tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21284531246937603102024-03-13T08:01:08.459-04:00the Hawk Season CompendiumHawk Season is by the trains, smashing bottles on boxcars as they rattle by.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-29072728788169809972008-08-18T12:29:00.000-04:002009-01-25T12:30:31.204-05:00As Seen From Space Part 2: the Lost Columns (Published Aug ’08 by G-Vegas Magazine)<div style="text-align: center;"> by Corbie Hill<br /></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"> Over the past few weeks I've learned something the hard way... you have to live in Greenville to write about Greenville. Let me explain: I was Hawk Season. I wrote the column that started out, innocently enough, as a monthly music column and descended quickly into the realms of serious Gonzo madness. I've known for a while that I would be moving away to the Triangle, Carrboro to be precise, and my plan was to write a triumphant final column under my actual name before letting the next Hawk Season take over. Yes, there is a new Hawk Season. He's going to be writing in the September issue and beyond.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Give him hell. I plan to.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>The big plan did as all big plans do... it didn't work. I've been through three drafts of my final column, the last one a dreadful chimaera of disjointed segments, and I'm starting over.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I moved to Greenville in July of 2006 and I didn't want to be there. See, I grew up in Eastern NC, in the sweltering wilderness of Pamlico County, and it wasn't a pleasant thought to be back. Just two years of this, just long enough for my wife to get through grad school, and we would be out. We'd just come from Asheville and we were a little spoiled. I didn't know it, but Asheville's music scene had gone into a tailspin that same summer and the world class scene we'd been closely involved in was faltering. The Smashing Pumpkins didn't help, either. They were actually the death knell. They "drew the attention of the world" to Asheville in a way that was only detrimental to local music. This is no paradox, dig it: Asheville's independent rock bands had been slowly clawing their way to the nation's attention when the Pumpkins' string of Orange Peel shows torpedoed all this progress, forcing the local scene to start over at the bottom of the ladder.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>It's getting there again, Asheville's Drone Valley festival in September promises to rekindle some of our old glory. Not an excuse for complacency, but a sign of hope.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>So that was the summer of '06... drinking PBR and resenting the new town, watching the old town's scene slide slowly downhill from a distance of five hours. Shootings and stabbings across the street at King's Arms, employment hard to land. I tried to find music downtown, but I couldn't find anyone who wrote their own songs.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>The drought was not to last.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I don't remember who told me, but I remember my first Spazz show. The drummer from the two piece I played in up in Asheville drove down and we played a set. I had never seen anything like the place. It reminded me vaguely of Asheville's now defunct El Nuevo showspace, but it was huge! I don't know where these people had been hiding, but they knew their music and they came out to shows and actually acted like they enjoyed themselves.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>So we had our venue, a place to go see music, but we'd acquired a taste for good beer up in Asheville and it was killing us to have to roll with what Lowe's Food had in stock. I mean, their selection was okay, but the personal touch was gone. It's good to be able to talk beer while you buy it, and this isn't possible with a 17 year old stock clerk who doesn't know the difference between a Lambic and an Imperial Porter. We were walking, my wife and I, when we saw an empty storefront across Charles Blvd from some worn down houses that would, incidentally, be torn down to make way for the Sheetz. Weird houses, dead kittens everywhere. The Sheetz I prefer to those creepy houses.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Shut up, Corbie. Finish the story.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>I remember saying it would be perfect for someone to open up a real beer store in that spot and my wife agreed with me... but she said it was impossible. We had this sinking feeling we were the only beer snobs in town. I had this image in my mind of a little shop, packed to overflowing with swank Colorado beer, East Coast microbrews, and especially sweet stuff I'd never heard of, with nary a Natty or Miller Lite case. Impossible, I know.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Well, 21 Eleven opened up and our jaws hit the ground. Now 21 Eleven's doing so well that Lowe's Food has invested in a banner declaring "the biggest beer selection in town!" It's only the biggest, Lowe's, because you guys stock thirty varieties of Budweiser. Run scared, guys. You can't keep up with Richard's prices.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>We started getting our beer at 21 Eleven and our music from the Spazz. Word from Asheville was not good and Greenville was being nicer and nicer to us. 21 Eleven went from being our favorite beer store to our favorite beer store/live music venue and we were making friends with some of the coolest people on Earth. That's when I learned the age old mystery of Greenville... it's a lousy town, of that we can all agree, but it's filled somehow with people whose equal you will never meet. What's up with that? There's a camaraderie among my Greenville friends not unlike the Rebellion from Star Wars. Just because Palpatine runs the show doesn't mean we voted for him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>So we lived with our villains. Nay, we flourished. We rode our bikes through traffic, laughing our asses off through close calls and blown out tires. We went to shows that kept going until 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning and showed up to work at 8:00 the next day, somehow more functional on the job with a head full of good music than on days we went to bed at midnight.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>It came to be July of 2008, it had been two years. The house stood empty and a gigantic Penske truck idled in the yard. I didn't know what I would do without the Empire, I still don't know. I'm in Carrboro now and things here are, so far, quite easy. There are bike lanes the width of a Prius and hippies wandering everywhere, that glazed look in their eyes that says "I saved the world today, what have<i> you </i>been doing?"</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>The move has been hard, but I feel good about the future. I know this time I have not left a doomed scene, the Greenville underground will flourish and I'll be back every chance I get. No matter how many spaces are raided and shut down or how many times downtown resists the push of original music it cannot die. Obi-Wan Kenobi smiles at Officer Vader and puts down his light saber. "If you strike me down..."</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Thanks Richard and Jeff for putting on the shows, you guys are in my rock and roll hall of fame for sure, and thanks Kevin (aka DJ Dog) for being such a rad editor. Hawk Season put some stuff in his magazine that, frankly, even I was a little scared of but he had the faith to print it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>Godspeed, rock on, and I'll see you around.</p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-64412792196114403372008-07-18T12:27:00.000-04:002009-01-25T12:29:13.673-05:00An Open Letter to Musicians Everywhere (published in G-Vegas Magazine, July '08)<p id="a92c2" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><i id="a92c3">Because even your best friend won't tell you.</i></p> <p id="a92c4" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /> </p> <p id="a92c6" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Hello, Tony Hawk Season here. You're all doing it wrong. Sorry to break it to you, but it's better that you hear it from me. I'm with the government, and I'm here to help.</p> <p id="a92c7" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /> </p> <p id="a92c9" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c10">PRESS</b></p> <p id="a92c11" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> In this information age, all weapons at your disposal are armed and dangerous. The press is the prime example. If used properly, the press is your best friend and key to better shows and exposure. This is especially tough in Greenville, where objective criticism is damn near impossible to find. In a town without critics, you're going to have to go in over your head (usually a good place to learn to swim) and get yourself reviewed by a regional independent. As a musician, you need the harshest scrutiny you can stand. No one takes one sided reviews seriously, for one, and you will get your best publicity nuggets from articles by seasoned critics. Sure, anyone can get reviewed by their friend. Get reviewed by someone with experience. Get reviewed by someone who doesn't even like what you play. If you can get them to say one nice thing and nine negative things, the one nice thing will be of guaranteed veracity and quality.</p> <p id="a92c12" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <br /> </p> <p id="a92c14" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c15">CROWDS</b></p> <p id="a92c16" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> People don't understand this, more than most things. There are bands that would rather have their start playing to the backs of sixty heads in a bar, and that's fine, but there is no future in it. It's the bands that play in front of fifteen or twenty music lovers at 21 Eleven or the Spazz (the fronts of their heads, too) that are getting written up by the BBC, Pitchfork Media, Spin Magazine and the Boston Globe and this is a fact. You don't have to be huge to sell out, lots of people start selling out while they're still unknowns. Don't take the easy way out, don't concentrate on filling Boli's with the sounds of Third Eye Blind and Cracker covers. Remember, Robin Hood always wins. Do you want to be in the same camp as the Silent Years, Make a Rising, Darren Deicide, Caspian, and Emperor X? Easy money is easy, yes, but it smudges all over your soul and is impossible to wash out.</p> <p id="a92c17" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> The Deathset was a featured band on myspace two weeks after their latest Spazz show, to provide a concrete example. I can't say the same for the bands playing downtown.</p> <p id="a92c18" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /> </p> <p id="a92c20" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c21">KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS</b></p> <p id="a92c22" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Fooled you! The title was sarcastic, as there are none. You're as capable as you think you are. You'd be amazed, but some of the best known bands out there bluffed their way to the top. Find someone who is totally out of your league, say a booking agent at a really good venue, and convince them you'll bring twice the crowd you know you can bring... then find a way to make those people appear. The best way to improve is to make impossible promises, then make them come true. Determination trumps everything, so aim as high as you dare and get to work on your poker face.</p> <p id="a92c23" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /> </p> <p id="a92c25" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c26">CLASSIFICATION</b></p> <p id="a92c27" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Don't waste time labeling yourself and especially avoid the buzzword of the day. Sure, you'll get your fifteen minutes, but then what? You practically stamp an expiration date on your product (yes, music is a product) through overclassification. In two years, people will be cracking up, saying "I can't believe we used to listen to bands that called themselves dancecore! That's the corniest thing ever!" You don't want to be the butt of their jokes. Call yourselves musicians, let the pundits classify you later. When you label yourself you also limit yourself, you lose your teeth. There's going to be someone out there who knows music better than you, there always is, who will know that No Wave is not a genre, but a band, and that Streetcore was Joe Strummer's last record... and why are you calling yourself that?</p> <p id="a92c28" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <br /> </p> <p id="a92c30" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c31">IMAGE</b></p> <p id="a92c32" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Okay, this could have gone under the "classification" section, but it extends beyond it. One thing it covers is ego... lose it. The desire to get in front of people and play music is egotistical enough, but anything beyond is unhealthy. Prima donnas, divas, snooty scenesters... all should be hunted down and tied to chairs, a la a Clockwork Orange, and forced to watch videos of how they behave in public. Youtubing "Turducken" should suffice.</p> <p id="a92c33" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> </p> <p id="a92c34" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c35">SET LENGTH</b></p> <p id="a92c36" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Some of the best sets I've ever seen have only been six or seven songs long. I'm going to say it until I pass out, but quality always surpasses quantity. I've been bored to tears an hour and a half into a Pearl Jam show, and they're one of my favorite bands! Don't give me too much of a good thing, give me forty minutes and make every song count. Sometimes a band can play for an hour and get away with it (the Protomen and Caspian are prime examples) but not many acts can pull that off. Don't give an audience the chance to get bored with you. Show them what you can do and then leave the stage gracefully. One encore? Sure. More than that and I might just slash your tour van's tires.</p> <p id="a92c37" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /> </p> <p id="a92c39" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c40">SOUNDCHECKS</b></p> <p id="a92c41" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Unless you're playing for a few thousand people, just plug in and play. Seriously. You know how your amp works. It's not rocket science.</p> <p id="a92c42" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <br /> </p> <p id="a92c44" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c45">SOUNDS LIKE...</b></p> <p id="a92c46" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <span id="a92c47" style="">Don't lean too heavily on your influences. My stomach crawls and I die a little inside when a band tells me "Hi, we're _______! You'll like us if you like Soundgarden and Queens of the Stone Age!" See, right away the conversation is about Soundgarden. You've only backburnered yourself. If you're trying to book yourself a show, then be mindful of the way you portray yourself. Name dropping is lots of fun at parties, but you wouldn't do it at work. You don't go up to your boss and say "Hi! I'm ________! I work really hard, like you've noticed Steve doing, so I deserve a raise!"</span></p> <p id="a92c48" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Another thing... bands that identify too closely with their influences end up copying them. BEWARE.</p> <p id="a92c49" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /> </p> <p id="a92c51" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c52">CLOTHES</b></p> <p id="a92c53" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> You should quit music the moment you feel obligated to wear any specific thing when you play. Music is a creative outlet and you should feel unencumbered by silly things like fashion or uniform. It's not what you wear, it's how you wear it. Maybe you wake up and put on a torn shirt and jeans, maybe you wake up and you want to wear a suit and tie or some wacko halloween costume or a Star Trek uniform... sure. Go ahead and wear it to the show but only wear it because you want to. I'd rather go see a band wearing Circuit City shirts because they just got off work and didn't feel like changing than a whole zoo's worth of scenesters.</p> <p id="a92c54" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> By the way, everyone knows you can buy Ramones patches at Hot Topic. No one thinks you're hard core or underground for sewing them on a Goodwill jacket and sporting a sneer. That's about as punk rock as a sinus infection.</p> <p id="a92c55" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /> </p> <p id="a92c57" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c58">WHAT IS A BAND?</b></p> <p id="a92c59" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> A band is a group of musicians. You can tell they are musicians because they write their own music. Anything else is a human jukebox.</p> <p id="a92c60" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <br /> </p> <p id="a92c62" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b id="a92c63">THE GEOGRAPHIC CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE</b></p> <p id="a92c64" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Don't be a jackass. Don't go to the Big City to "make it." Are you kidding me? Is this a movie? LA and NYC are just like the rest of the country, just more crowded. Prince is from Minnesota. He didn't move. He brought the attention to himself, and all of this was in the '80s. Slipknot may be a horrendous waste of airtime, but they've been wildly successful and are from Iowa. At the Drive-in? El Paso, Texas.</p> <p id="a92c65" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Don't take me the wrong way. I know I'm brash, it's just how I am, but I'm on your side! Don't wake up in the morning and curse the Greenville scene. There are people here who know music and this place has been the springboard for greatness plenty of times in the past. Remember Valient Thorr? That was just a few years ago.</p> <p id="a92c66" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> It boils down to simple astrophysics. Every point in spacetime is the center of the universe. If you already are the center of your universe, then what's the point of running off to some smogsburg to prove yourself to the disenchanted millions already there? They have the same internet you do. Let them come to you.</p> <p id="a92c67" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <br /> </p> <p id="a92c69" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> I wanted to give a concise set of guidelines, but something has come up and I'm obligated to throw in a postscript. Here's hoping there's space, I've already gone several hundred words over my self-set limit.</p> <p id="a92c70" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> We finally did it. We killed the Spazz. We're all a little responsible, and we should be ashamed. From those of us taunting the cops to those of us defacing the neighbor's wall to those of us setting off fireworks to those of us that stopped going to shows to those of us that would rather get crunk than donate. Now we'll all be washing our hands, smug little Pilates that we are, while the underground goes through its sad death throes. It's down to house shows now? Greenville is famous for house shows, but the Spazz was a special creature... a hydra with one head left and Hercules promised he was coming back to finish the job. Remember, 21 Eleven's last show is scheduled for August first.