroughly into their spots, and they played really well and remembered the lyrics and Anne even sang with a Garth Brooks-ish headset mike! What a talented bunch they are. The Minor Thirds played a rollicking set (Chris lost his voice), I played a rollicking acoustic set that wasn't totally satisfactory but was still pretty fun, lots of folks brought food and/or beer and/or fresh hot peppers from their garden and/or amazing gifts (I'm still in awe of the toy printing press Bryan M. gave me), oh man what a night. And it ended before midnight, too, wonder of wonders!

Then last night I played a Celesteville set on KBOO, full-on cathartic mode with Brian Christopher/Miller (aka "Taco Mixx") on drums and clarinet and Jennifer Robin (aka "Pink Sneakerzz") on occasional keyboard and me (aka "Stinky Insoles") on freakout guitar and vocals etc. etc. It was hot, somewhat similar in tone to "Purest Blue Light" but set in Des Moines this time instead of Tualatin. Which, if you've never been, let me tell you: Des Moines is even weirder than Tualatin. Apparently Brian has been obsessed lately with the Buckner & Garcia song "Hyperspace" (yes, from the Pac-Man Fever LP) and he was singing "I'm invisible now but I'll be back again" and "Shootin' my rockets all over the place" again and again, so that's what happened: we did a 45-minute cover of the Buckner & Garcia song "Hyperspace", a song which I had not heard in years if not decades. I have to admit that I still hate that damn song but it is, indeed, pretty catchy. Oh, wait, there are some pretty great lyrics that I should have utilized: "I'm a space cadet and I just gotta win" and something about "kick into thrust"--my "version" of this song could have been far, far naughtier than a song mentioning "shootin' my rockets all over the place" already was...

Other than that things have been kind of calm. My bedroom is filthier than it has ever been and I need to clean it ("The Defender" on the Pac-Man Fever LP turns on, god this album is terrible but compelling at the same time), I've gotten completely obsessed with the Nintendo 64 game The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (and [a] you can probably draw a connection between the dirty-room thing and the videogame-obsession thing, hmm and [b] for god's sake the game revolves around an ocarina! how incredibly cool is that? and now we return to our scheduled boring recap of the past two weeks' events)

I've been listening a lot to a couple things:

• Ryan Doyle: Campaign to Kill the Sparrows cassette (Monotone Records):
  • This cassette, at first, struck me as kind of interesting and kind of boring in its weird half-neurotic half-calm take on cassette victories of the past (Sentridoh, Simon Joyner, etc) but then I stuck it in the tape deck in the Metro on a cloudy day in King City (yes!) and it made a lot of sense. There's half-assed stuff in here for sure (it wouldn't be a proper cassette release if Ryan had slaved over it, now, would it) but then there are glimmers of lovely composed instrumentals, bits of weirdly compelling lyrical content, some nice melodies going on. Perfect music for you to enjoy while driving through a 55+ retirement community on a cloudy day: something about it just resonates in a pleasing way even if it's not "great" by any means.

• Minmae: Sa Trappe Secrete por Trouver la Paix cassette (Racing Room, 37 Egmont Rd., New Malden, KT3 4AT, UK, or just check out www.minmae.com)
  • Stick Sean Brooks in a room in San Diego with a guitar, a 4-track, and a digital delay pedal, and this comes out, shining like a jewel. The first side consists of one side-long suite (the "title track", what's with the French, Sean?) and it is gorgeous in its guitar-delay folds, folding all over each other and accomplishing not much of anything but being very very beautiful, like a well-made bed that no-one is ever going to see. The second side, "Carbon Dating Service", ha ha, has vocals and shows off pre-digital-recording S. Brooxx in song form, which is pretty okay if a little thin, but man, that first side: the kid could be a shoegazing hero, so many ways in which he may succeed!
• the luv(sic) song "Personality Revolution"
  • I don't think this is "commercially available" but wow, wow, wow. It is great for every band to have one completely-over-the-top moment, something that you wouldn't believe if it weren't blaring out of the speakers of your domestic subcompact hatchback. "Purest Blue Light" is probably the Celesteville equivalent, but this song is both better and more astonishing and approximately one-fifteenth the length. Shocking and great, possibly more shocking than great, but definitely both. My goodness!

