An Interview With Scratch Acid’s David Yow By Yours Truly

So check it out: The Chicago Reader asked me to interview legendary frontman David Yow (The Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid) in one of their “Artist on Artist” segments.  See, Scratch Acid is on tour.  And I’m in this band.

Of course pants were removed.  Do you even have to ask?  Shame on you for doubting.

In related news, I’m told that I am a contributing author to the forthcoming in 2012 Akashic Books title Book aka The Jesus Lizard “coffee table” book.

Sure…coffee.  Right.

Sirs: Boo Hoo 12″ EP Out Now

The lastest in my personal disease management saga* concerning music:

Chris Kreb and I started a weird rock band called Sirs in 2008. Back then it was just the two of us, he on microphone and bullwhip, myself on guitar, bass and computer.  We put out a 7″ called Billy The Kidney, then Chris moved to Germany.  Around that time I started working with Tony Jones and Mike Greenlees, bringing some of the early material over.  Sirs Mk II lasted until Mike was gently reminded of the existence of his three children. During the Mk II phase, we recorded an album’s worth of songs, then threw away half to leave an EP named Boo Hoo.

Boo Hoo was released yesterday on 12″ vinyl and download format.  Check it out/buy it at sirs.bandcamp.com

Sirs Mk III remains a weird rock band and is comprised of Tony, myself and Shut Up Andy Kosinski on drums. If Andy’s got any kids, he don’t wanna know. We play next at Saki on Fullerton Ave in Chicago this Saturday at 6PM.

* For most people who stick with making original aggressive electric music, the effect on one’s life is akin to that of a disease. Lots of hassle, lots of special arrangements, compulsions, technical requirements and the need for a bottomless well of understanding from loved ones. It’s not comparable to a disease in the sense that the payoff is awesome: certain thrills can only be felt by building and presenting big sounds. But for the other 97% of the life lived in between the payoff, this type of self-expression is profoundly similar to, oh, diabetes. A lifelong condition that needs managing.

Chunklet’s Indie Cred Test

I wrote some stuff  in this, and the whole thing is funny, so buy it.

They call it a coffee table book, but I’ve never been able to fit a coffee table in the bathroom.

Sirs: New Tracks Finished

Sirs:

Mike Greenlees – Drums
Tony Jones – Bass
Rob Warmowski – Guitar, Vocals

We just finished our first record. Thymme Jones of Cheer-Accident manned the board*. We recorded it in a basement in Humboldt Park, and hot damn, some of it is just stellar if I do say so myself. Thanks Thymme! Website here, tracks below.

Boo Hoo – In what will probably be the title track of the record, the Greenlees/Jones duopoly tends impeccably to business while I put a guitar slide on the wrong hand and commence to some improbable hijinks. Lyrical quasi-inspiration: the crybaby visible at the 7:00 mark of this clip of Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary Right America Feeling Wronged.

Five Minutes – I’m not expecting Dorothy Parker, but you don’t spell “you” with the letter u.

Illegal Criminal Crimes (Against The Law) – In a post-Rumsfeldian world, giving executives the teaching moments they deserve becomes a greater and greater challenge.  Features a two-note solo that Mike called akin to “Robert Slipp”.  Original title was “Felony Illegal Criminal Crimes (Against The Law)”, but I changed it because that would be stupid.

A debut gig at Quencher’s is up for this Thursday, kind of early. Shows will be rare.  Sorry if that sounded like a threat.

*board in this case meaning the Roland VS-2400 integrated DAW.  I gotta say, I’ve heard worse channel preamps.

April 8th: Sirs Raises Volume, Funds For Goethe Elementary School

NOTE: This show’s date has been changed yet again to April 8th 2010.

I play a Telecaster and blurt things in a loud, noisy rock band with Mike Greenlees (ex-Tar) and Tony Jones (ex-Sixteen Tons).  We’re called Sirs.  Our first show has been lined up in Chicago on  April 8th, 2010.  It’s a benefit to raise funds for nearby Goethe Elementary School, whose financial woes are not limited to the problem of having run out of copies of Faust For Kids.  They’re a fine, deserving educational institution and badly need your dollars – and Sirs is willing to trade the rock for them. We want you there.  For further info the show, sign up for the Sirs email list right here:

Subscribe to the Sirs email list.