</p> <p id="a92c71" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> As prophesied, the underground will eat itself.</p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-66398943938424382962008-06-19T13:44:00.002-04:002008-06-19T13:45:14.962-04:00I keep forgetting I have this internet websiteBut I do and I need to keep posting shit on it... I have a myspace now.<br /><br />It's the 90s. I need to get with the 90s.<br /><br />myspace.com/hawkseason<br /><br />Come be my best friend in the world.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-2332510659109546352008-06-19T13:42:00.001-04:002008-06-19T13:43:51.389-04:00As Seen From Space, Chapter 1 (Published June 16, '08, G-Vegas Magazine)<p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> It's easy to lose perspective, as is evidenced by last month. Following that debacle I put my favorite band t-shirts and cut off shorts in a bag and pushed my late 80s Volvo wagon out of town. I would do it with my bare hands if it came down to it. The time had come.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Perspective, man, I needed it. What's in our blood? Are we pure of heart and mind, is North Carolina representing the finest in music and art and culture, or is our fair state languishing in the tides of molester mustached new wavers and throwback metal? I was headed for a breakdown of herculean proportions, so I blew all my money on gasoline and PBR and got the f out of Dodge.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> What I found frightened and amazed me.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Straight south, through the depleted flatlands, to Wilmington. The town is rich in film and has some of the most accomplished alkies this side of Cotanche, but the scene died horribly years ago. What's left is a collection of formulaic punk bands and trailer metal acts. The real shame is that Wilmington is home to one of the swankest venues in the state, the Soapbox.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> There is hope, there are a select few who know the score and were instrumental in booking the recent We Fest. Some of my favorite bands in the state, such as the much praised Irata (if I have any faithful readers, they've heard lots about these guys), rocked this fest. The crown jewel, however, was the We Fest's Durham showcase. It takes supreme grace to admit when another town is The One. Thanks, Wilmington Musical Elite. I have no idea who you are, but you gave Red Collar and Hammer No More the Fingers the love they so deserve.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> With a heavy heart I go west, blue skies and hangovers and gas station hot dogs, until the wheels touch down in the fabled lost city of Raleigh. I couldn't stop long, the swoop cuts in the Brewery gave me the evil eye for being older than seventeen and I nearly took a hacky sack to the head. I had to dig deeper.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Gray Young are the only band I know in Raleigh. Far from the cheap swagger of Airiel Down or the hackneyed neo-folk scene, far from the senseless noise of Walnut Creek. Nothing that happens in that place matters, anyway.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> What Gray Young writes is music only they could write. I've tried for a long time to describe it, and can't. Just go to a show. It's good on tape, but the live show is what you need.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> I landed in Durham at some point, parked crooked in a yard and obsessed for some reason on the generation of artificial wormholes. I would have drunk dialed Andrew, whose creations are the semi-rhythmic tone anthems of Pacific Before Tiger, but it was some ungodly hour with no name and cel phone signal had crossed the River Styx with gold coin sunglasses. Instead, I put Caspian in my CD player and waited for the sun to come up.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Straight up rock and roll is alive and well in Durham. Hammer no More and Red Collar, so badass they headline festivals in other towns, have made Chapel Hill and Durham the sharpest blades in the state. They're not the end all to Durham talent, not by a long shot. Maple Stave is quite possibly the baddest band to come from Durham, if only they would do more shows. Most math-oriented bands are so pointlessly cerebral that the majority of music fans give up for something less navel-gazing. Not so here. Maple Stave writes this music because it's what's in their heads. If you want cracked out time tricks that would make Tchaikovsky proud, then do yourself a favor and catch every single show these guys ever play even if you have to miss funerals and lose out on a will or two. Seriously, they are that good.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Trying to find Hammer no More the Fingers playing, but they're in DC! I wandered Franklin Street, a place recently taken over by the astounding and complex Durham scene, but nothing today. PBR at He's Not Here, and then west to Asheville. I couldn't even wrap my head around what's happening in Durham right now. So many good bands, so much raw energy. We could power some kind of spectacular space Volvo, fill it with colonists, head to neighboring stars...</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Asheville. Hours and hours at the wheel (could Statesville be any more remote?) and some of the nicest scenery in NC later, and I was ordering a Pisgah Porter at Usual Suspects, watching Merrimon Avenue crawl by. I made some phone calls, tried to see what's happening. Some independent press darlings at the Grey Eagle, some has-beens at the Orange Peel (overrated venue), some suckers rambling about Bele Chere, and some true insanity at the New French Bar. The gutter punks were out at Gourmet Perks, a full fledged dumpster diver pissing contest had half the crowd distracted. They were in a circle like high schoolers around a fight in the halls.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> I found some local noise at Fred's Speakeasy, playing a blown PA for six people, but it was the best music in town. Asheville produces, and then destroys, the most talented bands in the state. If you're too small, no one will come out to see you. If you're too known, no one will come out to see you either. They'll ramble about how cool you were "before anyone else knew about you" and won't go see you, simply on principle. The bands can't take it, they give up, and it's a tragedy.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> It's a no win town, but it's filled with incredible musicians. If you want to go to independent music summer camp, go live in Asheville for two or three years, but be prepared to leave the moment you want to make an impact. If you're lucky, some of the local talent will emigrate with you.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> I wrapped up in my military surplus mummy bag on my friend's porch, thrilled to death by the cool mountain air. I could live here, if not for the snobbery, but it was not meant to be. Back to the Volvo, back down the mountain, to Charlotte.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> I've never felt like Charlotte is even a part of North Carolina. It's weird, but a lot of people know what I mean. Musically speaking, what few Charlotte bands there are that take to the road tend to tour south through Georgia and Alabama. I've heard good things about Calabi Yau, but we're never in the same place at the same time. Other than them, sadly, the rock scene is limited to punk bands that have a hard time distinguishing themselves from the wallpaper and the obligatory crap metal bands. I know there is more, I know there is true music out there, and I want to hear it!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Email me, Charlotte bands, I want to know the real scene up there. I went to your town, I couldn't find it. I was out of clean socks, which may have been a factor.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Come, faithful Volvo, we know where there's music in Greensboro.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> We know where Irata, the Bronzed Chorus, and Invisible are. We know people crowd into the Flatiron to hear them play. We know Two Art Chicks is reopening under a new name soon, and that the state's best instrumental bands will again be forming like Voltron.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> I felt good. I was going eighty, a feat in the Volvo, blasting through Death Valley with 61 miles to go... long enough to think. What did I learn, and what did I lose?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> I missed some good shows, for one. Hammer no More, Irata, and the Bronzed Chorus all played Greenville while I was on the road, trying to find what's so great about this state. True, you have to leave the borders to get perspective, but the best bands in North Carolina will come to you if you live in the GVL. You just have to know which rocks to turn over. Keep the faith, no one west of Raleigh has ever even heard of Parmalee.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Sometimes what happens in Eastern North Carolina stays in Eastern North Carolina. My opinions are my own, of course, but I'll share.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"> Peace.</p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-632134422821201292008-05-21T13:38:00.004-04:002008-06-19T13:42:19.279-04:00Off the Deep End (Published May 15, '08, G-Vegas Magazine)<span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span><span><span><span id="role_document0" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span id="role_document" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span id="role_document6" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span id="role_document7" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span id="role_document12" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span id="role_document15" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"> I don't know whose house it was, and too many stories start like this, but so be it. It's Greenville. It's a party. In the tiny room in the front Irata was blasting, Hammer no More the Fingers waited in the wings. The Future Kings of Nowhere had finished their set, followed by some guy in a Soviet flag cape. The kegs bled steadily, empty by midnight when the bottles and cans took over. Everything flowed like mad, music and beer and things I can't mention in print and people wandering into the street with their Big Voices. Everything but beer pong... welcome to a show house.<br />Summer's coming, and I wanted to survive its fury, but that's just another aspect of life in the Underground. It's when the best bands come through. Case in point: Gifts From Enola's set last July 3rd. Maybe it was after midnight, but even if it wasn't I still consider it the ultimate Independence Day show. The indelible apocalypse crush of righteous post rock is all the fireworks I need... unless it's the literal fireworks that accompanied the last Wildildlife show. Didn't a guitar get smashed on July 4th? Do I have my facts straight? What's the capital of Bogota? Wait, that's the capital of Colombia... I digress.<br />Summer in Greenville is such a bizarre creature... you wouldn't understand it if you've never seen it. It gets so hot in the Spazz that reality becomes more distorted than usual, and bands that are eccentric enough in real life take on strange new dimensions. It's the castle scene from Willow all over again, when the troll gets blasted with the magic wand and turns into a two headed dragon that kicks everyone's ass and eventually explodes.<br />Summer brings shows like the New Thrill Parade, Ra Ra Riot, the Silent Years. It's the time to find the bands you could never even imagine, regular everyday people off stage who reinvent our concepts of music when they plug in. Did I mention how hot the Spazz gets in the summer? It's the time of year when the showspaces branch out, when show houses reassert themselves. It's the time of the year when the heat puts a Tim Burton twist on everything we see.<br />Going to a show house is like stepping into the Doors movie, minus Val Kilmer. Wasted like Jim Morrison, yes. Charismatic? Um.<br />Let's move on. I know I'm scattered as hell, but you have to bear with me. It's the show houses. They do this. They scramble the synapses. Myspace search every band I've mentioned. Also google Jon Crocker, the Protomen, Giants (the instrumental band, and not NC's Giant, they're different...), These Are Powers, Run on Sentence... that will do for now.<br />Summer in Greenville is not the time for floral dresses and tennis, it's a return to the cradle. We lose several steps of evolution. Canis Minor is occulted by the rogue planet Ellivneerg on its closest approach to the Earth between June and August and civilization drops away. The Great G-ville Halloween Debauch is croquet with grandma in comparison. Some people fear it, and are right to do so. It takes professional partying skills to go out and see these shows. The amateurs are gone. The pros, the dropouts, the employed, and the 8th year Juniors are all that's left. We don't have to soften our game. Otherwise peaceful bands catch the bacchanal fever and are swept into a frenzy of guitar smashing and crowd rushing. Blood, sweat, dirt, feedback... tidal forces.<br />The antimatter planet Ellivneerg swings closer to Earth than any other time of the year, in its perihelion it's barely outside the atmosphere, only a few hundred miles up from Greenville, intense gravity scrambling the populace and disrupting all but the most HD television signal. If the tidal forces of a full moon makes even the sanest puritan go wild, then imagine the result of a primal rogue planet hovering twenty times closer. Astronomy can't detect it, only wolves and the weird. We're sent howling down 10th street, chasing planetary phenomena that may not even exist.<br />The students head for the hills, evacuating until August, if August comes... Some apocalypse heads think the tidal forces may be too strong this summer and that Ellivneerg will tear Greenville from the face of the planet and hurtle it into the sun. Think of it as the ultimate hurricane party, taking jello shots with your closest friends, blasted on all sides by the most incredible soundwaves known to humanity, until the moment we plop into the sun like an ice cube falling into a river. The only survivors, the giant mosquitoes, left wandering through space towards any and all planets in their path ...or at least that's how it seemed to me while Irata was playing. God I love those guys.<br />I don't know whose house it was, and I couldn't print it if I did. The kegs bled steadily, empty by midnight when the bottles and cans took over, but so be it.<br /> It's Greenville. It's a party.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span id="role_document0" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;color:#000000;"><span id="role_document" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;color:#000000;"><span id="role_document6" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;color:#000000;"><span id="role_document7" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;color:#000000;"><span id="role_document12" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;color:#000000;"><span id="role_document15" style="font-family:Arial;font-size:85%;color:#000000;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-42676325505637873002008-04-19T00:14:00.007-04:002008-04-19T00:22:40.499-04:00The Ten Year Cycle and You: A Treatise on GVL History (Published May 18, '08, in G-Vegas Magazine)<p align="center"><i>Richard Faulkner runs 21 Eleven and probably knows origami.</i></p> <p> In the late 1600s a tricked-out Honda pirate ship with 20 inch rims and blown speakers sailed up the Tar River, landing in what is now downtown Greenville. The crew that survived the treacherous sea voyage founded the Pirate Nation, which preceded the United States by over a hundred years according to historical graffiti.</p> <p> The original colonists spent their time playing grog pong with the local Tuscarora Indians and racing their horses. No, literally, they had footraces against horses. The horses always won. This has always been the curse of Greenville, ever since the original pirates landed. We're always very good at what we do (the original pirates were very fast runners) but we so often apply ourselves to the wrong field (the horses were much faster).</p> <p> All the ingredients are here for a world class music scene... so where is it? Historically, we've consistently given big love to the Next Big Thing. The Attic was the CBGB of the south (minus the passé t-shirts), high fiving the Cat's Cradle and trading bands like baseball cards. Anybody could play there, but Somebodies often did. Down the street, the penultimate record shop, CD Alley. Now, tomorrow’s legends come through town quietly, way under the radar. They’re here, but the venues aren’t the ones booking them. At least for today’s scene, the showspace will be its home.</p> <p> The Attic is dead and CD Alley is gone. I moved back to town a few years ago, horrified to find a gym in its place.</p> <p> What happened? What drove novelty underground?</p> <p> “You go to Chapel Hill to see a band that's about to play Walnut Creek next time they come through. I think Greenville was like that in the 70s and 80s. I think it was like, right before bands got really popular we were the regional spot when people came through here,” says Richard Faulkner, contemplating the Sheetz parking lot from the couches of 21 Eleven. He sells a six pack of Ska Brewing's Brown to an ECU professor before continuing. “I know the Allman Brothers loved Greenville and used to call it their home away from home. The Charlie Daniels Band, too. Then In the 80s it kind of turned into Hootie and the Blowfish, near the end of the 80s, and Dave Matthews Band back when it was just Dave Matthews, or whatever his real name is, would come through a lot.</p> <p> “Then in '94 Backdoor opened. That got underground. You could have a show in a space that's not designed to do a music show. I don't know if people remember. Like Peasant's? They started the whole Homegrown Network thing? I don't think that people know that that was started in North Carolina, like the whole String Cheese Incident and all those hippie jam bands. They had live music four nights a week, so you were guaranteed that one night would not be jam bands. They sold it to the guy that turned it into Aqua. That dude promised them when he bought it, it was a couple of old hippies, that dude promised them that he would continue to do live music and the first thing he did was put $250,000 in renovations to make it Club Aqua, to make it another booty club, then he sold it a year later because it was doing terrible.”</p> <p> So much more could happen, so much momentum spent like water leaking through the frat house roof. We're like Wake Forest's basketball team. We always give the other NCAA teams a few surprises, and they remember how much fun it is to play us, but at the end of the day Carolina is still the star.</p> <p> It goes like this (and it happens in every town): the best bands never leave their home base! The rule (exceptions are welcome!) is that a really spectacular band will arrive on the scene. People get the “WHOA!” factor, people come out. Touring bands on decent independent labels come through town and play with said band, they'll want the band to come play their town! Holy crap! Nothing could possibly suck, success is guaranteed! This is when the trap is sprung, and only the nimblest can avoid it.