Okay, so I'm back from tour. It was a long, long tour (by my standards) and it had its ups and downs, but here are some of the ups:

• Bodyboarding in Oceanside with the Landucci clan (and subsequent Gang Wizard session, yes!)
• Walking all over San Francisco, following my feet for like six hours, and randomly running into John Hale Zukas' amazing converted ambulance
• Walking over a mountain to get strip-mall coffee in Santa Barbara--twice!
• Playing the pianica on people's heads in a gourmet pot-pie store in San Luis Obispo
• Talking to Joanie on the phone while watching the fog creep over a Victoria's Secret store that was eerily lit in the fog, also in San Luis Obispo
• Fantastic hospitality courtesy of The Key's parents in Ukiah: great breakfasts, an inviting swimming pool, fresh produce like crazy
• The infinite and indescribable sense of humor of Mr. Chris Calvert
• Reading Sherwood Anderson's Dark Laughter and playing Space Trader (geeky!) on my Palm Pilot while everyone slept in the Volvo on the way back at the rest stop outside Yreka

Hmm, what else? Being home is so nice, so so nice. Oh yeah: if you have a lot of time to spare for something ultimately a little bit silly, I can't help but recommend the game that I've been playing lately: Globetrotter 2. The most fun "edutainment" game since Oregon Trail, according to the folks at "Home of the Underdogs" (excellent if pop-up-infested "abandonware" site), and I can't argue. Thoroughly fun and a little silly, lots of trivia (usually accurate), a huge download and a pretty massive time commitment, but I figure if I'm going to squander what remains of my youth by playing video games, I might as well squander it on vaguely educational video games. Top-notch!

I'm out on tour for a couple weeks--most of the overdue orders are going out today, thank goodness. I'll check email on tour from time to time, so please say hi! A touring musician loves to get emails; his/her situation is not unlike a soldier's situation in some ways.

I drove around last night after practice--picked up the Roland amp, picked up some snacks for today's final SAT class, and I bought myself some four-cheese Cheese Nips, drove home from Fred Meyer eating Cheese Nips and blaring the Stooges and it was just after sunset, and there was something really poignant and desperate about that. I'm going to miss this town and its inhabitants (okay, I'm talking about Joanie again). I'll be back in late August with four new releases, all of them "three"-themed--stay tuned!

Yesterday I left my car's driver-side window open, on busy busy Belmont St. in Portland, on a clear day, in the middle of the day, for like four hours, and not a single thing was gone--not my recently-installed tape deck, not my old Panasonic CD player, none of my tapes. The moral: if your car is full of crap that looks unappetizing, no-one will break in. I'm a believer!

And last night Chris P. came over and we went through Joanie's amazing recent garage-sale finds like Tips for Teens (from Carnation), an astounding piece of swooningly written self-help that just happens to mention dairy products in every other sentence. Chris then went through the equally shocking Christian Charm Course, and he was talking about how the beauty of the hands is connected to God or something like that and, simultaneously, Joanie and I looked at our nails: I extended my fingers out and she curled hers in. And I remember that in the is-this-real children's book Encyclopedia Brown's Book of Facts the young Mr. Brown mentioned that, when asked to look at their nails, men always curl their fingers towards themselves and women always lay their hands flat. Well, can you beat that, we are defying gender stereotypes at every turn.

What do you do when you wake up with a Billy Joel song in your head? You can wash your face, brush your teeth, go through the methodical process of making french-press coffee--but no repetitive motion is going to get "Allentown" out of your head; it is good and stuck in there and it adapts to the tempo of your movements. And it, like every other attempt by Mr. Joel to seem "real", is just yucky, although it could be worse and it could be "You May Be Right" or something, oh now that terrible song is mounting a sneak attack on my I-must-sing center, oh God, stop it, out out out!

