The Swifts

Marci tells me our friend Dave is trying to save money so he’s going to see The Swifts tonight. Would I like to go? How is Dave going to save money seeing The Swifts? Who are The Swifts? What kind of music do they play? Are they worth the cash?

(http://www.swiftenergy.com/SFY/Swift-Energy/About-Swift/history/Articles/swifts100999.htm)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swift

I soon find out that The Swifts are a type of bird. As they migrate south The swifts live for a week in a large chimney of an elementary school in NW Portland. I go with Marci to check it out.

The grounds of the school are packed with families, teenagers, punks and dogs. It’s an annual tradition as much for the birds as it is for the casual bird watcher. Looking up at the large chimney there must be thousands of the little black birds circling around waiting to go to sleep. Different patterns form and dissipate. I’m told to watch out for a hawk attack. Great drama for the crowd. For fun we each try to follow one bird for as long as possible, like watching a three card monte con artist.
I’ve never been much of a bird watcher but I easily get caught up in the evening’s energy and the profound nature of the bird’s flight. It’s all very comforting to be part of such a pure and innocent event, filled with good cheer. Watching the birds is meditative and relaxing.
At 7:36 the crowd started applauding as the first group of birds began descending into the chimney disappearing from sight. Hundreds swoop down at a time, while hundreds more wait their turn.
The crowd applauds everytime they think the last bird has finally gone and every time more come spiraling downward. It’s nearly dark when the last group of swifts go to bed. They’ll come out in the morning and do all over again tomorrow evening until they’ve decided they’ve had enough of Portland and hit the road again.

I might go back later this week to see it again, and if not I hope to be around next year and bring some friends or family. “You have to see The Swifts,” I’ll say.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swift

http://www.audubonportland.org/local-birding/swiftwatch

A rejected review for Sixto (Live at Doug Fir ‘09)

An article about Sixto Rodridgez would not be complete without a brief summary of his life His extensive fan page Sugarman.org is full of fun facts (I’m no expert). You can skip the next paragraph if you know the drill. His career could be made into a Hollywood movie, but whether it’s of the Ray / Walk the Line sort, with requisite rise/fall and triumphant ending, or a Raging Bull/ The Wrestler story with their crestfallen heroes depends on your point of view.

Born in Detroit, in 1942 of Mexican immigrant parents, he’s probably one of a small handful of Hispanic-American folk heroes that cross all racial barriers (Morrissey doesn’t count). In 1969/70 Sixto released Cold Fact on Sussex Records. It was a brilliant album that wasn’t heard by too many people at the time. In 1971 he released Coming from Reality, a less enthralling album that didn’t bring any more major success then his first release. He went into semi-retirement and worked odd-jobs around Detroit. Unbeknownst to him, he became a star in Australia and did a few tours there in the late 70s and early 80s. Then it was back to Detroit for another “retirement” before he was once again discovered and widely bootlegged in South Africa, where a Best-Of complication went platinum on the black market. He has toured South Africa multiple time since 1998. (Consequently, every time I meet a South African, I always ask if they know Sixto. For me, this feels is a little like asking an American if they know Elvis. Of course when I tried this last week the fellow had no idea who I was talking about.)
>>>>
(Remember this the next time you make that killer album that no one buys. It could make it all the way to the other side of the world and make you a star in 20 years.)
>>>>
After years of being widely ignored in his home country, word got back to the states where his popularitystarted growing. Light in the Attic, a Seattle, based label known for some lovely re-issues (Monks, Karen Dalton, Os Mutantes), re-released Cold Fact last year and Coming From Reality this past May.
I first heard Cold Fact a couple years back. At first the album sounded like a run-of-the-mill Leonard Coen/Bob Dylan rip-off. And it is, but it’s fucking amazing. It helps that the production on the album is damn near perfect. The lyrics are soulful, fun, profound and silly depending on the song and your mood. They music is funky (in a good way)—it swings, it bounces, it rocks. It still blows my mind.
The creative success of Cold Fact is not just due to Sixto’s songs though. It’s greatly aided by the production and arrangements of Mike Theodore and Dennis Coffey—a member of the famed Funk Brothers, The Motown house band who features on almost all the label’s hits like “My Girl” and “I Heard It Through The Grapevine.” (The Funk Brothers were re-discovered with the documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown.”) So just to be clear this is a Mexican-American guy, raised in Detroit, doing songs in the style of Phil Ochs, recorded with Motown techniques. It’s a recipe for success. Right?
Live, I had no idea what to expect. This would be Sixto’s first major US tour in forever. Maybe the 70s? Would it be like the show I saw Love play? Arthur Lee backed up by a bunch of professional soulless young guys, or the Television Personalities show where lead singer (like Lee, the only remaining original member) Dan Tracey was too drunk to talk, sing, or stand (I heard it wasn’t that bad a show compared to others)? None of these type of “reunion” or “Golden Oldie” shows have much promise in general. The original magic is usually lost and so is that creative spark. Watching an elder go through the motions just so he can pay the rent is never a fun idea. (The only old guy who still takes any chances and succeeds is Mark E. Smith of the Fall.)
I didn’t know until he hit the stage that he’s mostly blind. But before I knew this I could glimpse Sixto in the back. He was leaning on someone and being led backstage. I thought maybe he was drunk and the show would be canceled. It was already running 15 minutes behind schedule, not the best sign. One of the owners of Light in the Attic Records came on stage. He spoke slowly:

“Thanks everyone for coming,”

Oh crap, I thought the shows canceled.

“So Tonight we’re very happy to have Sixto Rodrigez here”

… here comes the bad news

“He’ll be around after the show signing autographs so buy a record. Enjoy the show”

He doesn’t seem to know how to turn his guitar on. He needs help finding the microphone. He’s hunched over, a little disheveled. There’s no denying he’s getting up there in the years …
But BAM he’s on the fucking mark. The first song is Cold Fact’s “Inner City Blues” and it sounds beautiful.
Met a girl from Dearborn, early six o’clock this morn

A cold factAsked about her bag,

suburbia’s such a drag
Won’t go back
He plays a mix of Cold Fact songs and a number of tracks I’m not familiar with. It all sounds pretty damn hot even with the young guys hamming it up a little. His voice sounds terrific and he can still play some fine rhythm guitar. But it still looks like he could fall apart at any moment, just teetering on the edge. It’s not as bad or painful as watching Daniel Johnston, but I can’t fully enjoy the songs, thinking something might go wrong at any point. Still, it’s a treat to hear all these songs live.

There’s: “Crucify Your Mind”
Were you tortured by your own thirst

in those pleasures that you seek.
That made you Tom the curious,

that makes you James the weak?,

“Rich Folks Hoax”

The priest is preaching

from a shallow grave.

He counts his money,

then he counts you saved

and “I Wonder”

I wonder

how many times you had sex

And I wonder

do you know who’ll be next
He must have played these songs 10 million times, and he still nails every one of them. His lyrics hold up quite well after all these years. They’re a wonderful mix of love and hate, sleazy come-ons, political rage, inner angst, and joy.
Listening to Cold Fact now I think I enjoy it even more, knowing those songs are out there, alive in some form.
The band is joined at times by a 4-piece horn section, and every cool effect used on the Cold Fact songs is attempted live with mostly positive results. Sixto smiles widely. He seems at once shy/embarressed, totally stoned, and totally together. Sort of like Peter Sellers in Being There, you’re just not sure what he’s up to. His hands are huge and grizzled, but they still work. He cracks some jokes/lines of philosophy he’s probably told a thousand times.
“Wanna know the secret of life? Breathe in, breathe out.”
“Wanna know the two most important words regarding relationships? Yes, dear.”
“You know why you can’t trust a woman? Cause you can’t trust a man.”
The show ends and the crowd erupts. He comes back. Alone on stage, he cracks a few more jokes/philosophy.
“Age? Age? There’s only one age. Either you’re alive or you’re dead.”
“I’m not getting Old, I’m Getting Dead.”
All alone, just him and a guitar, he sings,

I’m gonna Live

I’m gonna Live/

Until I Die.