</p> <p> Our local heroes will do one of two things. They either do a minor tour or two and retreat to Greenville to lick their wounds (to the tune of big money per gig, but no valuable exposure on the national market) or never tour and eventually stagnate as the audience moves on. After all, there's always another Big Thing. Bands exist on a ruthless ladder, chasing the flightiest of creatures: fans. It's evolution, it's Darwinism. The next Big Thing could always come crawling out of the swamp, baby, and move in on your ecological niche.</p> <p> “What always disappoints me is that there's a school of music with, like, a thousand or two thousand kids that are studying music from people that are supposed to be the best in the world, it's been an accredited music school since the '60s, and there are no good bands around,” Richard said. “There should be a ton of good bands, you would think, there's all these people that know how to play music really well, and can play any instrument, and there's not more people that can put it together.”<br /></p><br />If that isn't a call to arms, I don't know what is.<br />Audiences and bands are passing like ships in the night. Tours are coming through, thousands of hip college cats are on campus. Why don't they know about each other? Why do underground crowds diminish while cover band crowds thrive? To be specific, where is the Peasant's crowd that would be so into what happens at 21 Eleven?<br /><br />“Maybe it's the way Peasant's marketed, or just because there were more hippies in town and hippies will do anything because they don't care because they're stoned and wandering around. Maybe that was it. Maybe they came and kind of countered the whole frat boy scene that was being established, obviously with Hootie and the Blowfish and Dave Matthews Band. The hippies came and were like, 'Nah, we don't like that,' so they kind of tried to stomp that out. Then, after that is where we are now and I don't really know what's after that,” Richard watched Charles Boulevard's evening crawl for a few minutes, squinting a little from the glare. This guy opened a small beer store and, in less than a year, has hosted as many touring acts per week as a proper venue. If not for the love of music, there would not be places like this.<br /><br />Richard connected his thoughts, smiled for a second, and continued. “Greg Allman is supposed to be one of the greatest guitarists of all time, some people say. We've gone from that, and I don't like Dave Matthews either, but he always had a lot of talented musicians around him in the early 90s. We went from music to punk shows where anything goes to artsy type things with electronics, fashion. Fashion's part of it.”<br /><br />The dystopic '80s gave way to the decade of hope, the '90s. The bridge to the twentieth century was almost built, almost complete, before it toppled. Now it's years past the y2k. January 1st, 2000 hit with a crushing defeat as none of our movies came true. We're past the future.<br /><br />What do we do now?<p style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-18206719306719380152008-04-15T00:09:00.001-04:002008-04-19T00:12:58.006-04:00The Overeducated Graduate's Guide to Incredible Beer<div style="text-align: center;"> *guest column by Hikaru Pontiac*<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left">Holy crap, it's graduation time! That sweet, sweet time of the year when thousands of twenty-somethings emerge from the egg cluster and migrate south through a mysterious process known to science as “ballooning.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> When you celebrate the metamorphosis, the emergence from your long larval state, be sure to do it with some higher class beer. Hint: don't buy any sixes with “light” or “ultra” in the name. Here are a few of my favorites.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b> Duck-Rabbit</b>: This is the most appropriate choice for your ECU graduation celebration, since it's brewed 15 minutes away in Farmville! Respect their high gravity selections, especially the barleywine. Many an unsuspecting drinker has been knocked on their ass by this deceptively smooth concoction. My pick? Their Duck-Rabbit Porter, and its big brother the Baltic Porter, are two of the finest porters to come out of North Carolina. How Ham's beats these guys in the best local beer poll, I have no clue.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128);"><u><a href="http://www.duckrabbitbrewery.com/">www.duckrabbitbrewery.com/</a></u></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <b>Great Divide</b>: Only recently has this stuff come east to Greenville! A spectacularly original brewery from Denver, Great Divide specializes in beer's evolution. I recommend their Denver Pale Ale. Like anything they brew, the DPA is not just a standard pale ale, but their improved version of the style.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> w<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128);"><u><a href="http://www.greatdivide.com/">ww.greatdivide.com</a></u></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <b>Flying Dog</b>: A favorite of the late Hunter S. Thompson with label art by Ralph Steadman! I can only echo their tag line... “Good beer, no s***.” My recommendation? Old Scratch Amber. Very appropriate for the vicious hot summers in ENC, since the artwork features a huge mosquito.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> w<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128);"><u><a href="http://www.flyingdogales.com/">ww.flyingdogales.com</a></u></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><b> Victory</b>: This is seriously strong stuff. Don't go for it unless you have the constitution of a mako shark, or you'll spend five solid weeks with a champion of a hangover. Their Hop Wallop, literally named, is a sadistically fantastic brew on par with skydiving in a severe thunderstorm. Golden Monkey is the penultimate celebration drink, and is definitely my recommendation from these guys. It's a kind and gentle golden beer, a sweet tasting Belgian with enough alcohol in it to make Andre the Giant see double.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 128);"><u><a href="http://www.victorybeer.com/">www.victorybeer.com</a></u></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> This is my graduation gift. ECU's Golden Ticket gets you a fighting chance at a sweet job. Good for you. My gift to you is the ticket to better beer. Good for you.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Party safely and, for Buddha's sake, don't drive! Nothing's dumber than a drunk at the wheel.</p> </div></div>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-70957150239080908092008-03-17T18:23:00.003-04:002008-03-17T18:26:56.277-04:00Lucky #520 (published in G-Vegas Magazine. March 15, 2008)<span style="font-style: italic;"> “The thing about music is that there's no rules, you can do anything.” A-sharp</span><br /><br />I have no idea how to start this, so I'm just going to start it. I've been through half a dozen failed shots at this story and I'm starting to think I left my brain in the 21 Eleven parking lot. My last few attempts were uselessly clever and collapsed under their own weight in the first 500 words, so I'm just going to say what I'm thinking.<br />I know a really nice guy who happens to be a really good rapper, and his name is A-sharp. You should listen to him. He's one of the founding members of 520 Entertainment, and he's just recently come out of hiding with an arsenal of fresh songs. He shows up with a bemused half smile and a CD full of beats. You don't know what to think of the good natured dude with the smartass glint in his eyes, until he picks up the microphone and opens his mouth.<br />“The thing about music is there's no rules, you can do anything,” A-sharp told me one night at my house. We were drinking ghetto blasters, listening to Deltron 3030, discussing the advantages of the Nintendo 64 over the PS2. A-sharp is very conscious of language. He's very careful with labels and names, he knows how easily music can get pigeonholed to death. From his beginnings as a blues guitarist to his current lyrical somersaults, it's been a long road to what he does now. A-sharp is to a point where his music is entertaining enough to make the booties shake, relevant enough to make the fists pump, and smart enough to make the brains grow.<br />Why did he disappear, though? Why haven't we heard from him in several years?<br />“ When we first started we performed a lot more. Me, Chris and Carl, it was just us three then. We performed at ECU talent shows and Dynasty and s*** like that. Then Chris moved to Atlanta. I kept performing. I performed all summer, back when Scores was still called Scores...Then, when Chris came back, we started recording. We didn't want to do shows because we didn't have a complete album to give away or sell, so it just seemed kind of pointless to be doing shows even though it wouldn't have been pointless, but we thought it would be at the time. We just got stuck in a rut of recording and recording and recording.”<br />It's tough to survive this scene without selling out or burning out. Downtown clubs change hands fast and often, but variety stagnates. The same tired cover acts shuffle members, jaded ex-rappers host atonal karaoke Tuesdays, and there's always the snide refusal of any booking agent who “knows how this town works, buddy, and can't help you out.”<br />Maybe A-sharp's years in hiding were to save his sanity. Getting off the ground is always tough, but the Greenville scene can be openly hostile to original music. This gets me down, but I hear only hope and optimism from A-sharp. He's been making connections at a lightning rate since his reappearance, specifically in the sensational Roanoke, Virginia, hip-hop scene (if you haven't heard, there's some serious music being made up there). His growing list of connections, coupled with a “divide and conquer” tour mentality make him (and the rest of the 520 crew) a force to be reckoned with.<br />“It's me, Chris, J-Burner, LC, my little brother (his rap name is Bones), and Haze. But yeah, it's six of us. That's why I was saying we could actually book up to three shows in the same day, because we could separate into two people groups. Right now Dan (Bones) is in Iraq, so it would be a little different, but we could still do two different shows,” A-sharp told me. “I want to focus on the east coast. We're doing s*** in NC, we're starting to spread into VA, I just want to do it like that. My friend went to Tennessee and she's going to try to get us some shows there.”<br />And what does 520 mean?<br />“Chris used to live at 520 Rustic Lane, in Belvoir, way out in the boondocks. That's where we used to write and record s***, and he didn't have any equipment like he does now. He just had a little $300 dollar Casio and the mixer was a grand, but that was about it. He made all the beats on a Casio. After a while he left, he moved to Atlanta...I had wanted to start an independent label while he was gone and I never thought of a name for it. When he came back he was like 'Why don't we just call it 520?'”<br />Behind A-sharp's, and all of 520's songs, are Chris's beats. Chris Knight and A-sharp started making music together in high school, right here in Greenville. 520 has come a long way. The Casio is long gone, replaced with proper beats that nod politely to modern influences while honoring their predecessors in the 90s. Chris raps too, taking the mic as often as any of the 520 crew.<br />Most impressive was the 520 set at the infamous/famous Turducken House's New Year's show. They went on early, not long after 10:00, to a packed house that knew <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> the words! I mean all the words, not just the choruses... Definitely check out the new stuff on his myspace (link at the end). I listened to it to keep my head straight while I wrote this, and it's pretty crucial. Especially “Flip It.” I can't get enough!<br />I'm going to totally switch gears now.<br />Rap is the new jazz. It's a purely American music style, and it evolves the same as jazz. The academics hijacked jazz, decrying any progress as sacrilege. Real music evolves on the streets and in dirty little house parties, in venues small enough to take risks. What do you think a speakeasy was?<br />Don't let the academics fool you, music is about evolution. Constant, relentless, often reckless evolution. Jazz was music by, and for, people with nothing to lose. Jazz was the cutting edge, but the academics got to it. Now it's wedding band music, true jazz was driven far underground. It's too edgy, it had to go semi-tonal to survive. Rock music speaks well, but it misses by miles on the improv front. When rockers go free form it's nightmarish... you end up with thirty minute Phish songs or worse. Jam bands are a blight on our fair planet.<br />Thus is jazz reborn in disguise. A real rapper, not just some Empty Vee loser flashing their pinkie ring, can freestyle like Dizzie Gillespie.<br />I've put it together, and I like it.<br />Myspace.com/adamsanturo is where A-sharp hangs his hat.<br />HawkSeason.Blogspot.com is a place you should never, never go.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-17655522295520915562008-02-15T00:26:00.010-05:002008-02-15T14:55:52.704-05:00MC Homeless and the Temple of Doom (Published Feb. 15, 2008, in G-Vegas Magazine)It's been the weirdest January on record... so warm, and it's gone by so fast. I think it's doing something to my poor brain chemistry, and I doubt I'm alone. An owl almost landed on me the other night during my walk... not kidding. I'm not down with all these omens. Next thing, someone's going to tell me the Spazz was built on an Algonquin burial ground.<br /> I think MC Homeless is with me on this. He's more of a Mayan doomsayer, but that's fine. He's just as optimistic as the other apocalypse-heads I know. I mean, he does tend to sound a little victorious when he says “2012 is not a random number.”<br /> I don't know what possessed me, maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was the brainfuzz that follows my favorite high gravity beer around, but I wanted to hear the Big Hate. Specifically: what grinds his gears? Mainly I got unprintable rants on foreign policy and addled recollections of questionable legality.<br /> “Anywhere that doesn't give me free beer for gracing their stage gets the Big Hate. Let's see... shady promoters get the Big Hate. As far as towns, though, I don't know. Every place I played on the last tour was cool,” said Homeless, whose birth name is unpronounceable by human tongue. He's been on the move for so many years now, living all over the place and touring relentlessly. He has to have played with some losers in that time... dig deeper.<br /> “Who stands out as bad? God, I've played with so many bad rappers it's not even funny. Tali Demon. She went on tour with the Insane Clown Posse, and she had a little juggalo following, that was definitely the worst show.”<br /> “What the hell's a juggalo?” I asked. I was convinced it was either something he'd made up or an obscure Australian marsupial.<br /> “It was a great show, they just sucked. A juggalo is, like, ICP's fans,” he clarified. I need to Wikipedia that word... I'm still convinced it's some kind of miniature kangaroo. “Their CD kept skipping and it was the show where we were opening up for the Coup, it was that one, where I almost fought. It was Tali Demon and her Two Loyal Servents, or something like that, and it was these two hillbilly rapper guys... but, to make a long story short, they tried to rush the stage and fight me.”<br /> “Her people?”<br /> “Yeah, and they got kicked out. Then they fought each other outside and got arrested.”<br /> “They got kicked out of their own show?”<br /> “They were one of the opening acts for the Coup. I don't know why they put them on, they were just horrible redneck rappers. ICP just attracts the scum of the earth. Anybody who still wears JNCO Jeans.”<br /> Homeless paused, smiling at something invisible for a second. “It's like the hip hop version of trailer metal. They're trailer hop. Really bad, bad news.”<br /> It was a really nice night, one of those nights where you can solve any problem with a minimum of effort. 27 degrees, feels like 19. Overnight low projected to be 9 degrees… sunny and 9 degrees. Cold enough to think. I felt like Batman, back in Gotham City after years of vacation.<br /> There are heroes of the national underground, too. I won’t call MC Homeless a hero, but he knows what he’s doing. Pretty much anyone can hop on Myspace, put up their band page, and book a national tour. There are benefits and detriments. I was talking to a friend the other night, and he was saying that MTV ruined the regional nature of music.<br /> I found myself arguing in defense of Myspace. It has, in the positive, brought a new relevance to the independent scene. Music needs to be approachable. Music needs to be made by real people, not celebrities. Maybe the fever has broken, maybe the curse of MTV has been lifted. Regional success exists! In the independent touring scene is a more complex and complete six degrees of separation than Kevin Bacon ever dreamed of. The giants of the scene come through every few months, but they lift us all to the rare heights. We're in the presence of greatness, but not in its shadow.<br /> Amen.<br /> Then, there’s the downside. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes the most innovative band, beyond what you could imagine, shows up out of the random and blows your mind. More often, though, you’ll dig through endless strata of imitators of the latest sonic fad… and they’ll catch on faster because they sound so familiar. Still, the control is being wrenched from the hands of the mega-conglomerate record labels. Why else would iTunes, which is quickly eclipsing CD shops in music purchases, sell self-released music? There's a demographic that loves the realness, the sounds that no producer has had a chance to ruin.<br /> Homeless and I were placing bets on the outcome to a fight to the death between Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus. His money was on Paris Hilton, but I was hoping for mutual annihilation. It's so punk rock, really, to make your own name in the music industry. When so many people buy their way in, or are born into it (through the strange crosseyed dynasty that gave us this Cyrus creature), it's so pure to make records and tours happen through hard work and intuition. Anyone can tour once... Homeless has done it three times a year for the past four years, and he doesn't even own a car. How does he do it?<br /> I'm not sure. He was babbling about something that really confused him in the brain. I didn't catch all of it.<br /> “...Sublime cover bands that travel the country and put out DVDs,” he was saying. “I was at Best Buy the other day and I saw that this band, I won't mention their name or anything, but they're this big Sublime cover band. They had a DVD out of a set they did, just covering Sublime songs.”<br /> We're through the looking glass, people. Scary stuff. Danger stuff. Strange stuff.<br /> But strange is good... and it's not hard to get to this conclusion. It's good to not fit in. Sometimes it's good to be the nerdy little metal-obsessed rapper who's drunk at his own show. Sometimes it's good to go broke and live on the road, year after year, building an underground power base and grabbing for a tiny little corner of immortality. It's good to be at least a little strange in a town where party hats serve as aggression amplifiers and most bartenders can read your thoughts.