Whew, psychodrama over. In interesting history news, today is the 10-year anniversary of the Yak Ampersand song "July 28, 9:00 p.m." (from Steadfast, Unalterable, Unyielding), in which the young Jacob Anderson (true story: just having returned on the #38 bus from a Refrigerator in-store performance at Ozone! oh, old-school Ozone, we miss you) looked out at Archie, the golden retriever across the street, who weighed about 300 pounds and was by all accounts the happiest creature in creation. Young Mr. Anderson (19 years of age!) learned "the bliss of being unaware" and that's some pretty powerful bliss. I'm off to go teach some Lake Oswego teens about the bliss of doing "critical reading" SAT problems and that is a different kind of bliss altogether.

Is there a good doughnut shop in Portland? Please, no suggestions of "well, Krispy Kreme is open now or it will be in a few days"--I've sucked down my fill of those little floofy morsels and they are good but not that good. Basically, Portland, especially Southeast Portland, is a doughnut wasteland, but big props go to our compatriots across the river and across Burnside: of course Voodoo Doughnut is quality over in SW, but today Joanie and I went on a long winding doughnut-and-garage sale expedition, with our terminus being Annie's Doughnuts at NE 72nd and Sandy, and yes, Annie's Doughnuts is a quality doughnut shop. Their apple fritters are sweet and soft enough to fall apart but magically they cohere, and their buttermilk bars are precisely as leaden as you'd expect: fine gut-lump material, and while we were there, this old lady was talking in her old-lady voice to the Southeast Asian proprietors' young son about addition, the zoo, all of these things in this strange booming creaky voice that echoed under the weird multicolored round light fixtures, above the yellow molded-plastic benches. Joanie and I hardly talked at all, so mesmerized were we by this woman's interaction with this kid. It was great.

Did we get anything at the yard sales? Of course. This weekend I've bought like 20 tapes of high quality (the Fall, Brian Eno, Faust, etc.) for playing in my yard-sale car stereo system. There are so many tapes available, and so cheaply, and now that I have a tape player that works in my room I might just de-emphasize the currently-prominent LP and CD collection in favor of beautiful beautiful TAPES.

We bought a couple Cocteau Twins tapes at one of the sales. For some reason I've always been a little afraid of them--maybe I felt like I was overexposed when I lived with Ned, maybe I thought it would be too wispy-80's sounding. Well, both of these things are still pretty true, but today, as we were heading home from our hundredth garage sale or so, heat rising from the asphalt, sugar rush fading in our heads, water fading in our throats, it was good to hear Victorialand's weirdly-familiar-though-I've-never-consciously-listened-to-it sound warbling on my car stereo. As one of my Intro to Linguistics students put it in a final exam way back when: "the ambient air inside your mouth is equal to the air outside your mouth," and that's how we felt: everything was kind of shimmering and nothing really made sense, both inside and outside the car. It was an intense moment but it's good to be back home with some lemonade.

Ugh, sick again. One of those mild-sore-throat-and-sniffliness colds combined with the usual sort of lack of energy, this combined with the heat and what exactly am I doing in my top-story room? Ugh. Time to go back down to the basement. I was hanging out in the basement finishing Winesburg, Ohio on the Palm Pilot and it almost made me cry. Not that this novel is anything but great (and, in its own way, very sad) but it was kind of a weird experience, the rivers of energy in my body all in knots, me sweating, lingering taste of Trader Joe's "Combat" vitamin-C-and-echinacea beverage (uh-oh, will I break out again after ingesting echinacea) and I've played a hell of a lot of NBA 2K2 on the Dreamcast and do you see the sort of focus I have? Like a laser and--