And he knows he’s singing the truth.
I’m still not sure if Sixto should be played by Micky Rourke or Jamie Foxx,
maybe both. It’s probably that dichotomy that makes him so special and still very vital and important. It turns out he knows how to turn on his guitar. He just takes his time.

“missing” Bass

In France at Midi fest about 2 weeks ago, my bass went missing on the first day. In the case was some money and a hacky-sack. Rob from the Dent May band was nice enough to lend me his bass for our show. When we were leaving around 1 AM we found the hacky-sack. The next day we went to the police station. They didn’t speak a lot of English so I had my brother Jeff draw this comic:

I also had him draw a couple suggestions on how they might find it (it’s handy having an illustrator in the band). When we returned to the fest that night a friend of ours who had just arrived (Morgan!) said he was peeing in the woods and found it! With money still there. He refused any reward. Let this be a lesson to everyone. Always pee outside.

words.

dave.

“And then you awake like that, quivering like a struck drum, lying there awake and quivering, summoning courage and spit, roll to the right just as in the dream for the nametagged flashlight on the floor by the bed just in case, lie there on your shank and side, shining the light all over, just as in the dream. Lie there panning, looking, all ribs and elbows and dilated eyes. The awake floor is littered with gear and dirty clothes, blond hardwood with sealed seams, two throw-rugs, the bare waxed wood shiny in the windows’ snowlight, the floor neutral, faceless, you cannot see any face in the floor, awake, lying there, faceless, blank, dilated, playing beam over floor again and again, not sure all night forever unsure you’re not missing something that’s right there: you lie there, awake and almost twelve, believing with all your might.” -dfw

GaG

yakov lvov ‘09

STILL the best club in town.

now with more booze.

again, thanks vinh.
-MBD

branding, take 1.

bam!

Courtesy of Jeremy Miranda.

the best club in town.

there is more here. thanks, vinh.
-MBD

dear marc ecko,

before mail…

the good-ish life.

after mail…

what

have i

done to

deserve this?

even though i don’t really know who you are, and i can’t figure out how to recreate the cute macron in your surname, please do me this solid:

for the love of GOD stop sending me this magazine. k, thx. -MBD

further reflection.

ramblin'

at 21 i was given my first breathalizer. i passed. shortly thereafter, my first drunk test. i passed. albeit barely. the first incident was ridiculous. a completely unnecessary situation that erupted out of unfortunate machismo (not guilty) and an inability to walk the other way (… ahem). in any case, it was silly. especially in hindsight.
the latter situation was far more dicey. combine two work shifts, a rock show, snowy roads, 4 am… and, yeah, drink. as something of a prank, BG insisted pretty adamantly that i transport GG from show to home. GG was a famous drunk, known most commonly for soiling his pants on two occasions. with nos. 1 AND 2. and, naturally, at 3:15, he was pretty famously not sober. he lived “on my way home” in one of those ways that folks in small towns can only understand. the word nuisance has an entirely different meaning there. in truth, it was bullshit. he wasn’t even much of a friend. and BG lived three blocks from me. but i’m a mensch, see? and we’re all neighbors.

we discussed the talking heads in the car. i think i was listening somewhat regularly to a david byrne record at the time. it was our only common ground. but at that hour, it’s enough to keep you going. at one point we neared a traffic stop (again, small towns…) and wiser minds (mine) told me to steer clear. which i did, deftly. twenty minutes added to my journey, i left GG in his driveway, probably peeing in the yard or some shit (to be fair, i took some poetic license with this… he probably went inside, sans incident; i heard years later that he drove a car through the side of the house not too long after that, in an ill-advised stab at parking), and redirected my course toward home.