<br /> Save us from people who can't tell beatnik from gonzo. Save us from creativity cannibals. Send us an 120lb nerd rapper, wandering in among the roaring chainsaw drunks, speaking his own incoherence but doing it so well.<br /> He's at myspace.com/mchomeless<br /> I'm at hawkseason.blogspot.com and hawkseason@gmail.com<br /> Peace.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-63034142604383043132008-02-15T00:26:00.001-05:002008-02-15T00:28:09.857-05:00MC Homeless and the Temple of Doom<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> It's been the weirdest January on record... so warm, and it's gone by so fast. I think it's doing something to my poor brain chemistry, and I doubt I'm alone. An owl almost landed on me the other night during my walk... not kidding. I'm not down with all these omens. Next thing, someone's going to tell me the Spazz was built on an Algonquin burial ground.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I think MC Homeless is with me on this. He's more of a Mayan doomsayer, but that's fine. He's just as optimistic as the other apocalypse-heads I know. I mean, he does tend to sound a little victorious when he says “2012 is not a random number.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I don't know what possessed me, maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was the brainfuzz that follows my favorite high gravity beer around, but I wanted to hear the Big Hate. Specifically: what grinds his gears?<span style="color:#000000;"> Mainly I got unprintable rants on foreign policy and addled recollections of questionable legality.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “Anywhere that doesn't give me free beer for gracing their stage gets the Big Hate. Let's see... shady promoters get the Big Hate. As far as towns, though, I don't know. Every place I played on the last tour was cool,” said Homeless, whose birth name is unpronounceable by human tongue. He's been on the move for so many years now, living all over the place and touring relentlessly. He has to have played with some losers in that time... dig deeper.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “Who stands out as bad? God, I've played with so many bad rappers it's not even funny. Tali Demon. She went on tour with the Insane Clown Posse, and she had a little juggalo following, that was definitely the worst show.”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “What the hell's a juggalo?” I asked. I was convinced it was either something he'd made up or an obscure Australian marsupial.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “It was a great show, they just sucked. A juggalo is, like, ICP's fans,” he clarified. I need to Wikipedia that word... I'm still convinced it's some kind of miniature kangaroo. “Their CD kept skipping and it was the show where we were opening up for the Coup, it was that one, where I almost fought. It was Tali Demon and her Two Loyal Servents, or something like that, and it was these two hillbilly rapper guys... but, to make a long story short, they tried to rush the stage and fight me.”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “Her people?”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “Yeah, and they got kicked out. Then they fought each other outside and got arrested.”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “They got kicked out of their own show?”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “They were one of the opening acts for the Coup. I don't know why they put them on, they were just horrible redneck rappers. ICP just attracts the scum of the earth. Anybody who still wears JNCO Jeans.”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Homeless paused, smiling at something invisible for a second. “It's like the hip hop version of trailer metal. They're trailer hop. Really bad, bad news.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> It was a really nice night, one of those nights where you can solve any problem with a minimum of effort. 27 degrees, feels like 19. Overnight low projected to be 9 degrees… sunny and 9 degrees. Cold enough to think. I felt like Batman, back in Gotham City after years of vacation.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> There are heroes of the national underground, too. I won’t call MC Homeless a hero, but he knows what he’s doing. Pretty much anyone can hop on Myspace, put up their band page, and book a national tour. There are benefits and detriments. I was talking to a friend the other night, and he was saying that MTV ruined the regional nature of music.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I found myself arguing in defense of Myspace. It has, in the positive, brought a new relevance to the independent scene. Music needs to be approachable. Music needs to be made by real people, not celebrities. Maybe the fever has broken, maybe the curse of MTV has been lifted. Regional success exists! In the independent touring scene is a more complex and complete six degrees of separation than Kevin Bacon ever dreamed of. The giants of the scene come through every few months, but they lift us all to the rare heights. We're in the presence of greatness, but not in its shadow.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Amen.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Then, there’s the downside. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes the most innovative band, beyond what you could imagine, shows up out of the random and blows your mind. More often, though, you’ll dig through endless strata of imitators of the latest sonic fad… and they’ll catch on faster because they sound so familiar. Still, the control is being wrenched from the hands of the mega-conglomerate record labels. Why else would iTunes, which is quickly eclipsing CD shops in music purchases, sell self-released music? There's a demographic that loves the realness, the sounds that no producer has had a chance to ruin.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Homeless and I were placing bets on the outcome to a fight to the death between Paris Hilton and Miley Cyrus. His money was on Paris Hilton, but I was hoping for mutual annihilation. It's so punk rock, really, to make your own name in the music industry. When so many people buy their way in, or are born into it (through the strange crosseyed dynasty that gave us this Cyrus creature), it's so pure to make records and tours happen through hard work and intuition. Anyone can tour once... Homeless has done it three times a year for the past four years, and he doesn't even own a car. How does he do it?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I'm not sure. He was babbling about something that really confused him in the brain. I didn't catch all of it.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> “...Sublime cover bands that travel the country and put out DVDs,” he was saying. “I was at Best Buy the other day and I saw that this band, I won't mention their name or anything, but they're this big Sublime cover band. They had a DVD out of a set they did, just covering Sublime songs.”</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> We're through the looking glass, people. Scary stuff. Danger stuff. Strange stuff.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> But strange is good... and it's not hard to get to this conclusion. It's good to not fit in. Sometimes it's good to be the nerdy little metal-obsessed rapper who's drunk at his own show. Sometimes it's good to go broke and live on the road, year after year, building an underground power base and grabbing for a tiny little corner of immortality. It's good to be at least a little strange in a town where party hats serve as aggression amplifiers and most bartenders can read your thoughts.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color:#000000;"> Save us from people who can't tell beatnik from gonzo. Save us from creativity cannibals. Send us an 120lb nerd rapper, wandering in among the roaring chainsaw drunks, speaking his own i</span>ncoherence but doing it so well.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> He's at myspace.com/mchomeless</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I'm at hawkseason.blogspot.com and hawkseason@gmail.com</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Peace.</p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-56374327606646224102008-01-31T12:49:00.000-05:002008-01-31T12:53:49.392-05:00How to Not Get a Job (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Cave Bear)<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">I come to you now, hat in hands, offering a repeat entreaty. Do you seek employees? I seek employment. Maybe my people can talk to your people... </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> If you can use someone who knows music, then I can be of service to you. I know movies pretty well, but music is definitely my strength. I'm the worst kind of addict. I not only love and devour music, but I also make it. There's this never ending quest to surround myself with music in my life and work. Something about working in a place that sells CDs appeals to me, but I can't put my finger on exactly what.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> My flexible is schedule (?). As things stand, I have a full time job and am looking to scale back and rearrange it in favor of doing something new. Specifically, pushing pertinent music on an unsuspecting town (seditious!). See, I'm the last survivor of a strange breed: the compassionate music snob. I can turn people onto The Good Stuff without making them feel inferior. We were nearly hunted to extinction in the '80s, and if you're nice I'll tell you my secret identity.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> I've been told, when I've applied before, that you'll want to know my top five movies and albums. This is hard. I had the toughest time limiting to five (and couldn't always trim my list down), but here's what I came up with.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Sights:</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">City of God</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">City of God (again)</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Godzilla vs. Gigan</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">2001: A Space Odyssey/Dr Strangelove (tie)</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Sounds:</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Red Sparowes: Every Red Heart.../At the Soundless Dawn (tie)</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Tom Waits: Frank's Wild Years</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Pearl Jam: Yield</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Liars: Drum's Not Dead</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;">Gifts From Enola: Loyal Eyes Betrayed the Mind</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> I left out some choice music. Maserati, Explosions in the Sky, Sleater-Kinney, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Mogwai, Lake Trout, the Black Angels...</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style="font-size:85%;"> *** </span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> Anyway...</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> I'm reliable, honest, and hard working. I learn fast and can defy gravity at will. I invented the telephone, the fax machine, and the helicopter. These facts-or any others-can be confirmed or denied by _________, who knows me pretty well.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> So I can tell I need to close this bizarre diatribe before it collapses under its own weight. Please let me know if you can use me!</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><span style="font-size:85%;"> With clarity of intention of cleanliness of shirt...</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"><br /></p> -HSC. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-87741147585741050222008-01-11T21:19:00.000-05:002008-01-13T21:10:33.003-05:00Six Questions of Death: Jeff Blinder (published Feb '08, G-Vegas Magazine)<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> There’s a fresh buzz going around the national music scene, a buzz that you don’t hear much in Greenville. We’re the last to know, really, when something big breaks. People from the more cosmopolitan spots are quick to pick on us, the small towners.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.49in; margin-bottom: 0in;">But now there’s a paradox. The buzz is <i>about</i> Greenville, specifically, the Greenville underground. In the know, locally, are a few original bands (no cover acts!) and maybe two hundred music connoisseurs. In the know, nationally, are dozens of bands in varying stages of success who love Greenville.</p> <p style="text-indent: 0.49in; margin-bottom: 0in;">They love the Spazzatorium, they love 21 Eleven and Sociology. People who don’t even know that this is a college town (not making this up) will come back again and again to play the underground, will brave the mindkilling seventy minutes of 264, will knock out their alignment on 14<sup>th</sup> for the sake of a homemade stage and the most responsive audience in the state (probably).</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The Spazzatorium Galleria is exactly that... an art gallery. It’s not a bar or a club, and it’s run in a fan and musician-friendly way. No one will make a fortune playing there, but it’s more satisfying than blasting a tired old Eagles song over last call at some doomed bar.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Jeff Blinder knows very well that music is art of a most sacred form. He books the majority of the Spazz’s acts and, with the help of a cadre of trusted locals, keeps the Spazz alive. I talked to him at his house one balmy December day. Comedy was in the air as his roommates shouted absurdities up and down the stairs. Coolest thing ever… kind of like giving an interview in the middle of a Mel Brooks movie.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hawk Season: What is the coolest thing ever to happen onstage at the Spazz?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jeff Blinder: There's a band, Kiss Kiss, who were pretty rad. It was kind of a more popular band, but they really let loose, and they ended up breaking a guitar and a violin and a guy was swinging from the rafters. It was one of those bands where I really wasn't expecting it because they kind of were this indie band. I knew that their music got pretty hectic, but I didn't know that their actions could be like that. Afterwards they were telling me that it was a release for them because they had some touring problems and they usually don't get that crazy but at the Spazz they felt like they could let loose a little more and it ended up with them breaking some expensive equipment. They were okay with it. </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Who, or what, is your biggest inspiration in how the Spazz is run?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: New Jersey basement shows. That was my first foray into the do it yourself scene in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and seeing bands that I'd heard about from friends play these little basements...not like big venues where I used to go, and just seeing how they got it done. (I didn't like) not feeling like I was in an environment where I couldn't just relax. At a basement you can do that.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: People tell me the Spazz doesn't have enough money. How real is the danger?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: Being a donation only place, and not making any profits, it's month to month. We have had excess money in the past, but that has run out, so December's looking real tough because we don't have a lot of shows. Basically it's just a month to month endeavor. We can never be as comfortable as we want to be, but that kind of makes it exciting too, you know? Keeps you on your toes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Who would you book if you could book anyone?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: I would be booking the Avett Brothers, Valient Thorr. Then I'd be looking for some of the bigger acts, maybe the Mars Volta or something like that, but those would be shows that would kind of have to be secret...There's a lot of bands I missed out on, who were kind of under the radar and then they got on the radar...They were in that spot where they would be willing to come through and now they've got booking agents and it's hard to get bands when they have booking agents.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Like, which acts?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: Aids Wolf, that's one from Canada that I really liked and then they got a booking agent. Genghis Tron is even hard to get now, they've come through before.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: The Spazz wouldn't work in most towns. Why does it work in Greenville?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: I would say because it takes commitment from the people who are doing it, but also... I don't know. It really is an anomaly. As long as we can have music coming through and art and all that good stuff we'll do what we have to... even if we have to not do it there. There's a fight for survival, I guess. I don't know why it works, but I'll keep doing it as long as I can.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: The weirdest thing is the audience participation being so good and bands hear about it through the touring circuit.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: I just think it's, like I was saying, the comfort factor. It's not feeling like you're in an environment where you feel like you have to be kind of stressed out, kind of let loose. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's like a house show, but it's at the gallery. I go out of my way to make sure everyone's having a good time and that no one's excluded and say “hi” and “thanks for coming” and all that, so I think they see that we like what we're doing and that the bands like to come here. With those two factors I think it makes them more comfortable and the audience reacts by participating more.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: All right... your sixth question of death (and the most deadly question)... the Spazz is Han Solo. Who are the Ewoks?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: I don't know who it would be. They'd have to be cute but kind of annoying...Some of the regulars, but not the girls. I don't know, I don't want to call out names.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jeremy (a roommate -hs): I like to think of Jeff as Yoda.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: That's a good one.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JB: Donate, you will!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">***</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Go to myspace.com/spazzgallery. Check the schedule, yo. You might just find true love.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Anyway, until next month I’ll be drifting down the Tar in a tricked out rowboat and a Larry Bird jersey, drinking PBR tall boys and posting endearing gibberish at hawkseason.blogspot.com. Feel free, nay, encouraged to drop me a line. It's <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);"><u><a href="mailto:hawkseason@gmail.com">HawkSeason@gmail.com</a></u></span>, kids.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Put on that pimp hat, it's going to be a long night. Until then....