The thing that cuts through this cloud of icky sick thought is one thing and that thing is FLASPAR. I've played with them twice this weekend (once in Bronwyn and once in the Minor Thirds) and I have to say: wow, wow, wow. The hottest dance party ever, the brilliant Manny R. of Atole (who will be releasing a 3" on Tape Mtn. soon, right, Manny?) screaming and gurgling in Spanglish, hot repetitive riff action in a semi-disco mood (but Jordan and I both thought: Gang Wizard--even though this sentiment horrified anyone who's actually seen a horrifying Gang Wizard live set)--there is so so much to be said for hot drumming and ultra-repetitive guitar riffs! All of this in hot top-story rooms where everyone is dancing! I was sick and Joanie brought the "Squeeze Breeze" combination squirt-bottle-foamblade-fan and we squirted sprays of refreshing water and air onto everyone and it was great. After Flaspar finished, the room mostly cleared out, but the Harps played their set and it too was pretty cool; I didn't like the screaming or the grunty bass sound, but I did like their energy, and the fact that their lead singer wore the same shirt with Lucy Van Pelt on it the entire time. Joanie and I danced in the other room during the Harps' last song and it was nice--I was delirious, late-80's arcade games were flashing all around, the room was red, and there was Joanie, dancing with me to reflected sound in the hot hot Meow Meow. I slept hard.

So then Tuesday night there was the noteworthy Celesteville/Hale Zukas show at the Blackbird. Celesteville was a three-piece ensemble for this occasion, featuring my two favorite Chrisses in Portland: Piuma and Calvert, the former on rocking accordion and the latter on rocking drums. When we went on, the club was almost bare (silly Blackbird, where everyone shows up at 11:30 or something because that is when their shows usually start!) but we rocked it anyway. Within seconds of starting I had broken a string on the Memphis guitar; thankfully I had brought the Roland guitar and it was a capable spare. We played five songs, several of which went on longer than I had expected, including possibly the most aggressive version of "I Have Not Spoken All Day" ever--pure rock bombast. Hale Zukas liked it a lot and I have to say that I did too. ANYWAY: Ume played and they were okay, some Bailter Space-ish moments in parts (which is good) but then the screaming and relentless sound kind of got to me. ANYWAY: Hale Zukas, wow! They had the tallest amplifier stack ever (some cabinet topped with the Sunn cabinet topped with a Leslie amplifier, wow!), a light show that was triggered by Mark's bass drum, some bedraggled-looking keyboards, a new bass-ar (John had disemboweled a Hondo for this one rather than the Memphis of his previous bass-ar concoction) and once they turned on the whole kit and kaboodle, there would be no stopping it. John and Mark's vocals went through the fast-whirling Leslie for that ghostly sound, and the whole thing had an entrancingly ululant Sun City Girls-krautrock-Dead C vibe that was amazing. Mark was a god of youthful vigor behind the trap kit, Rob droned and yelled, and John was a pillar of wobbly precision on the amazing bassar. The whole room shook. If you get a chance to see them live, do not possibly miss it. Oh my gosh it was nice.

Rob recommended that I see the Animal Collective last night but I was feeling kind of woozy and feverish (and apparently sounding a little delirious) so Joanie and I just took a slow "evening constitutional" walk over to Powell's. We bought nothing, just browsed around, and walked home, not saying all that much, which was perfect. I would have smelled roses but I can't smell anything, really. This morning I woke up with a rash on my chest and neck: it looks like I must be allergic to echinacea after all. Arr! Good thing I don't have to deal with any high-school students for the next couple days...

Yes! My stereo system appears to be complete, at least for now: I found a free Realistic (Radio Shack) receiver in a "free" pile near one of the garage sales Joanie and I were visiting today--and it works! And it has stylish long buttons, many of them! And the right channel doesn't cut out, it doesn't make extremely loud buzzing sounds, and it doesn't appear to have any major problems--we are set! I am currently listening to fIREHOSE's Ragin', Full-On, and this one, like many of SST's classic albums from the 80's, continues to deliver immense satisfaction--Ed's naive guitar-mangling is extremely satisfying, the brink-of-sappiness lyrics are pleasing, and of course Watt's thunderbrooming is formidable as always. And the songs are great--"Choose any Memory" is a song to play over and over again on a new turntable into a new receiver through new speakers, $12 total of woodgrain and wires and $1.99 of fine vinyl: it's a wonderfully crappy little thrill that you should allow yourself to experience.