exhausted and no longer leaning on the crutch of a boozy lunatic to keep me awake, it wasn’t a great drive. nor was it long. but so be it… my lack of dramatic flair prevents me from lazily recounting the cliched tale of slippery roads, and an even slippier sense of whether i should stay awake or sleep, but, alas, at shortly after 4 am, i had demolished the neighbors’ mailbox. all of 2.5 minutes from home. and gotten the car stuck in a bank.

i woke the neighbors myself.
i called the police myself.
later, i paid for the mailbox, which is not nearly as cheap as it should be. it was hideous, to boot.

in truth, i would have run, but the car was quite stuck. and i went to high school with their kid. we weren’t friends. i remember trying to explain to the police when they arrived that the roads were slippery, and i just lost control of the car on a turn. while all along they were looking over my shoulders at tire tracks in the snow (damned snow!) that told an entirely different story. tire tracks that didn’t veer even remotely from a direct path straight through a certain mailbox.

“it looks more like you might have drifted off at the wheel, no?”
queue drunk test. queue lectures. again, i passed. i suppose it’s not really the point. i was 21. i was following a pen with my eyes. i was walking on an imaginary tightrope that had been drawn in the snow by a police officer’s foot. i was 21. welcome home, kid.

nine years later…
i made my first dinner reservation. and shortly thereafter my first cancellation. at 30. i’m not sure how much growth has been involved. and, yeah, this is a super loose thread to be pulling between a driving incident and an unfulfilled promise of dinner, but that’s life, kid. they seem connected… or at least i think there’s a case to be made.
and, no, i haven’t been able to claim any mailboxes since. my slate is mostly clean.

but there are memories, and then there are memories, and while it seems reasonable for me to recollect upon the crashes, and the consequences, that have come before….
it’s quite a different battle to explain how i have not many fonder memories than spending an entire afternoon getting blissfully drunk and epically scrubbing down every inch of a house that wasn’t even mine, just so that we could comfortably spend six hours in a dank and soundproof room in the basement (an entirely other room) with a drum machine, a half-case of miller high life, and a few guitars, without having to dread the rotting filth that awaited us upstairs.
i know that makes little sense. but that’s kind of my point.
or, how, in the very same house, you once split my chin open with your forehead for no good reason. i awoke the next morning bandaged and clean.
these passings don’t make for very fine anecdotes, but they live vividly in my head. as evidence of a decade past.

and, yeah, in between there were graduate degrees, girlfriends, partners, ex-girlfriends, one fistfight (in which i threw NOT a fist), debts, etc.
but that’s not what sticks. not at all. i forget daily that i ever went to graduate school. i do remember frequently that we had the best flat parties at UCL (as far as i could tell), and that one time an aged scottish man wore a kilt with nothing underneath and tricked you into thinking that he was dying. and that our greasy greek landlord lied about literally anything, and that we could fit five people into the ridiculous sauna in your bedroom. yeah, there was a sauna.

i suppose looking back, i’m not sure what to keep. it’s not that i hit the mailbox, or that i did or didn’t pass the seriously arbitrary drunk test… but rather that the woman from across the street was the first to find me, and the first, no joke, words out of her mouth were, “are you fucking wasted?” and that the guy delivering the local daily ended up pulling my car off the bank with a rope tow before the police even arrived. i’m keeping that.

i’m not keeping london. or the goose and granite.
i’m not keeping rejection. or success.

instead i’ve got your toothbrush, and when you brought up seth cohen the first time we kissed. i’ve got the way-too-many-times you’ve mistaken the salt for sugar and yet still haven’t managed to fix the labels. i’ve got your poor poor english, and your endlessly fascinating love of dick jokes. there’s your loop pedal, and your crazy insecurities. there’s you at the cinema, the family stone perhaps. there’s the mummy marathon. there’s peggy wang. there’s ping pong, and euchre. banjos, and ukes.

i’ve got your beautiful potential, and my total lack of ambition.
it’s all flapping. and all not flapping.
-MBD