</p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-40671939952816290282008-01-04T16:12:00.000-05:002008-01-05T11:33:38.239-05:00cocktail napkin scribble (observations on a loser)Fear drives the barhound...<br /><br />Staring at dozens of TVs @ 4:pm on a Friday, offering commentary to his sidekick. 45 & embarrassed, wearing the official mustache of 1985... He knows that he can get on the train w/ the future at any time but has convinced himself of the opposite 22 years ago. It's easier, somehow, living in constant defensive cockiness, pretense @ full strength.<br /><br />YES,<br /><br />MOTHER FUCKER,<br /><br />I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE & YOU WISH YOU COULD PARTY THIS HARD.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-33695186922933969152008-01-01T02:14:00.001-05:002008-01-01T02:31:59.872-05:00New Year's Revolution<span style="font-weight: bold;">return of the peroxide blonde*this town needs a shithead*abject terror and more abject terror*Hawk Season 2012: a president for all seasons.*this nation needs a shithead<br /><br /></span>I have to tell you a story before I can tell you what happened. Sit down.<br /><br />I've been up all night, racking my brain. I've been adrift all New Year's, wandering the usual spots with no luck. Turducken was doomed. Downtown was evil. Serpents and devils and shit buying drinks for other serpents and devils, the undead speaking in reverse tongues... working on their anagrams with renewed zeal.<br /><br />See, three years ago I escaped Paris Hilton Island with my life and my life only. I had been there seven months, an idiot trapped by the promise of reality tv-delivered riches. I had been scalded with burning oil and set out in a fire ant hill. They made me eat sewage in a stunning $4,000 outfit and I still DIDN'T FUCKING WIN.<br /><br />Since then, I've looked over my shoulder in dread that the Island Guard will find me and drag me back. Every time I hear a Justin Timberlake ringtone or a Honda Civic's glass pack I freeze and drop, paralyzed with fear.<br /><br />But now it's the New Year. Several have passed since my unlikely escape, but the fear has yet to fade. I can't help the feeling that they'll be muscling me back soon, my fingernails clawing the ground as they pulllllllllllllllll.<br /><br />So I've been drifting the defeated town, my face obfuscated with surrender paint, wondering if this will be the year we are all set free from Paris Hilton Island. The parties were death, the bars were vicious. I was surrounded by strange vampires, waiting to suck the fantasies out of my head and sell them to shitty authors. Panicked friends tried to fight, tried to stand beside me, but were all eventually thrown to the wolves. I wander this terrible town, mind clouded with bad thoughts, eyes clouded with the old year, begging the new one to come. Then, come the new one, I don't recognize it.<br /><br />It's a wolverine in the nursery, gray at the edges of my optimism. It's the sweet taste of napalm on toast, the breakfast of a day already in shambles. Will this year be better than the last? Really, every year we say "it should be," but are never given cause to consider anything a win.<br /><br />Next year I'm having a private New Year's. All my introspection this year took place in absolute crowd, and that just doesn't work. I hit all the wrong conclusions.<br /><br />What I do realize, though, is that the beginning and end of a year are absolutely relative.<br /><br />That said, I'm going to celebrate the Chinese New Year. By then I'll be ready.<br /><br />Peace.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-82887145073625664482007-12-30T23:34:00.000-05:002007-12-30T15:04:10.045-05:00Courtney Love for PresidentIt's the future, people, but don't be scared. It's what we always wanted.<br />*Megafast shit, like computers and McDonalds/Sheetz/Starbucks coffee that comes out exactly<br />like you dreamed it would taste.<br />*Laptops are shrinking. They're going to be the size of phones.<br />*The iPhone is growing. It's going to be the size of a laptop.<br /><br />All kinds of kooky shit. We're realizing what kind of sci-fi movie our future is based on and, unfortunately, we're not in Star Trek or The Fifth Element. It's more like Blade Runner over here... or the Running Man. Dystopic shit, like omnipotent predator cops and increased government surveillance Wiretaps, a heavily manipulated and spun holy war. Fifteen minutes of fame chopped down to fifteen seconds. The all star villains of dystopic film hopping out of our screens and into positions of power.<br /><br />Things are getting scary... as Hillary Clinton appears to be our last best hope for this election. We're doomed to another 12 year cycle, as Hunter S. Thompson so eloquently put it, of Republican presidents. It's like in the 90s, when Courtney Love won 15 minutes of dreary fame over Cobain's suicide. We felt our nihilism slipping away with disgust, we watched as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains slowly dwindled and split. Of the scene few survive now. Pearl Jam is the only surviving giant of that sweet, sweet movement... and they only survived because they evolved.<br /><br />E V O L U T I O N<br /><br />Now Bill Clinton, who I will argue was a damn fine president, is relegated to cheerleader status for his strange and smug wife, the Senator from "New York."<br /><br />She's as much a New Yorker as Bush is a Texan. Give me a fucking break.<br /><br />Anyone who has read their histories knows that political parties, like anything, have lifespans. The two dominant parties in our nation have outlived their usefulness. The Republicans (as we know them) are the ten thousand pound elephant in the room, with a smattering of nervous Democrats profusely apologizing to everything in sight. The Democrats know they're cornered and are screaming "uncle" as loudly as possible. They've been reading the Art of War, but they've been reading it upside down. The champions chosen from the ranks are the frailest soldiers, the pretenders.<br /><br />I don't know enough about Obama, but I do know that he's no Kucinich. Now THAT bastard has balls. He's doomed, though. The curse of Nader hangs on his soul, drawing somehow Perot level disrespect. He's the third-party Democrat, doomed in a football obsessed society.<br /> <br />What does football have to do with anything? Well, it's a contest for supremacy between two polarizing powers. The magical number two is entrenched, forever established, to where a third party candidate can only be fodder for late night TV jokes or accused of "losing the election" for down and outers on November 8th. This is a shame for Kucinich, because he's the purveyor of some damn fine ideas.<br /><br />He will fail. People like sitcoms and crime dramas, people like soap operas and the gibberish hysteria of reality TV. He's too damn smart. People get too envious when they see him. He's progressive, his wife is a hot redhead half his age. He's a non-traditional politician with a Jimmy Carter peace stripe five miles wide. People hate their betters and will not bring them to power, they will only bring the contemptible to power except in rare and freakish times.<br /><br />Wait, that doesn't gel either. These <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> rare and freakish times! The African subcontinent is eating itself alive like a boa constrictor on acid, World War 4 is building over in Pakistan (WW3 was Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, et cetera. Do the research, all the properties are present. -HS), our stores are full of poison (product recalls on toxic foods and toys), and our weather patterns have gone fuck crazy from global warming. I mean, holy shit, the tropics have <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a2AjfDdKQC1E&refer=us"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">moved</span></span></a>! This does not mean bikinis in December... this means drier weather. The big drought in NC is a sign of things to come.<br /><br />Is there some kind of James Bond villain at work... some weirdo with a metal skull living in a hollowed out volcano?<br /><br />No... there is not. This is the industrial revolution at work.<br /><br />R E V O L U T I O N<br /><br />Humans are an active species, so I won't go screaming the Big Hate right now. We interact with our environment, it's what we do. The trouble right now is that we're interacting globally and don't yet have a comprehensive understanding of our planet on that scale, or even what that scale <span style="font-style: italic;">means</span>. We're not going to stop using petroleum, we're not going to stop building condominiums twenty feet from the breakers.<br /><br />The worst that will happen is that we won't be able to live here. The planet will kick us out and make room for the next evolution. We're used to being here, we like it here, so we need to work on how to maintain our quality of life without causing further change to our preferred ecosphere.<br /><br />Keyword: change. Not damage, change. A warmer planet with different weather patterns will benefit certain forms of life.<br /><br />So that's it. It's very simple. We work out a way to maintain our rampant consumption of natural resources while being responsible tenants in our preferred ecosystem. You know, be the guy who never takes a beer from the fridge without putting one back.<br /><br />We're probably fucked.<br /><br />Apocalyptically yours...<br /><br />-HSC. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-25804954833880884772007-12-15T23:34:00.000-05:002007-12-29T00:54:39.329-05:00Six Questions of Death: Nat Turner & the Slave Rebellion (Published Dec '07, G-Vegas Magazine)November 3<sup>rd</sup> brought a massive event to Eastern North Carolina. A band of ingenuity, talent, and indescribable worth to the future of music descended upon an eager crowd. Eardrums were gleefully shattered, faces were rocked off, t-shirts were sold. There were some Fayattenamese who'd made the drive specifically to see the show singing themselves hoarse, pumping their fists like the inebriated pistons of a party bus. <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Psst... if you went to X-fest you missed this show.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I am speaking of the Protomen, Nashville's premier Mega Man rock opera. The Protomen are a nine-strong rock monster and, no, I am not making this up. Imagine Rush, with Geddy Lee's pterodactyl shriek replaced by a raw and cutting counter-tenor spanning at least four octaves, all in android costumes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> See, Protomen are just one example of the kind of talent and innovation that regularly slips through town under the mainstream radar. It happens in a nondescript storefront somewhere on Dickinson, in a little beer and wine store across from Sheetz, in the living room of a party house. It happens.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Caspian, one of the brightest rising stars in the post rock world, have been through twice. These Are Powers (apocalypse dance noise featuring ex-members of Liars), the Silent Years (who received a rad shout out from Spin!), ex-members of the Dead Milkmen... really, I could go on. MC Homeless relocated here from Ohio almost a year ago. He's opened for the Coup and once chased MudVayne out of a Burger King in Maine, but you can find him in 21 Eleven most days with his feet on the couch. The Kickass had one of their first shows in a long time at the Spazz, and Future Islands play local showspaces when they come around, since the folding of the Red Rooster effectively closed downtown to nontraditional music.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> I don't mean to idealize, not every band is gold... but every band is real. If you want to be on the frontlines, then get yourself out to an independent show. Do some research, go listen to the bands. There are so many shows to choose from, it's hard to not find something you love. Be scientists. Check out the listings on these links.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> myspace.com/spazzgallery</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> myspace.com/21eleven</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Our underground spaces are why Greenville is a bigger NC tour destination for independent bands than Asheville... that's right, Asheville! The state's big art town! The place where you can't throw a rock without giving a multi-instrumentalist a concussion! </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Anyway... enough blather.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> The members of Nat Turner and the Slave Rebellion were kind enough to meet me on an offshore oil rig to protect my identity. Nat Turner, who have been playing around town since early summer, bring an uncommon amount of energy to the stage along with an activist fire that's pretty rare these days.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">(full interview below... as promised)</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Hawk Season: Describe a post-apocalyptic society influenced by your music.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Victor Herazo: Wow</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Good answer.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Chipp Weatherly: If society was influenced by our music, hopefully we would avoid the post-apocalyptic world in the first place.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: That's good.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jason Luther: I suppose a society influenced by our music – by the message we're trying to get across – if our music was introduced into a post-apocalyptic world I suppose it would work a little bit better because, like, we stand for the fight for freedom and against injustice, so if you could have that whole “hey, there's this big government or, you know, military force leading the way against a rebellion” and I feel like our music would be good for that. Like the theme music in a movie.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: It's interesting that you would pick that question because the first song we ever wrote was about a post-apocalyptic world. “Manmade Wasteland.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: I think there would still be battles with giant robots, except for everything would be equal. There'd be freedom, but there would still be giant robots.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Everybody would be giant robots... with light sabers.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: What's the hardest thing about being a newish band?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JW: Getting out of your town, because everybody wants to know, like, if you have fans in that city. And it's like, “Well, not yet, but we will once you sign us into your venue.” We got that from the Luna Bean, the guy wanted us to send him a demo CD, and he's like “How many fans do you guys have in Wilson?” and I was like “None... yet.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: I think the hardest thing is getting yourself out there, getting people to show up to shows, because at first they don't know who you are.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Heinrich Arnold: And then, likely, the majority of the town will like bad music anyways, so they won't come to support the underground music scene.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Everyone loves bad music, except for us. We rock... don't put that in there.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Are kids still being expelled for wearing your shirts to city schools?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: I think after the first one they kind of got the hint to stop wearing the shirts.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: It's a very interesting subject, it's kind of weird, the information came from a third party thing. It was like, my college professor heard it from one of his other students whose friend was involved with it, so I don't know exactly what happened. All I know is that I was told that somebody was expelled and that my roommate's brother was actually written up for wearing our t-shirt.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: One thing that should be stated, is that the way we view the name, and the t-shirt, and everything like that, you know, everything we stand for, it should not cause any discrepancies or whatever. I think a lot of times people see the word “slave” and get immediately offended.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: People like to get offended.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Well, they need something to do, right?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: It's just that, it's like Chipp said, people don't take the time to read through it, think about it, like, “Hey, who is Nat Turner? Why is Abe Lincoln on this t-shirt?” Maybe you should look at the rebellion next to the word “slave.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Who would play each of you in a film?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: If Bruce Lee were still alive...</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Well, me and Jason both do acting, so...</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: If Bruce Lee were still alive, yeah. But otherwise, Jackie Chan... or Mr. Bean? How about Mr. Bean? Okay. Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean would be mine.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: I think everybody should have to pick everybody else's. Like, you can't pick for yourself, you'd be like “I like this actor, he's hot... I'm hot, so...”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HA: Hmm... Jessica Alba for me.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Do you have the lips for it?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: What kind of film are we talking here?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: I guess post-apocalyptic.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Saving the world!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: I think, what about Chipp? Let's start with Chipp. Who does Chipp remind you of?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Stephen Hawking.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Heinrich would definitely be Steven Seagal.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: His hair!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Make an expression like everything we're saying is stupid.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Okay, Steven Seagal, it's decided.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: So we're decided for you, wait, did we ever decide on Chipp?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: No, we didn't.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: I don't know why this is all so difficult... it's because Chipp's so goshdarn unique.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Johnny Depp comes to mind, just because he's got that soul patch and similar hair.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Dude, nobody's going to watch my movie and go “WHOA JOHNNY DEPP WOW!”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Dude, it's decided. It's Johnny Depp.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: No. Johnny Depp is such a good actor, but I get so tired of the way people act about him.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: He does too, though. That's why he's cool.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Hugo Chavez.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Chico Chavez?