Yesterday was the big Bronwyn photo shoot and I must admit that it was really really weird to get my zits concealed, my shine reduced with powder, but it was pretty fun nevertheless; rarely have I been so aware of the uncomfortableness of my expressions, my hands, rarely have I been so aware of this little smirk I make when I'm attempting to appear "natural". It was, in a lot of ways, very similar to the studio-recording experience; every little nuance is analyzed, made perfect. I'm not sure if it's my thing, this photo thing (or this recording-in-studio thing) but it's educational to see how perfectionists do things. I'm a perfectionist as well (as I was noting to Richel the other day)--but it's only for weird things, ideas, austerity plans, lifestyles.

Last week we housesat for John and Casey of the Tuftees, took care of their many plants and their charming stubby-tailed cat Z, and it was kind of nice to just share a little place with Joanie, just the two of us; I could get used to this. The living-in-two-places-at-once thing is always problematic ("oh, crap, I left the dental floss at the other house" "where did we put those Totino's Party Pizzas again?" "I thought I brought clean underwear") but John and Casey are good people. Plus the garage sales in their neighborhood are fresh and exotic and you should see the fancypants dress Joanie got: I think I may have promised never to use the word "hottie" in earnest, but sometimes a man is driven to do ridiculous things.

$7 well spent in the last couple days: $5 on a good tape deck and $2 on a functional and problem-free turntable. I've been cleaning the room listening to Yoko Ono's amazing Fly (okay, just the rocking first record, not the more insect-like second record) and old cassettes; it is a joy to be able to hear these without pressing the power-switch on my turntable a thousand times to get the left channel working. Cleaning the room is a joy, too; I can actually see floor now!

Now that I've got a decent tape deck, I am finally working on that most-postponed of Tape Mtn. projects, the Yak Ampersand/Yak Brigade box set. I had digitized these tapes earlier but been sorely disappointed by the sound quality of my crappy Sony and "Gold Star" tape decks. But now that I've got a high-quality Technics tape deck, things are sounding good. I have fresh, unsullied copies of Steadfast, Unalterable, Unyielding and Flavor House from Chris Deden, and my worn-out old copies of Twerp and Cakes, Pies and Cauliflowers are sounding good as well. Does this mean that, after nearly three years of sitting on our ass, we here at Tape Mtn. might be rereleasing these fine and slightly grating examples of earnest, hissy 4-track sound? It sure does! Watch this website for more details. Twerp is playing now and it's still a pretty shocking little cassette.

We're back! And oh man what a trip it was: the wonders of the Midwest are many. I didn't really keep a journal, although Joanie, in her inimitable style, kept a wonderfully painstaking list of all the weird things glimpsed by the road, all the odd turns of phrase on signs en route--and perhaps I can convince her to let me put it up. But anyway, here's what happened. Note that the pictures that I link to are pretty big--usually around 200K. I'll try to edit them at some point, but right now I'm feeling kind of lazy.

June 21: We drive up to Seattle and play a Bronwyn show at the weird MarsBar, which is populated by people who are interested in drinking and marginally interested in seeing the show, although heads turn when I pull off an absolutely virtuosic Language Master performance in the middle of "The Rain Song". (It just happened that this pianica-sample card I made for the Gang Wizard performance at the Olympia Experimental Music Fest was in the same key! Washington loves that card!) We meet up with Steve Anne and Billis of luv(sic) and Steve and Anne let us stay on the floor of their cozy and adorable apartment in Capitol Hill, which they have since moved out of; such good hosts! They offer us good coffee and, as always, are splendid conversationalists.

June 22:We dawdle in Seattle the next day; why not? We browse around book stores and it is great. We take off and drive and drive through misty Cascades, and then get to the sun-drenched banks of the Columbia River as the sun is beginning to set--vistas are marvelous and we figure "why not camp here?" It ends up being $22 to camp in Wanapum State Park (RV's and their power and water demands! But we are just camping!) We set up the tent for the first time with wind curling around us and head down to the water, where I discover a mulberry tree, eat mulberries for the first time since childhood (my childhood home had a mulberry tree), look at the majesty of this river. We get back to the campsite and the wind is picking up. It turns out that this is approximately the windiest place in the universe, and our little Coleman tent is buffeted by the wind all night, the nylon walls bending in treacherously close to our feet and our faces. But it stays in place, and although we didn't get as much sleep as we'd like (wind on nylon is loud) we survived. Off!

