a crushing, heavenly requirement

good morning ~

no new music for you today, but I did do some writing (and you can still check out the album)

there’s a remaining handful of ALLORA release events happening this weekend, including this big show at Union Pool on Saturday:

please note that DJ Stepdad will kindly be stepping in for DJ Max Mellman - - I also heard that David Moore (Bing & Ruth) will be doing a rare, new set that involves pump organ and singing!

I’m also doing a couple of record store apperanaces:

-Friday at Everything Nice in Ellenville, NY, 5pm

-Sunday afternoon at the Fire Talk Shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, 3pm

See you out there - - -

When we left the studio five years ago nothing felt certain except for the fact that we were going to drink those big ass negronis in Milan. I had no plans for the recordings and only the faintest inkling that we had bottled any lightning. We got loud, we had fun, we unsuccessfully chased some kind of vermin that was running around the rafters of the studio, we sweated through our clothes. Matt got me the rough mixes pretty quick as I recall - I played them for a handful of friends, notably turning them up as loud as they would go in Caleb's minivan - but the actual final mixes took him months to get to and by that time my other record had already come out and COVID had lifted me up and dropped me down.

The Italy record did come out, as surreal as that is to me now when I consider the full breadth of the journey (there are already marked up copies of it available on eBay). On Thursday evening I had a show to manage at my job - brilliant music, my niece ran the fog machine, but the cellist took for-fucking-ever to leave, what was that about - so I finally pulled my car into the driveway with only, as Iron Maiden sings, two minutes to midnight. I poured Gracelee and I a couple little shots of fernet and pulled up Bandcamp, then I hit the button. And somehow my whole life didn't change immediately? What gives?

In the morning I felt as I always do a crushing, heavenly requirement to post promptly on the morning of an album release. In college once however many decades ago my band put out an EP and I am still haunted by the fact that a really hip classmate of mine told me we weren't cool enough about it - we were too eager in what we published to Google Reader, of all places - and as I am recalling this I now realize that this person was in fact my drummer's sister, what a strange loop. I would argue that our use of an illustration from a volume of Deleuze and Guattari as the cover art was probably a bigger coolness problem than our ad copy, but what do I know? Thankfully I have spent years honing a personal brand that is obviously and winningly not that cool and I can now post what I want. I faced a dilemma, however - my brother had gone out for an early run and he and my sister-in-law were enjoying a well deserved quiet morning at a coffeeshop. Gracelee slept late, however my darling niece was wide awake and ready to rock. Do I dare neglect the fruit of my brother's loins because I had to get to instagram? She wanted to watch slime videos and her parents hadn't yet sent me back the green light, so we just had a really nice chat, instead. I tried my best the rest of the day to pay attention to my family but I was sucked into my phone - the album got a 9.0 review from Paste, that seems like it might change my life immediately, maybe?

I knew the show would be fun and filled with people I love but I had resigned myself to playing a more subdued version of the tunes. It had been so long! But Liam let us soundcheck a little early and we were able to run the whole set - mama mia, what a spicy meatball. I was late leaving my place so I didn't have time to shave my head, shower, change, etc. - an amazing set of circumstances that forced me into some radical acceptance, good for me I think.

For the next few hours I had my shoulder rubbed by what felt like every single person I had ever met since living up here, including that one guy I had to drive home from Basilica because he and his wife were too fried on acid after the Godspeed show last year. I watched Emily give a bunch of people tattoos, my niece and her parents took their merch table assignment VERY seriously, I got a little bit of a warmup playing a few blessed songs with Lea. The room was filling up, people started wearing my t-shirts.

And then it was time to rip. Opening song with the harmonium, that's a gimme, but then we played the song "Free" louder, harder, and better than it has ever been played before. Later, it occurred to me that many people in that room had never seen me play guitar, much to consider. After a long day of scooting around, checking my phone, responding, reposting, organizing, arriving, departing, preparing, I was finally free from thought, I relaxed into the squall of it, we followed my impulses as they bubbled up and drove a wooden stake through their hearts. Not realizing that she'd be game for it, my niece heeded the call to come pump the harmonium drone during "Climb the Ladder." Will what that song's about for me ever resonant with this darling child? Almost certainly not, and I felt some kind of sewing up and some kind of bursting as she gladly kept the drone up (it's gonna get loud, okay? I whispered to her before we began, just keep going. She gave me a thumbs up).

Later I wandered into the crowd as I played, Dan made it through the part of the song that scared him, I threw my guitar across the stage as if it was boiling me alive. There was an encore, and I was so overcome when we brought Nico O. on stage that for reasons unknown to me I bit him on the shoulder (???). He bit me back when the song was over. Max immediately dropped a mix of Charli's "365" and "Ma Quale Idea" by Pino D'Angio, RIP. We had the release, now let's stand on the sidewalk for a while. My life had not measurably changed - for this I was very glad.

But what about you? Are you free from thought? What circumstances would alter your life completely? And is that something you want?