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Hugo. Isn't he an actor?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: He's the president of a country.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL:He's a president?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: He's in his 50s.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Yeah. Let's not go with Hugo Chavez.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: What was that dude, from that movie, “the Mexican” or something?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: That's Johnny Depp.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: No, man.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Oh! Antonio Banderas!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Yes!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Okay, we've got Antonio Banderas.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Or Enrique Iglesias. (about Jason) No, no the guy, the guy that punches everybody, the drunk Irish dude, I think.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: What drunk Irish dude?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Sean Connery?<br />CW: Russell Crowe? Russell Crowe! Yes!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: If you could open for any band or musician, alive or dead, who would it be?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Bruce Lee.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: He just goes up on stage and kicks people.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Exactly, that's a show in itself.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Thirty minutes of entertainment.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Dude, were you at the show last night where Bruce Lee kicked a bunch of people to death?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: He would just be screaming notes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Jimi Hendrix. I dig Jimi Hendrix' style a lot, I would love to open for Jimi Hendrix, or Led Zeppelin.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: What a stereotypical answer.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Dude, you can't help that those are my favorite bands. Well, then, who would you pick, Chipp?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: We can't say Motorhed, because we play one of their songs. Bach.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: He was a musician.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: I like Bach.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Have you ever heard Back's organ fugue? Dude, it's insane, man!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Oh, he's crazy. So, we have Bach and Hendrix?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Bach, Hendrix, and Turbonegro.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Wait, who decided on Turbonegro?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Chipp.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: No I didn't.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: He decided on Bach!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Oh, shit, then screw Turbonegro.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: So the answer is... either Bach or Hendrix, screw Turbonegro?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Turbonegro's great.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Jason, you pick one now.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: I picked Hendrix, man.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Okay, fine, two Hendrix. Who do you pick, Yngwie?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HA: I don't know.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Do you want to put the default Dragonforce?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Everybody's like “You guys could open for their Guitar Hero song!”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HA: Who did 'Yes We Can?”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Oh, god, Made in Mexico?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HA: Have you ever heard that song?</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: No.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HA: It's so dumb. (plays guitar riff) That's basically what it is.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: It's completely out of tune.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Heinrich: do you have a choice by any chance?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HA: I'll just go with Paganini if he's going with Bach.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: That's fair.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: No, actually, I would change mine to Deep Purple and not Bach, honestly I think it would be Deep Purple.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Deep Purple would be cool.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Yeah, that's a good choice.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: That's my serious answer. Deep Purple is amazing and they have influenced me so much. I love Ritchie Blackmore. Amazing guitar player.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Let's get a slew. Deep Purple, Hendrix, Bach, Paganini.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Okay!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: ...and Nat Turner and the Slave Rebellion!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: That would be an awesome show.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Question number six of your Six Questions of Death is... how bright is the future?</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Whose?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: It's a pretty general pronoun.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: Good music's coming back.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: I think music's coming back. It's less about the image now and it's getting more about the roots of good, solid, fist-pumping excellence.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Not necessarily on the radio, but, it's got to come from somewhere.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: It starts in the underground and it makes its way up to the top.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: In the world, there's a lot of things in the world that are going in bad directions right now, but at the same time people definitely have the ability to change that.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: So, what do you think? Is it going to work out or not?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: The future for this, our society, is looking kind of iffy right now.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: I personally believe that we're in a transition period.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Musically, it's good.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: It's like the fall of Rome.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: It sounds really weird when you just say it, I've read a couple of books on it actually, and our society is going exactly the same way as they did. It's a huge parallel. A lot of people are saying that, because we're becoming so obsessed with convenience and niceties and everything that we're going to eventually... everyone's going to turn towards that. The things that are important are going to get harder and harder to find. It's really interesting.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: Convenience is ruining a lot of society, like, you get more convenient robots to build your product because people make mistakes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: They won't rebel.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: It means they lose jobs because. It's getting harder to find people, I won't say harder because some people get forced into blue collar jobs, but... it used to be, like, you grew up to be a farmer. Not necessarily you wanted to, but at least you worked. Nowadays people just keep getting off the farm. Farming's going down, city life's going up, we're just going to be one big... what's that planet called?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Uh, from...</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: You know what I'm talking about. Coruscant.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: It's actually based on Trantor from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Oh! I know that! I know that!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: You've read Foundation?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: I've read it.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Awesome. Awesome. (high fiving)</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Trantor.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: You've read it?</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: A lot of Star Wars is based on the Foundation series. A lot of sci-fi, too.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Isaac Asimov <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> science fiction.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HS: Yeah, he really is.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">VH: HG Wells!</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">CW: Everybody who saw the I, Robot movie but didn't read the book? Go read the book.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">JL: But, Will Smith...</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">***<br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"> Nat Turner & the Slave Rebellion can be found online at myspace.com/natturnerx. I'll be back next month, deity willing. Stay rad.</p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-19421882661934314052007-12-03T23:33:00.000-05:002007-12-10T01:05:54.045-05:00Fear of a Peroxide Blonde<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Later on that same day, I dropped in on my assistant who was supposedly drafting a new town charter for some obscure village closer to the ocean... fully absent of consent from said town. He was pumping the initial paragraphs full of strange anarchist drivel and belligerence about the entrenchment clause. I was shouting over the Sonic Youth ripoff band that was practicing next door, trying to get the Danger out of my system. A strange and terrible blonde cadaver hovered, following him everywhere and asking me idiotic questions.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Off the top of my head, I think the moon has ¼ of Earth's gravity. Leave me alone.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">My assistant whispered with urgency for me not to leave him alone. “I think she's going to drug me and harvest my organs to replace her failing ones! I think she's a salt vampire! I think she's a fucking werebadger!”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I escaped. I could see the terror, the consuming fear of destruction. There was nothing I could do. Mulder might believe the story, but not Scully, and I can't imagine talking them down to Greenville. I'm sure they can smell the alcohol fumes all the way up in DC.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">People are getting bitten by the undead that are coming to power through the underground, and it evils up the air. The Deranged are rising to power, and their evil scheme is to put the entire city on a turntable and play it backwards. They're convinced that there's a Satanic verse if you play the whole town in reverse. Welcome signs on back roads have been ripped out by an unholy force, replaced with tin sheets. “Ellivneerg” is scrawled in some kind of farm animal blood, most likely goat's blood. Wild eyed idiots sit outside of Sheetz, analyzing cloud patterns for Satan's face and working out anagrams for Greenville that make full use of the word “evil.” Once bitten, you are lost to the cause. You stagger down the middle of tenth street without regard for the speeding Jeeps. You gorge yourself on dead pigeons and McDonalds' bags. You are possessed with a strange immunity, one that prevents bars from ejecting you. Once bitten you can make an absolute beer menace of yourself without fear of reprisal. Swarms of these ghoulish jackasses can be seen throwing shoes at their terrified waitresses, howling for more beer as they work on their anagrams. No solution yet, nothing that satisfactorily incorporates “evil,” but research goes on tirelessly.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So far, the most common anagrams for Greenville are “Eleven Girl” and “I'll Revenge.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Underground shows are becoming cathedrals of danger, as the wildest and most unhinged of the Deranged go there to purge. It starts innocently enough, with one lunatic braying along to the guitar and knocking over mic stands, but generally by the end of the night there are people who would otherwise be normal tearing PBR cans in half with their teeth. The Deranged are biting and infecting the populace at a terrible and epidemic rate. The danger is real and we have no Batman to save us.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">I fled the peroxide demon that would be consuming my poor assistant, only to find myself in greater danger. Demon death horrible hounds wandered the streets, wrecking mailboxes and throwing pitchforks through screened doors, howling in the shadow of Steel Reserve. This is what I come to expect, since the door of the mental institution came off its hinges a few weeks ago. I tried to do like in the movie... I tried to walk like a zombie... but they could tell.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">They can always tell.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">It was ugly, some of my hair was torn out, and it ended in my flight back to my assistant's door. “You have to let me in!” I pleaded, “These deranged fuckpistols have tasted blood!”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The strange and terrible blonde emerged, following a thrown brick, gibbering and spinning her head all the way around. I lived only by virtue of quick thinking... I took off my jacket and threw it as far as I could. She charged after it, the human scent distracting her long enough for me to escape. My assistant's huge desk made a prime barricade. I collapsed, my back against it, laughing maniacally. “It isn't the apocalypse,” I said to myself, “but it sure feels like it.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">There was a small sound in the closet, and I knew Fear for a second. The door swung slowly open and my assistant emerged. “Is she gone? Is she really gone?” he asked in a tiny voice. I nodded, sighing in relief. On this particular day in Greenville he was the only non-beast I could find. Everyone else I could trust had fled town for the weekend, or, “until this whole thing blows over.”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“She's a fucking salt vampire!” he wailed. “I don't know how I convinced her, but I played dead and she eventually got the Big Hunger and had to go feed.” A scream sounded somewhere outside and I shuddered. “You know they can unhinge every joint in their body? While I was playing dead she climbed the wall in this bizarre arachnid fashion and started gnawing on the blades of the ceiling fan. Creepiest shit I ever saw.” He had scratches on the back of his neck and his feet were crammed painfully into the wrong shoes.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br /></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">“All she left was this piece of paper,” he showed me a horribly crumpled and dirty sheet of paper. “They're getting closer and closer to their goal. Regardless, half of these aren't even words... Le Evil Green, Evil Gel Nere, Evil Gree Len, Ren Glee Evil, Evil Glen Ere... it just goes on and on!”</p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-8287386076228414252007-12-02T14:50:00.000-05:002007-12-02T15:32:14.287-05:00Sunset Over Death Mountain (further insomniac tales from the brain farm)The biggest problem with being a Doomed generation is that there's never any payoff. We're all doomed... every few generations... but are denied the release of actual destruction. It would just be total glee, the idiot pride of being the generation that gets to see the end of the world and scream "I TOLD YOU SO!" in the last seconds before the planet gets sucked into a huge black hole or pummeled by meteors or consumed in the firestorm of our own exploding sun or even snatched up by angels while God kicks the asses of the unbelievers.<br /><br />Let me reiterate something I didn't make clear enough in that last passage, yet meant to. ALMOST EVERY GENERATION IS A DOOMED GENERATION. WE'RE NOT THAT SPECIAL. QUIT WHINING.<br /><br />It's perennial blueballs. It's all the giddy joy of Doom without the snide self-gratification that comes with pure, unadulterated, destruction. Everyone has this in them, it's what drives wars and suicide cults and bad movies. 2012 is the latest end of the world, but so was Y2K (remember that shit? It was only seven years ago!) and so was World War Two and so was 1900 and so was the war of 1812 and to the Native Americans the end of the world has already come and gone.<br /><br />This has everything to do with everything. Apocalypticism drives so many people. It ties into this whole "peace on earth" myth. By pure physics, there can never be a such thing as an "end" to the universe. Entropy (bastardized as the definition of destruction, as that is its primary property) guarantees that nothing is ever truly destroyed. Matter can only recombine. All things break down, but this breaking down (under the native forces of the universe, Jack) creates strange and new chemical bonds. Each generation of stars is more complex than the last, due to the extreme stresses caused by the basic forces' reaction to extremes of gravity. See, gravity is an expression of mass and mass is immutable. It's pure and beautiful. Nothing is ever truly destroyed.<br /><br />Only doomed, and doom is a concept for brains. Gravity never counted on accidents of the mind. One of National Geographic's best taglines: "The Mind is What the Brain Does."<br /><br />***<br /><br />Disorganization, an essential ingredient to the entropy process, leads back to organization through the recombination of the elements involved. Now, let's work through this. Organization (which, for the sake of this example, we will use as a starting point) fosters breakdown. Any system, like the weather, seeks the impossible (homeostasis, to be anthropomorphic). Homeostasis is death and is only death. It is, in an organism, a point of perfection in which all systems are totally equalized. This, of course, precludes hunger or any variety of desire. It also is impossible for any living being to achieve.<br /><br />Such is our example, the weather. "Calm" is what happens when one is within the influence of any individual pressure system. No two systems ever have identical pressure, therefore they will force each other around. Thus are created blizzards, tropical weather, downdrafts and tornadoes, drought. These are perceived by the sentient to be "destructive," as the power goes out and things die and water is either in excess or absence. However, weather that is perceived as "pleasant" (a.k.a. calm) will follow any of these phenomena. The release of pressure (a.k.a. destruction), which is endemic to any active system, is followed by a period of renewed growth. It's the same with fire, tectonic activity, stellar collapse, and our own system of organs.