June 23: We drive into Spokane and eat the best meal we would eat on this trip, really, at Mizuna, this vegetarian restaurant downtown, where they sling a mean white-cheddar-and-apple salad. Joanie buys a big book of NY Times crosswords at a bookstore, we look through the pawnshops (no finds) before hitting the road again. We visit with a sweet woman at the Montana Visitors' Center whose kids live in Tualatin (yeah!) and she gives us a fabulous and thorough book of campgrounds and recreational opportunities in this great state; we choose the "Norton" campground outside of Missoula, which is like 20 miles off the freeway on a slow tortuous creekside road where Joanie sees the first of many deer, and goats, and so forth. My muffler clatters against the bumps in the road: I need to get this thing fixed! We stay by a creek and a meadow in a sweet little pit-toileted campground with a squeaky hand-pump that yields brownish mineral-tasting water, do crosswords and read and cook soup on the propane campstove, all the while being vigilant for bears, for we are in bear country. Sleep is great and it's great to only be paying $5 for lodging.

June 24: We are going to Yellowstone! We stop in Bozeman for Taco John's, which I recall as being unusually bland but which I can now confidently say is equal to if not better than Taco Bell, and whose sauces are still a little unfamiliar to my tongue, unlike the familiar semi-blast of TB's "Fire" sauce. Plus the Taco John's mascot is funnier, although this questionable caricature of a friendly Mexican is being kind of swept under the rug and I can't say I blame them for that. We stop at a pawnshop, and I'm kind of tempted by a cheap "Madeira" Les Paul clone but wisely decide that space is pretty tight in the Metro as is. We press on to Gardiner, MT, right at the north Yellowstone entrance, and decide to save a few bucks by camping in a National Forest campground nearby, and we're glad we did: the Eagle Creek campground was gorgeous! And for the first hour or two we were there, we were completely alone, up 8,000 feet in the sky, amazing vistas all around, a little creek rushing beneath us, nice opportunities to get out and explore once we set up the tent in rocky hard-to-pound-stakes soil. There were rabbits twitching in the grass, little yellow weasels carrying tufts of something dead, crows fighting to get what was the weasel's, a whole lot of critter activity, which pleased Joanie, the animal-lover, to no end. We look at the sunset, eat more campstovey food, and I realize: here we are up on top of the world, all alone; it's like a sport-utility-vehicle ad, except we got here in a Geo Metro that's pushing 100,000 miles and whose muffler is bottoming out at every bump in the road. Bah! to the SUV mystique! Bah! We sleep and it gets really really cold--no fun for poor Joanie, although my still-speedy metabolism keeps me warm.

June 25: Yellowstone! We grab coffee and silly souvenirs in Gardiner, then head into Yellowstone, whose majesty is only somewhat watered down by the wildfires of 1988(?); the geothermal action is hot and bubbling. We see our first bison of the trip, critters galore, gurgling stinkpits galore, it's every bit as beautiful as you'd think. We saw Old Faithful, which was pretty great, but truth be told it was even more fascinating as a study in what people do when they are forced to wait for something. I wrote down a bunch of choice overheard statements... We had planned on camping in Yellowstone but it started hailing and being cold so we high-tailed it out, down down down to another campground, this one called "Clearwater" and rightly so, for it was on the sagey banks of the beautiful and wild Shoshone River, where I sat on a rock at dusk and just thought about things. We'd bought a campstove toaster at the Old Faithful gift shop--hey! I'm a boy and I love gadgetry and I love toast--and we made toast and some Tasty Bite Bombay potatoes. It felt good to be eating Indian food in the middle of nowhere. We slept on the banks of this rushing river and it was thoroughly satisfying.