Confidential to Tar fans:  You might notice the name of the school and put two and two together…

New At HuffPo: Mary Matalin To Abused Women Of The GOP: Quit Your Bitching

Image by Bridgette Taylor via Flickr

You can’t make up this stuff. Mary Matalin, weathered GOP strategist casually lets it slip that life on the Republican national campaign trail is a great place for a gal to get smacked in the mouth – and that’s just dandy with her.

The 2016 Olympics Mascot Will Be Full-Breasted With Many Feathers

Congrats to Rio De Janiero for acing out Chicago for the 2016 games. Check out a new humor piece on True/Slant: 8 Reasons Chicago Lost The 2016 Olympics

I saw a video clip this morning where a stunned Jesse Jackson interviewed in the downtown location of the embarrassing non-party lamented that we had “sent our A-Team – the Mayor, the Governor, Oprah” yet it made “no difference.”

Yeah, I bet it made a difference.

If Having A Favorite Condom Commercial Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right

More than once I was asked today where the screaming kid in my song “Sugar Sugar Sugar Sugar” came from. It comes from my favorite tv commercial for birth control, courtesy of a French company. So check out the clip and wonder no further while you marvel at the French advertising community’s freedom to appeal to pedophobia. Formidable’!

I can’t help but notice that if Trojan were to try selling rubbers that way in this country, tens of millions of pants suits from Maine to Baja would be involuntarily soiled in an unstoppable wave of maternal rage.

Presenting Allende: Sugar Sugar Sugar Sugar

Uh oh.  He’s making noise again.

John Kezdy, a politically conservative State’s Attorney and friend of mine who happens to sing for Chicago punk legends  The Effigies is kind of responsible for choosing Allende as the name of my solo recording persona.  I was kicking around various names a few months ago around the time I went to see the boys play a gig and  John made the mistake of asking me what I’d name the solo stuff.  I couldn’t help but pick a moniker I knew would get his goat: Allende.

Indeed, the roll of the eyes I got from John was magnificent and satisfying.  Say Allende to any educated conservative and they will likely imagine Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist President of Chile who was killed in a US-backed corporatist military coup in 1973.  Sure, I had Salvador in mind, but the capper was the knowledge that the word in Spanish means “from the other side”.  Coooooool.

Allende is myself, computers, guitars, and other noisemaking implements.  All I do is reflect a world I never made, kind of like Howard The Duck.  The hard drives are bulging with bits; more is on the way.

…and not just from Allende, either.  I’ve been rehearsing with Tony Jones (16 Tons) and Mike Greenlees (Tar) for a few months now and we’re beginning to sound like a presentable rock band.

Robwatch: Now Blogging On Chicago Foibles At True/Slant

Not pictured: my new office

I’ve been offered a gig blogging on the subject of Chicago-area foibles for True/Slant, also known as the online home of Rolling Stone reporter (and co-founder of the great Buffalo Beast) Matt Taibbi.  Check out the ruckus, assuming there is ruckus.  (Note: there may be more hubbub than ruckus.  In fact, there’s probably going to more tumult than ruckus, hubbub or hurly-burly.

In a while, I’m going to be experimenting with some humorous multimedia content focused on Chicago politics and civics; grab the RSS feed at the True/Slant page to stay on top of developments, or take your chances that I scrupulously update RW370. Ha.  Ha-ha.

And if I may, let me make a statement here about what I thought was obvious (but might not be) about RW370.

This is a personal blog, not a goddamn brand.  I’m not a brand, so neither is this place. I do appear on some places that handle themselves as brands, and that’s fine for them.  But I do not do that here.

That’s bad media policy today, I am fully aware. It’s poor career handling, amateur eyeball wrangling.  And I don’t care.  You don’t want to read this? You don’t want to follow the feed?  You don’t want to pass along a link from here? I can’t even begin to express how okay I am with that.

I’m fine with that because I know that not everything is for everyone.  And by that I mean there’s nothing in the world that guarantees that you are qualified to be here. You might not get it.  Or, you might get it and not like it. These are fair outcomes, and not at all my problem.

My problem begins and ends with three tasks.  I have to:

• figure out what I think about stuff
• find out what happened when stuff happens
• write the above down here and elsewhere

The way I see it, if you need anything past this, you’re in the wrong place.