Sunday, September 27, 2009

Pizza Time


we make pizza in our house a fair amount, but this one was exceptionally tasty so i had to take a pic....kale, egg & farmer's cheese....i could eat this pretty much every day.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Serious Birthdays

John Coltrane and Bruce Springsteen....what can you say?

happy birthday to two giants!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Book Week Recap!


We've seen three bookstores, and we've rocked them all...Good publication week for Our Noise....in some ways more fun that record store in-stores are the bookstore in-stores, but more nerve-wracking as well due to all the public speaking one must do. There were some good questions from the crowd and we had answers for most as well, though we were a little stumped by one gentleman who wanted to talk about James Taylor and various conspiracy theories related to the Chapel Hill-raised singer-songwriter.

We read some sections of the book, i could not be goaded into doing an impression of Stephin Merritt while reading a quote of his, though in hindsight i should have gone for it. We also played some songs in the previously untried acoustic guitar / electric bass format:

Driveway to Driveway, Throwing Things, Detroit Has a Skyline, Cool, and a possibly-ill-conceived spur-of-the-moment acoustic Hyper Enough by request.
i also played some covers of bands in the book...Anything You Want (Spoon), Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles) (Arcade Fire), Where's Your Patience, Dear (Matt Suggs), Theone (Lambchop), Come Back from San Francisco (The Magnetic Fields) and My Life Is Wrong (East River Pipe). the photo here is me whistling the glockenspiel part from the Matt Suggs song.

some footage is captured over here at the fine Triangle Music blog though i don't recommend the Magnetic Fields cover as i kind of botched it. i even practiced i swear.

my first every Skype experience is captured in an interview over at one of my favorite sites Salon.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Release Day

Our Noise the book is in stores today!

i heard it's actually been in some stores for a little while already, these book people are a little more free with the release dates than us record people but what the heck.

we're gonna be at The Regulator tonight at 7....

see you there.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Jim Carroll R.I.P.


living in Ft Lauderdale when i was 12 yrs old my clock-radio was set to wake me up with the classic rock radio station -- probably SHE 103.5 FM -- which sprinkled in amongst the AC/DC and Journey the occasional curveball, and one song that i started hearing before school every morning for awhile there was "People Who Died" by the Jim Carroll Band. it was so different from everything else on there that even without the provocative chorus it would have stood out, but the lyrics blew my mind...how could such a dark song be so catchy? how could they be allowed to play it on the radio in between "Wheel In the Sky" and "You May Be Right"? I loved it.

it wasn't until a few years later that i really dug into that whole first album and read "The Basketball Diaries." what a great record and a great book....i need to go back to the poetry.

sad news this weekend that Carroll died of a heart attack at age 60. according to the CatholicBoy site he was at his desk working.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

We Made a Book! updated


Our Noise : The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small is the name of the book, written by John Cook, Laura Ballance and myself and published by Algonquin from right here in NC...an oral history with lots of sides to lots of stories, lots of photos, it's like an indie rock Rashomon! ok not really but it's in stores next Tuesday and so are we, talking about it and playing a couple songs as well... here's details of our upcoming activities:

Tuesday, September 15---DURHAM, NC---The Regulator Bookshop, 7:00 pm
Thursday, September 17---CHAPEL HILL, NC---Bull’s Head Bookshop, 3:30 pm
Thursday, September 17---RALEIGH, NC---Quail Ridge, 7:30 pm
Friday, October 2---ASHEVILLE, NC---Malaprop’s, 7:00 pm

and there's this cool site for the book as well...Our Noise The Book

listening:
The Reigning Sound - Love and Curses amazing, as you'd expect at this point!
Paul Burch - Still Your Man saw an amazing solo show last night at Local 506, go see Paul on tour!
Beatles reissues!

UPDATE -- tomorrow we'll be having a chat about the book on Gawker at 1 pm, come chime in if you feel like it...


Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Mixing It Up


pictured here is a fabulous remix album by the Philly band Public Record, it's called Echolocation...it came out recently and i have a remix on there myself, done at Brian Paulson's studio, which involves a thumb piano. it's kind of a homemade Mike Oldfield vibe. other remixers include Alasdair MacLean of the Clientele, Mark Robinson, and Guy Picciotto. despite each track being remixed by a different person, it still really listens quite nicely all the way through as a whole album. check it out!