June 26: We head off towards Cody, WY, where we stop at the "Sierra Trading Post Outlet Store", thinking that it will be nice for maybe an emergency blanket or something, but it turns out that I buy two pairs of Dr. Marten's shoes for $10 each pair, both of them very stylish and sturdy. Wow! Cody is cute and we eat frozen custard, deep-fried pickles, and a passable Greek salad, pass by an auction house where everyone lined up to get in is wearing a cowboy hat, and drive around for a little while. Then it's off to big emptiness--a vast basin where every town is like fifty miles apart and has ten people in it. And then we drive through the maxi-tortuous roads of the Shell Creek Canyon, absolutely gorgeous in that geological sense but tough on the car--it is high up, people in SUV's with Christian messages on their license plates and bumpers are tailgating me as we wend through these dangerous hairpin curves, tons upon tons of deer are visible in still-snowy-in-June fields, divinely gorgeous vistas coming down, the curves are even tougher going down and people are still tailgating me, admittedly I am driving slowly because the Metro's little tires don't exactly hug the road, oh man what a panoramic vista lies ahead of us! We get to the bottom of the mountain and there, at the entrance to I-90, is the guy who was tailgating me (Montana license plate FORGVN) being talked to at the side of the road by one of Wyoming's finest. Good riddance! We haul ass toward the Badlands, and around Aladdin, WY, my little Geo becomes a man, yes: it hits the big 100,000. (1 * 2 * 3) Fortunately it does not immediately die at that point. We pull into the Badlands and decide to camp at "Sage Creek"; we've had good luck with campsites mentioning water and besides it's free. But at about 7 miles down the gorgeous grasslandy-and-badlandy gravel road: uh-oh, there's a car stopped, and what are those big brown lumps at dusk ahead on the road? Uh-oh, it's a gigantic herd of bison. We stop and listen to them snort for a while (and they snort in a very compelling way, just like a huge animal should) and then we see the car ahead of us (a Chevy Lumina) and another car (go figure, another crazed SUV driver) decide to push ahead, herding the buffalo with their headlights. I ask Joanie: is it just me, or are these people out of their minds? They are, indeed, out of their minds, and let's face the facts: a buffalo weighs more than my car. We drive back on the road, see a lone bisom looming menacingly close to the gravel road, but it does not charge or do anything stupid like that, thank god. We drive through seriously eerie and completely dark Badlands roads that are probably seriously eerie even in the daytime, and finally make it to the "real" campground, the one with water, where we gladly pay $10 to sleep a night without fear of being gored by bison.

June 27: We wake up, no bison in our tent, and eat pancakes at the Badlands visitor center (first "real breakfast" all trip long!) where the local classic rock station is playing "Free Bird", and I realize: I don't think I've ever listened to this song all the way through! But now I have, at the little cafe in the Badlands. We look at the amazing rock formations (1 * 2) some more, not nearly as much as I'd like, but we are already late in getting to Omaha. We hightail it along the mind-numbing lengths of I-90 and the even more mind-numbing lengths of I-29, stop at our first Casey's General Store, notice a general sense of Midwestern ease and thrift: the ethanolized gas of the Midwest is seriously cheap, something like 40 cents a gallon cheaper than Portland gas. Good for us! And good for corn alcohol! We finally make it to hot and humid Omaha, where I finally meet Chris Fischer (of Unread Records) after corresponding with him for like seven years: we chat and take our stuff in and eventually get down to the real business of the evening, which is looking through his amazing tape collection and looking at fireflies and downing large quantities of Midwestern industrial ales Schlitz and Falstaff. Joanie had never seen fireflies before! Schlitz ended up winning in my book, but Joanie preferred the Falstaff. In any case: I would definitely choose Schlitz over pretty much any other cheap beer (except mayby Oly). Good stuff.