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Now, take the concepts of Doom, our pseudo-erotic fascination with the end times, and concepts of entropy and apply them to the local music scene.<br /><br />You'll thank me when you're older.<br /><br />-HSC. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-3622150109130064722007-11-28T20:28:00.000-05:002007-11-28T20:36:34.433-05:00After dinner Q&A with the Road Troll<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Winter is soon upon us, in its unique Eastern NC kind of way, which means it's going to be fucking damp and vaguely cool until February. In February it will get evil cold for maybe three weeks, and then flop around between extremes of temperature like an epileptic mudskipper.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> There's evil blood in the water, and it's always gone by New Years' Day, it's just that surviving December is more of a challenge every year. The Christmas Beast has descended from the hills, reversing peoples' minds, causing their eyes to roll back in their head as they scream shit that sounds something like “S'lhok ta elas gnivigsknaht refta yad eht ta nam a dellik I!”</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Disturbing reports on the street of peaceniks roaming around with heavy sports equipment, bashing each other outside of avant-garde art shows. Disturbing reports of cops found weeping by their cars, their uniforms stained and rank. Disturbing reports of anarchy on the highways, middle aged men hanging out of their car windows cackling wildly. Animals of all kinds have been seen leaving town in twos, mating all the way.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> Don't worry, though. It's not the end of the world. It's just the end of the year... this is the terrible and evil buildup to my favorite holiday. Every time I survive December I sigh the world's hugest sigh. I drink White Russians in the yard, shooting my revolver with glee at passing trains.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> I've lived lots of places, and New Years' is always magic. I don't know what it is, but I feel like the whole planet has been given temporary reprieve. Deity smiling its huge smile, lips and gums and teeth the distance from Beijing to Tuscaloosa. Deity says to its friends, “Well, they've fucked up every other year. Maybe if we give them a blank slate they'll do it right this year.” Glasses come together and clink.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> So we get our New Years'. The baseball bats and kitchen knives and golf clubs fall to the ground in a group hug the size of Texas. For one night, all teeth are platinum bling, and something big and carnivorous smiles in the corner.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="left"> I love winter, but goddammit it's evil here. </p>C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-47088573017077358552007-11-24T13:16:00.001-05:002007-11-24T13:30:54.132-05:00Drunk by noon.Book One: Typing With My Gloves On.<br /><br /> SO TI was fivce or six yheqare sqago thqat i polayed teisw funny oiuettloe gqame with my friend Jadve;l hE ASDKED ME IF IOE HQAEGVER TUPED WITH GOLOVES ONL I havnt so we trieed it qansd it waq hiolasirouyl. E WERE TAQLKED IONO aim.L THOIS WQAW BNACK WJHEN AOL INSTQAND MESSENGER WAS TYHE BIG HIWST. Evertyong we h0p waqs everuyo0ne waqs on tjhaty wshit. Nowqadays its all myspace and gfabevcbook., ANYWAYK, WRE WERE YHONG AND IRT WAS REALLY FUNBy.<br /><br /> Book Two: Fire and Brimstone.<br /><br /> So I tried a new thing and, no, it wasn't typing with my gloves on. I hope you enjoyed that. It came across as a bit idiotic and totally illegible. Really, try it sometime. I want some of <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> to leave comments to my blog, but only if you type with winter gloves on. That shit is hard.<br /> So it's the last ECU home game and I did a thing I've never done, I went tailgating. It's 1:20 pm and I can't actually feel my face. I got drunk in a parking lot while frat types threw footballs at me... eating hamburgers and throwing shit into the road. I know this is the Greenville experience, but it's so often that I'm hiding in a book or watching some bizarre old sci-fi film instead of diving headfirst into the People.<br /> Really, I don't know how the fundamentalists do it. They listen to crappy music, they don't drink, the don't smoke, they don't even stay up late. Really, some of the coolest shit in the world happens at 2:43am.<br /> If I'm to believe that we're punished for drinking alcohol, then doesn't that cover drinking at 10:00am? Really, I'm fucked if this is the case. There is a simple, yet pure, glory to staggering down the street in the blaring sunlight. You make your own music at that point, you get songs stuck in your head you haven't heard since 1995, you make illogically beautiful analogies.<br /> I don't know where I'm going with this. Cheers.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-23451483863441267492007-10-28T13:39:00.000-04:002007-11-27T20:35:44.734-05:00Street Corner Gibberish. October 12th, 2am (or: the New Shit)<blockquote>I'm sorry, but we're going to have to cancel the show. Now... <span style="font-style: italic;">I </span>liked your set, but The Owner was kind of put off by the fact that you only played for an hour. Don't get me wrong, <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> dug it, but The Owner wants to get a full night's worth of music. Learn a few covers, you know, just 10 or so covers, and we'll talk. Now, you can always play another Tuesday night for free and we'll see how this goes. It really left a bad taste in our mouths. Don't get me wrong, I like originals, I love music, that's why I opened this place, but The Owner says that covers bring people in the door. Cover songs keep this place open. Now, <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> like music, and I opened this place so that (<span style="font-style: italic;">your town here</span>) would have a good venue, but I also have to pay the bills. Besides, The Owner really is the final say, so <span style="font-style: italic;">I'm</span> not trying to be a dick here. I'm just a pawn, man... you know?<br /><br /></blockquote>Yes, I know. I think I get it better than you do and, no, we don't want to play your shitty little hick bar again. Oh, and that disassociative Owner/Subordinate mumbo jumbo is transparent like glass. It doesn't take a middle school dropout to "dig" the real "gist," "man." Transparent, dude. Transparent, man. You and your buddy bought in, you saw this folded club and bought it. You changed a light fixture or two and called it the New Shit. You told your friends, your bar skanks, your illegitimate children, that you would be opening the only "decent" club in town, the only place to see a "real band." You would know, as you have a vague understanding of the music industry and occasionally watch a Behind the Music on VH1. Don't lie, man, you can save a sinking music industry. You own an Epiphone Les Paul and a Crate Half Stack, you and Jerry and Steve and Randall used to be in a ripping band back in the 80s. Shit, man, you played <span style="font-style: italic;">EVERYTHING</span>. Twisted Sister, Firehouse, Thin Lizzie. You used to rip all over Deep Purple. You still have that Metallica shirt, you're going to break it out... beer stains and all! Now you have the power and the will, man! You have a fucking <span style="font-style: italic;">club</span>, man! That same band it out there now, covering Nickelback and Staind and dying... <span style="font-style: italic;">dying</span>... to be discovered! Shit, if they could just write three or four originals they'd be huge, man! They've proven their worth to the world, they can play those trite radio hits without even trying... and did you <span style="font-style: italic;">see</span> those drunk sorority girls making out to "Hotel California?" This was the best idea we ever had. Let's have another Busch Light and yell for "Free Bird" because, unlike that uppity little band that played a short set of their own songs ("What the fuck? When was that?" "Don't worry about it, no one came out."), these guys will actually play it! Oo-hoo! Can you believe it! They've been playing for THREE FUCKING HOURS and show no signs of quitting! What a blistering rendition of that God Smack song that was so big three years ago... or was that Alice in Chains? No, they just said it's an original. FUCK! THESE GUYS ARE SO GOOD! They can write their own songs (unlike that pesky original band) and I can sing along with them because they sound so familiar! Let's book these guys every Saturday of the fucking year. Let's give these guys a $500 guarantee just to plug in. Goddamn, this is so much safer than running a risk or two. Never mind the talk of house shows and underground forces of nature, threatening the very fabric of our sterile and predictable downtown scene. This is (<span style="font-style: italic;">your town here</span>), not (<span style="font-style: italic;">some larger or supposedly "more hip" town here</span>)!<br /><br />***<br /><br />I hope you know you sold your soul to a monster. I hope you go home and listen to Real Music and feel the cold pain of a darkened universe, knowing that you could never pull from the aether such beauty. I hope you meet an underground musician someday, shit broke but with a fulfilled soul, and wonder where you went wrong to deny yourself such pureness. Broke, but free. The cliche and bumper sticker say "independents do it without chains."<br /><br />You really did, you sold your soul to a monster... and for what? You didn't quit your landscaping job or your electrician job or your job as a cable guy or whatever the fuck you do. This place will fold in six months, returning to the festering bog of which lousy venues are born. Now here you are, telling lies to a struggling musician who may or may not be more talented than you for the simple fact that he has the cajones to write his own music.<br /><br />It's not about skill. It's about being in the Phylum Chordata. Someday you might join us.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-17948255653945185962007-09-30T11:08:00.000-04:002007-10-02T01:04:42.446-04:00Salvation by Lunacy (or: Revenge of the Instrumetal Divebombers)It was 1:00 in the afternoon when I realized I was the only person in Jacksonville dressed like a rock musician. Jarheads were giving my bumper stickers murderous looks at stoplights before rocketing away in their Iroc-Zs. People were blasting squirrels with high powered rifles in the parking lot of the Arby's on Lejeune Boulevard and my loyal assistant was in South Dakota, picking through a junkyard.<br /><br />It hadn't always been like this. I watched constantly over my shoulder as I nursed my semi-warm domestic beer. These guys are three times my size, I could be taken apart like they regularly dismember their dates and wives. It was Custer's last stand in reverse, and I was trying my hardest to get back to my lodge.<br /><br />A few nights prior I had seen Irata and The Bronzed Chorus up in Greensboro. They were to be joined by Talons, who are like Pelican with a good drummer, but it was not to be so. The audience was a bizarre mix of music and art nerds and pregnant homeless women smoking cigarettes. Irata blasted the walls of the building apart. The Bronzed Chorus leveled everything on the block. It was so much like the episode of the Simpsons where U2 plays on top of the Springfield wall. It would have been too much if it had been anything but music, but I relished in it and felt my tinnitus worsen.<br /><br />I was playing the Bronzed Chorus's CD in traffic, my windows open and my sunglasses barely keeping blindness away. The sun is closer to Jacksonville than any other part of the state save Fayettenam. So far, neither have been burned away, but not for lack of trying. "People are staring!" had hissed my assistant, minutes before being whisked away by private helicopter. I don't know how he hires these fucking things.<br /><br />But people were staring, and he was in the shadow of the Black Hills searching for a 1992 Chevy Cavalier (powder blue) that had been buried, some say, under tons of Ford trucks and wrecked Hondas with Montezuma's gold hidden where the engine block should have been. I'd be getting a call on my cel phone when, and if, he found it.<br /><br />I was playing with the cracked parts of a broken iPod I'd found outside this shit bar, behaviour like a wildebeest among Nile River crocs. No eye contact, just get through the water. My destination was still Wilmington, my goal was to crash the set of the first movie or TV show I came across. I had a cooler full of PBR tall boys, a 1996 Dodge Caravan retrofitted for silent running, and a foot locker full of paintball guns. I had come to Jacksonville to recruit soldiers, people to man the cannons in my Dodge War Machine, but ended up way over my head. My undersized shirt and sissied up tattoos made me stand out worse than a dreadlocked hippie at an ROTC rally. I was humming a Preacher's Gun song to myself when my phone rang. I stepped out to back door, setting off all number of alarms and abandoning my tab, and hit the talk button.<br /><br />"I found the car," said my assistant, out of breath. I could hear the barking of large dogs, "But it's not a chunk of gold under the hood. Just a dinged up old engine. Somebody left a Harmony acoustic guitar with a broken neck in the back seat, though."<br /><br />"Listen," I said, "I need you to get back here before I get rammed through a wall by one of these Neandertals. They've already slashed all four tires on the War Machine and I want to still be alive when Pinback comes to the Cat's Cradle."<br /><br />"Use the War Machine's self destruct," said my assistant. "Anyway, man, I'm on a chartered flight back to the state. I'll be touching down in Wilkesboro at 3am. Can you come and get me?"<br /><br />"What in?" I shrieked. I could already hear the bar's patrons, getting louder and louder, having realized that the strange little guy who had set off their emergency exit alarm had walked on his tab.<br /><br />"Whatever. I know you'll figure something out," and he hung up.<br /><br />I knew what to do. I took out my keys and pressed the Fear button, which I had wired myself between the Panic button and the Lock/Unlock button. The War Machine exploded, spraying an entire parking lot full of 23 year old soldier types with orange paint.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-49675455140324530452007-09-27T19:39:00.000-04:002007-09-27T19:50:45.760-04:00the Parable of the Moron in the Michael Vick JerseyThe moron is proud.<br /><br />The moron parades up and down sidestreets in Charlotte in a Michael Vick jersey.<br /><br />The moron argues with his friend on the shitty side of Durham in a Michael Vick jersey.<br /><br />The moron checks his email in a computer lab at ECU in a Michael Vick jersey.<br /><br />The moron is proud, the moron thinks he has achieved something.<br /><br />Another moron, passing nearby, shakes her head at the obvious buffoonery of someone who would casually walk around in a Michael Vick jersey. Occasional famous morons defend Vick's sick actions, citing their bullheaded beliefs that dogfighting is "a sport" or "cultural" or "not that different from hunting." This is wrong, wrong, wrong and dumb, dumb, dumb, but that is all another argument. Dogfighting is a fashionable crime on both sides of the fence... it is fashionable to those who partake for the same vile/bloodthirsty/abusive reasons it always has been. It is currently fashionable to hate and speak out against the sick crime.<br /><br />I've taken down actual dogfighters, and they are no joke. They're meth heads and they are notoriously hard to destroy, but when set alight will illuminate the night like the olympic flame. Few of those currently speaking against dogfighting would have the sand to take to the frontlines and actually bring these fuckers to the ground where they belong.<br /><br />I digress.<br /><br />The moron watching the moron in the Michael Vick jersey is herself wearing a shirt that says "Support Local Music" that she got at Hot Topic. She feels very good about herself when she walks around, her money going to a publicly traded megacorporation instead of actual independent music, while the great Spazzatorium of Greenville slips underwater like a sinking U-boat.<br /><br />The Hurculean efforts of Jeff Blinder, the Spazz's everything guy since the Legion of Supervillains faded, are not going to be enough to keep the Spazz afloat much longer. Unless people come out with money in their hands this Cathedral of independent talent will be gone to time, much like the Library at Alexandria. Here it is in Jeff's own words.<br /><br /><p class="blogSubject"></p><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="blogSubject">THE SPAZZ IS CLOSING IN ONE MONTH... </p> <p class="blogContent"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" >Unless we can perpetrate a change.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ><strong><br />Fellow Greenville residents and patrons of our space,</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" >Our efforts to keep The Spazz going are becoming harder and harder to realize. This semester has been brutally harsh to us so far. All of the shows for the past few weeks have brought in nothing for the space itself. The few that have we were forced to out-of-pocket that excess. The last 4 shows had us out-of-pocketing close to $300 so we are at the point where we need your help in keeping The Spazz alive. At this rate come Oct. we will be unable to operate (Any bands reading this worry not, all shows scheduled after that will be honored but no new shows will be added.)<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Ideas that might help us stay alive:</span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ></span><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" > </span></p><o:p></o:p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ><strong>FIRST, AND FOREMOST, JUST COMING OUT TO OUR EVENTS</strong></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" >Without you we wither and die. Please understand The Spazz exists to bring together everyone and to have a creative outlet for local and travelling artists to showcase their talents. We are far from perfect and not all shows are gonna be your preference but we go way out of the way to book bands of all styles and genres and do so to branch everyone together and not just have a punk space...or an indie space..we're an every space!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" >Yes, shows will fall on nights where you have to study/work/want-to-drink, but making that extra effort is all we need from you. When deciding what to do with your night check out if we've got a show scheduled, listen to the bands when the bulletins are posted, and at least make that effort to care. The artists coming through need us and we in turn need you to support them. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" >Most shows we're ready to go by 8PM If enough of you come out we can be done by 11PM every time. This is ,of course, wishful thinking but even if we can get just 10 people out earlier enough we can kick things off! <o:p></o:p></span></p><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" > <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><br /><strong>SPREAD THE WORD</strong><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;">Most of you have classes and have met new folks this semester. How about a bring-a-friend-to-The-Spazz night! In all seriousness, spreading the word about us is so important. We cannot use the regular means of getting the word out about our events so it's up to you to let folks know what's going on. There is is quality live music and creativity happening in Greenville, it's just under-the-radar! If you spot someone wearing a rad band t-shirt, as profiling as it is, chances are they'd probably dig The Spazz so let them know about us!