June 28: We headed out to Malmo, NE, where Cris Stoll's parents live in a church. Since I was the only one going out there who had a car, I had to make two trips, which was a little icky, since it was hot and it was a long drive--but we made it out there. Chris and I bought a 24-pack of Old Style in Wahoo, NE, and they gave us free coozies (sp?) imprinted with the Wahoo name: a classy touch. Finally, we made it out to the church: beautiful from the outside, gorgeously restored/maintained inside, and the acoustics were fantastic throughout. I enlisted whoever I could find to play on the recordings--Cris, Grant, this guy Chad from Lincoln--and the recordings came along slowly but surely. Everything had that distant sound that I wanted, very very nice. I'll post some mp3's soon enough. Here are some pictures: (1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 * 6 * 7 * 8). We barbecued potatoes and corn, watched fireflies, looked at the sky, chatted, and I recorded some more before we went to sleep in a pretty landing at the top of the stairs with a king-sized bed, Grant and Chad bleeping away on Casios in the background.

June 29: We woke up to real breakfast from Cris's mom Mary Jo, which was nice, even though the main dish had sausage in it. Oh well! I went up and recorded several churchy-sounding songs in the sanctuary, finally tweaked them, made them work, overdubbed bass lines on Chris's amazing 3-stringed Peavey bass with a nail for a nut, the most punk rock thing ever created (or destroyed!). We took off for Omaha once more, and got ready for the show. I worked out a set list, burned a 3" CD-R on Kyle's computer since my CD burner appears to have finally kicked the bucket thanks to all the rattling it experienced en route. Alas! Chris called a few people, we bought a 30-pack of the Icehole (aka "Icehouse") and a few people showed up. These few people, fortunately, included Chris Deden of Sing, Eunuchs, as nice of a fellow as ever; he brought over some cassettes that I thought I'd want--I got to replace my old Ender cassette, my old Yak & cassettes, my Ramon Speed cassettes. Good stuff from a real gentleman. I played the show, just me and the Memphis-Hilgen guitar-amp combo and the Univox drum machine rocking like old frantic Yak Brigade style days; it was great. I asked Chris D. what he thought and he noted that it was strangely similar to the last time he saw me, which must have been almost 10 years ago. Amazing!

June 30th through July 6th: I'm compressing things here because my arms are getting tired: We went to Iowa. Got to see my grandma, who was pretty happy to see me and to meet Joanie, even if she couldn't really see either of us because of her macular degeneration; lots of talk, some ice cream, small little grandma meals that involved egg salad. Various relatives showed up: my aunt Bunny (aka Diane) took us for a ride around the Humboldt-Hardy-Renwick area in her comfy Oldsmobile; we saw the house I grew up in, the school I went to, the graves of my grandparents and great-grandparents (yes, this is the Jake Erdmann mentioned in the Celesteville song), my uncle's place, the church where I went as a young Lutheran, the place where my grandparents and great-grandparents used to farm (now just acres and acres of corn and soybeans), etc. My great-aunt Wilma came over and she and my grandma told scintillating stories of intrigue, infidelity, tragedy, and teen pregnancy, many of these stories over 50 years old. Really quite amazing. We hit the pawnshops in Fort Dodge (about 20 miles south) and came out with a ton of cheap videos, including Spinal Tap, 12 Monkeys, Memento, many others for $1.89 each; very nice!

To close my account: here's a summary of the last few days, taken from an email to Chris Fischer:

Enjoyed some fine 60-year-old gossip of death and infidelity from my grandma (told in the graveyard, and in an Oldsmobile), enjoyed a fine Nebraska thunderstorm on the way home, had a sweet chain-smoking Minnesotan tell us tales of storm-chasing in front of the motel (with thunderclaps punctuating her stories), drove drove drove past deer and ghost town memorials, camped by yet another lovely river, and then finally Geo-rattled ourselves into Portland on Sunday night with a grueling 14-hour day of brown desolate freeway hell followed by creepy Columbia Gorge night driving and finally the truck stops of Gresham telling us: everything is going to be all right and you are going to sleep tonight in a familiar bed surrounded by the clutter you left when you set sail.

Final pictures:

• This one summarizes Iowa so well!
• The search for the ultimate frosty malt came to a conclusion in Big Timber, MT: check out the Frosty Freez's quart coffee malt: for $2.90 you and a friend can consume a huge amount of extra-malty dairy product.
• Clouds in eastern Washington
• Cute Americans

Whew, my arms are tired; thanks for reading!