</p></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ></span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ><strong>ART MAJORS?</strong><br /><br />Any art majors interested in making up flyers for our space that we can hand out on campus or strategically place at designated shops? We could definately use your expertise in the matter. I do have access to printers (color even!) so even if one design is made I can reproduce the shit out of it. We could definately use your talent and it'd probably look good in your portfolio to boot! <o:p></o:p></span></p><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" > <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><br /><strong>COOL NERDS?</strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;">Any knowledgeable individuals that understand website creation that might be able to design us a site outside of myspace? As convenient as myspace is for information our dear Tom seems to have those bulletins go down at the most inopportune times. We need a website that has our information and show dates 24-7. Plus think how easy it would be to tell people to check out <a href="http://www.spazzgallery.com/"><strong><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153);font-size:85%;" >www.spazzgallery.com</span></strong></a> instead of googling us. Not to mention some folks don't have a myspace account (gasp!)</p></span><span style=";font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" > <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; line-height: normal;"><br /><strong>HELP!!!</strong><br /><br />Any more ideas please let us know! Hit us up with a message or post under the comments here. We need everyone to pitch in their ideas. This is crucial folks. Think of The Spazz as a friend in need. Motivate yourselves into caring and participating because we're dying here. Think of Greenville without The Spazz. I've been there and it's way lame.</p> </span> <span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:'Verdana','sans-serif';font-size:8;" ><strong>STARTING TODAY ANYONE WHO WANTS TO MAKE A DONATION TO OUR SPACE CAN NOW DO SO VIA THE LINK (WELL, BUTTON) LOCATED ON The SPAZZATORIUMS PROFILE PAGE. ALL YOU FOLKS WHO JOKINGLY ASK IF WE TAKE CREDIT CARDS AND BREEZE RIGHT THROUGH W/OUT A DONATION. WELL NOW WE'VE GOT YOU COVERED! ANYONE WITH EXTRA FINANCIAL SECURITY PLEASE HELP OUR WORTHY CAUSE. NONE OF YOUR DONATIONS WILL GO TO ANYTHING BESIDES THE SPACE ITSELF. WE DO NOT PROFIT AT ALL FROM THE SPAZZ. WE'VE GIVEN ALL WE CAN AND YET IT ISN'T ENOUGH SO WE TURN TO YOU IN OUR TIME OF NEED. DO NOT LET THIS DREAM DIE. WE ARE FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT BUT ARE NEARING ROUND 7 AND OUR KNEES ARE WOBBLY. HELP US!</strong></span><br /></blockquote><br />This is nothing new in my field. Asheville's Akumi and El Nuevo suffered this exact fate, though Akumi was pushed out of existence by the Asheville Cops (pig demon bastards). Westville Pub had a very brief spurt as the home of unknown badass bands and was an O.K. tour spot for a few months in 2006, until it sputtered and died from lack of interest or effort. Raleigh's scene has witnessed the death and changing hands of more venues than I can list, and Greenville's attic has gone to a bizarre afterlife hell in which it is a floundering club that has turned to underground pro wrestling to try and score a crowd. Most of Charlotte's clubs (the Milestone, Tremont Music Hall) are too weird and violent for anything but the most savage audience.<br /><br />The moron in the Michael Vick jersey is more obvious in their criminal idiocy, but is the ideological cousin of the hypocrite in the "Support Local Music" shirt.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-7750882333728960422007-09-26T17:58:00.001-04:002007-09-26T22:09:28.780-04:00Laptop Killed the Video Star Killed the Radio Star Killed the Vinyl Star (or: Hounded by a Freak. Asheville, 2003.)Four years ago, in 2003, I left one of the few Orange Peel shows I've been to. It was Junior Brown, and I'd left my cel phone at home (I wanted to prove that it was possible). Even in those pre-technological days, when camera phones were the new shit and there was no such iPhone, if it can even be imagined, I had to prove it to myself.<br /><br />Instead, the opposite was proven. Somewhere on Smoky Park Bridge heading into West Asheville some goon with South Carolina plates in an Asian two door coupe (one of those fast and whiny little Hondas, I believe) the color of dried wasabi started following me. At first it was casual, he was just behind me at all times on a deserted three lane road. After probably two miles of this I got the Fear. It was 1:00 in the morning and I was in no mood to be pistol raped by some lunatic from the Rabies State.<br /><br />It got weird and Fear was in full swing when I tried to pull into a gas station... somewhere reasonably public where I would at least have the option of an impromptu posse should my pursuer want blood. The station was closed, and the mystery honda of Death and Fear pulled in behind me, hovering with great malevolence as I circled the parking lot and then drove away from town, to the dark hills I knew so well. I'm not tough, but I trusted my ability to lose this bastard somewhere in the strange and twisting roads away from town, if not run him off the road into some creek.<br /><br />He followed me, I could almost see the grille and lights of his car as red demon eyes and tusked pig mouth, through every turn of the backcountry roads. I flew around curves, my pickup behaving like a Boxster, and ran stop signs. The pursuing minion changed into the left lane several times, trying to match my speed, which I did not let him do. We were locked, he and I, in a bizarre automotive mortal combat. I was not prepared to be rammed into a tree at 50mph by some sadistic yokel.<br /><br />I ran a few red lights, in full and unabashed animal flight from danger, headed back from the hills to town. I lost him when he turned onto I-40, presumably to find and devour the soul of an easier target, but I didn't stop until I saw my first cop.<br /><br />I didn't have his tag number, or anything, but I have never been happier to see a cop. I spewed some gibberish all over his shoes, something about ohmygodohmyfuckingod I just got chased by this IDIOT FREAK WEIRDO WHAT THE FUCK fromsouthcarolinaandididntgethistagnumber but it was GREEN FUCKING HONDA FUCK WHAT THE FUCK. Some wide eyed gibberish, but nothing could be done. The cop and his friend cop were very nice to me about it, but we knew the doomed nature of whatever manhunt I had in mind. I wanted helicopters with missiles and machine guns and crazed bastards with sniper rifles combing the highways with a thirst for asshole blood.<br /><br />I went home and didn't turn on my lights. I locked every door and closed the blinds and found my bed in the darkness, occasionally creeping to the window with dread, anticipating satanic cackles as a possessed car crept up my long drive. After some time I fell asleep, and with further time this panic-ridden night chase faded among all my other bizarre stories of life and near death.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Asheville has since been conquered by a stranger thing. Dancepop. The Morrissey fans, in their eternal paleness, have hopped the fence and now shake their malnourished hips to boomchick boomchick from the Northeast. New Wavers parade up and down Broadway like so many Attilas the Hun. It's because Greenville beat them to the dancepop fad. Asheville is stunned that such a shit town (as Greenville is viewed by anyone ignorant to the quality of their underground) would beat them to the next Big Thing. Asheville has always been the state's arrogant talent sniffer, and to have been beaten by Greenville... to even have bands PREFER Greenville? They are not amused.<br /><br />The Spazzatorium Galleria, more a legend around the country than any stage or restaurant corner in Asheville, has been shaking its collective booty to laptop beatz and pink shirted howlings, yo, for a very long time. The latest recycling is huge. The uniform is almost the same, only more pastels and shorter shorts than before, as gutterpunk bands. Implicitly, these bands are not wanting for money. Generally people who are broke enough to be expected to dress gutter make every effort to not appear to be that gutter. Uniform, uniform, uniform.<br /><br /><br />***<br /><br />If I had been carrying my phone that dark and instinct-driven night four years ago, I would have probably felt a lot more secure. However, brushes with death and extreme violence have always been spiritual growth spurts. I know the value of my life. I know the soundtrack I want, and the soundtrack that the underground is pushing right now is not always to my standards.<br /><br />Imperial Battlesnake is descending upon North Carolina right now, blowing through in two days and two shows like a pack of enraged Mako Sharks being chased by a herd of snowblind Bison. Maybe I'll drop these memory demons off at the sitter for the evening and let them deafen me into a lighter mood.<br /><br />They are quite good, after all.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2128453124693760310.post-53877877065564174742007-09-23T11:53:00.000-04:002007-09-23T13:32:26.453-04:00Hawk Season (the skirmish/battle/war metaphor)War has been declared on creativity. Thousands already have died, perished in the flames of perdition, while the endless tide of myspace bands creeps across the land. Apartment dwelling twenty-somethings with Fender Standard Stratocasters and Marshall Half Stacks roam the woods, killing the innocent and skinning their carcasses, while trust fund babies in their post-hippie stages slay the unwilling in back alleys by bashing their heads soft with their drum machines and Korg single octave synths. These are dark times, with a dark focus.<br /><br />It is a dark lack of focus, rather, reminiscient of the dreaded eighties. I was alive and cognizant in the eighties, I remember what a dark and braindead time it was. New Wave, relatively fresh and brought to life by advances in synthesizer technology, battled Dumbass Metal and Cock Rock for the adulation of the hordes. The underground was one of righteous indignation, the shouts and howls of the Hard Core army. Indestructible motherfuckers, not even twenty years old, changed the world from the invisible shadows. The Guerrilla victory was so complete that by the early 90s decent music was available to the mainstream. Without the DC Hard Core scene there would have been no stage set for the 1989/90/91 explosion of good music through mainstream avenues. Over the first half of this sacred decade were more geniuses per capita than any Renaissance city.<br /><br />We all rode around in dirigibles eating caviar from platinum dishes, wiping our chins with thousand dollar bills until there were none left. These sacred years shall never be forgot.<br /><br />Regardless, the underground has become confused. Things are very, very backwards now that the major record labels have gone over completely into the Prince of Darkness's camp. Now battles that would have been waged upon the radio waves are waged underground, pushing the less accessible (and generally more musically adept) acts even farther into obscurity.<br /><br />Now we approach an international situation that makes the Reaganomic Nightmare of the eighties seem like a methodist dinner party. Now we need the smart music the most, the vindicated protest songs, the twin blades of screaming guitar and fuzz bass slicing to the central nervous center. Instead, we drown in self-righteous moron metal and smilingly oblivious dance pop. There are rare venues scattered around the state and nation where one can go to have their face melted by real music, but they are often either so far underground that you will only hear about them after the fact or they are shut down within the span of months for lack of interest (read: profit).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Raleigh</span> has house shows, a few bars that occasionally will put an incredible band in front of five or six barflies, and several major venues. The house shows are almost too underground, and tend to be of the "invite only" category. If you don't know about them, you probably won't. Good luck getting booked to one, too. As for the major and semi-major venues, occasionally there is a decent band, but more often than not the acts are either has-beens or the latest one hit wonders. Disco Rodeo (previously the Ritz) averages two or three decent bands a year, but is a pretty lousy venue. It's evidently a booty club that either folded or changed hands. Generally, acts worth catching bypass Raleigh for the next town listed...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Chapel Hill </span>keeps hope alive better than most places in the state. I'm woefully uninformed on their house show situation, but only because I can catch really good music at their clubs and haven't had to look for the showhouses. Local 506 brought Red Sparowes and William Eliot Whitmore IN THE SAME NIGHT, the Black Angels, all kinds of mindblowing sound comes through that club. On the same strip are several more holes in the wall of note, such as the Cave, where local acts dominate. Not as much of the idiotheque here, Chapel Hill tends to hold up their end of the bargain. Carrboro I include here, too, for the simple fact of the legendary Cat's Cradle.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Asheville</span> has the Grey Eagle, but the catch is that it's damn near impossible for local acts to get in there. Only common members of a few bands, specifically the elitist alumni of Piedmont Charisma, are ever invited. They do not accept press kits. They bring the best independent label music to town, giving people a righteous alternative to the bloodsuckers at the Orange Peel. Pelican, Dungen, Mono, Explosions in the Sky, Akron/Family... all kinds of future music. This would be the best venue in the state if only they would acknowledge the quality of their local scene.<br /><br />Gushing about the Grey Eagle aside, the rest of Asheville has been effectively hijacked by the same braindead dancepop that's been shaking Greenville for so long. The only difference here is that Asheville has undergone a kind of self-lobotomy and now drools helplessly on the floor as rich kids from Philadelphia and Baltimore gyrate over them in pink tube tops, screeching over a deafening wall of laptop beatz and prerecorded synth loops. This was the New French Bar's fate, turning it from the best place in town to get cheap visibility to a useless supplicant to the synthbeast (666). Fred's Speakeasy was once the home of the best unknown rock music (and rock crowds) but has been bought out three times since the days of Mary and Kristen, who would bite the cap off a PBR and dance on the bar, and is now the sterile graveyard where bands who used to fill Akumi now go to die.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Greenville</span> would not belong on this list if not for the tenacity of the local musical elite. A rare creature has power here and few other places. See, there are no real venues in town. The downtown exists only to pay talentless cover bands thousands of dollars per gig to fill idiotic ears with poorly delivered versions of radio hits. Occasionally there will be a momentary hiccup, during which a venue will appear and promise original music. However, the Greenville mainstream is several years behind the rest of the world, and this "original music" venue will only feature either heavy metal or meandering jam bands that no other city will book any more.<br /><br />Greenville's underground, though, is anchored as far in the future as the mainstream is in the past. Where Asheville has gone braindead for dancepop, all for jealousy of Greenville for finding it first, Greenville approaches it intelligently. A dancepop act from the Northeast will share the stage with a three hour old local noise band, an independent rap duo from Wilmington, and a prog rock band from Texas all in the same night... and each act will receive appropriate attention per their level of radness. The Spazzatorium Galleria and 21 Eleven Beer & Wine are the two best places in town to see music. Whereas occasionally a crappy act will slip through the cracks, the quality control tends to be spectacular. Media coverage of these venues is terrible at best, but word of mouth is unstoppable.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Wilmington</span> doesn't always export the best music, originality tends to be a little wanting, but they have a surprising score on the import board. Lake Trout has come through the Soapbox a few times, though they've only attracted an Asheville-esque wallsnob crowd, as well as the Avett Brothers. The Soapbox is like a more successfully executed version of Asheville's Stella Blue, in that both have an upstairs venue for better known acts coupled with a downstairs venue for local or up & coming acts. One of the weirder venues in the state (though nowhere near as weird as Murfreesboro's Zakk's Coffeehouse) is Lucky's Pub. It's on the way out of town, in a stripmall opposite a CVS. Their average night consists of three or four poorly rehearsed acts deafening ten or fifteen drunken ska fans who are still trapped in a Monday night in Boston, somewhere in early 1993. However, several times a month this sad little venue brings national ska and punk acts. I want to say Mustard Plug has played here, as well as other bands of the same caliber.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Greensboro</span>, and her neighbor <span style="font-weight: bold;">Winston-Salem</span>, have been off and on import/export towns. In the early 2000s it was hard to find decent bands from either. It was not that they did not exist, just that they were a bit invisible. Recently, though, a few righteous bands have made themselves visible statewide. Greensboro is one of the first places in the state to have a self-actualized post rock/post metal scene exist independently of semimajor independent label instrumental music. Find these towns' instrumental bands and go see them play, you will love them. Also, there are decent venues springing up or in development. For years these have been "We can't stop here! This is bat country!" towns for me, but my mind is rapidly changing due to the quality of their export. Badass badass badass.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Charlotte</span> really doesn't feel like part of NC to people who don't live there. It's kind of like the Cincinatti of NC. That said, it's really the place to go for intense Hard Core or evil ghetto death rap (nothing like the brainiac stuff coming out of Wilmington or parts of Greenville these days).<br /><br />***<br /><br />There is the army of Righteousness and Creativity and there is the army of Wickedness and Radio Friendliness. You must choose for yourself which one to join, if you aim to be a discriminating consumer of independent music. Avoid those who are DIY because they can afford to be (financially) and not because it is burned into their soul by the desire to be pure, spurn and destroy those who flaunt the underground because they think it gives them the right to make others feel like shit, and above all, turn up your CD player.<br /><br />It's going to get louder before it gets quieter.C. Hillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13861198669913845203noreply@blogger.com0