the thom yorke solo show at the orpheum sunday night is still resonating for me. it was a really exciting event to be a part of. if i had to choose only one criticism of our current musical climate it would be that there doesnt seem to be alot of special musical events anymore. bands are either doing the verizon-something-or-other-theater or they are doing some contrived performance, in some contrived space, in some forced attempt at being different or unusual. these events often end up so 'artistic' that it seems more like marketing. in contrast, the orpheum show was a timeless display of the power of a really great musical experience. there was an electricity to the darkness before the band came out. we were then witness to a really pure experience of music. music. it was about the intrinsic substance of bands and musicianship. there was obvious great virtuosity but was not jammy, showy or particularly well polished; mistakes were made and unfinished song sketches were performed by yorke with just vocal and guitar or vocal and piano. a friend put it well saying that it was an unusual combination of being a really artistic evening without being at all pretentious.

it was a really impressive lineup of musicians. for purposes of full disclosure i must admit that flea is my friend and i am admittedly biased in favor of him but still...he is such an amazing player now. he continues to inspire me to become a better musician. but everyone on stage was an accomplished musician. some famous, some not. in an age when people are mixing and matching different celebrities for marketing reasons, or to combine catalogs, it was really nice to see a 'supergroup' built by shared virtuosity and musicianship.

if a listing music industry wants a new generation to care about supporting a music industry. create musical experiences that deserve their support. these evenings are timeless, transcending not only time, but also current musical styles and taste. i know. i saw flipper club lingerie and x at the whisky-a-go-go over two decades ago. i will now add thom yorke at the orpheum amongst all the others on that list.

stole over to the hammer museum this afternoon while i waited for belle (who was reclining in a dentists chair). show was missable but i spent the hour browsing their bookstore. i struck by how many great ideas are contained in any collection of books like that one. i was also reminded of just how important it is that we make things that are totally unnecessary. there have been years, even before the years of gw bush and friends, where mostly conservative folk have had contempt for art that, according to them, has no 'purpose'. they believe that the marketplace, not tax dollars, should fund art. but i would argue that that by definiton is a market. it creates commodities and the exchange of commodities. that is fine as well but its different. it is in the moments when we contemplate unnecessary things that we transcend our daily lives. i believe we, especially americans, need more of this kind of time. and personally, for a believer in truth, reality, and rationality that sort of time is the closest experience i have to magic.

last night during the show in camden nj, i had a moment that is the type of inner experience of performance that no one sees, but that is interesting to me internally. we were playing the song "then she did". one of my favorites, entirely created by perry. we began playing it and i closed my eyes. i often close my eyes to help focus more singly on what is happening in my ears. so i had closed my eyes at the beginning of the song and when i opened them again i had been engulfed entirely by smoke, dry ice. so much so that i could see nothing but the swirling clouds of smoke with one small single bright light in the distance. it turned out that the light was a light out at the soundboard in the middle of the audience. didnt know this at the time. so im cloaked in my cloud of smoke with my distant point of light and i thought that it sort of poetically represented my death. "then she did" is a song of death and it all seemed very comfortable conceptually. i could feel that the light was patient and id eventually get there, but that tonight i was a good distance from it, that all that really existed for me was my time here and, in particular, my extraordinary spot in the spectrum of human experience. namely, being on stage for the ritual of performance in front of thousands of people. this is the sort of internal experience i seek out to enrich my experience of performance, and thereby keep it interesting to me and by extension hopefully to you all.

most of the moments of most of my days on this janes gig, are about getting to the work at hand. working hard throughout the set. focus. jane says has been a different experience. i sit on a stool and i am given time to reflect on the enormous effect that jane bainters tiny story has had on all of us. i have at times been almost emotionally overwhelmed by the scope of all our struggles that is so eloquently and plainly spoken about by perry in that song. but that aside, like i said, it has been mostly about doing the best job i can to make this tour as good as it can be. today feels a little different though. it feels like a return to the beginning. janes obviously didnt begin here but in retrospect it was a big moment in the story. playing irvine seems like the beginning of the really big, and ultimately final, part of our success. it felt like we had arrived home as conquering heroes. lollapalooza was working (i had been skeptical) and we were therefore playing to crowds so much larger than we had up to that point. i am curious going into today, with this historical mindset, how i will end up feeling having come full circle. the car just arrived to take belle and i down to soundcheck. its good to be interested in ones life.

there are some days, and i hope you have all have as many as possible, that are entirely unlike the rest. my problem has never been that life got too dramatic for me; bad or good. it is that sometimes i let life get uneventful for long enough that it no longer seems important. that life doesnt seem important. therefore time just quietly tics by. this is not one of those days and this is about to be a time that doesnt do anything quietly. must finish packing. let it begin...

cant tell who to thank for the link; either, tr, rob sheridan or meantambourine. all three? whoever it is, thanks for the heads up on this beautiful short film. check it.

we in janes have made several phone calls, both individually and collectively, trying to find out why nin/ja ticket prices have wound up so much higher than the agreed upon price. it has been confusing and frustrating trying to get a straight, consistent and clear answer. a few weeks ago, trent told me about a ticket reselling phenomena that i hadnt understood before. i didnt understand at the time just how insidious this system is until ive had to watch it play out in real time. he wrote a really good concise and understandable explanation here. its a good read. have coffee first.

sorry. left the house for rehearsal without posting anything about austin. so to expedite things ive just copied and pasted a blurb by dave from the ja.com site:

We have been rehearsing all week for an upcoming private
show in Austin, Texas. We have set aside a number of tickets for those
of you who have signed up to the site. Stay tuned for more details
on how to attend this specific event and clear your schedule
the evening of the 19th.

its official. our friend tom morellos new project 'streetsweeper' is going to join us for the tour. you can hear some of his new grooves here at streetsweepermusic.com. sounds like cool stuff. its on.

Hot off the presses at nin.com, the story so far:

Fri-May-08 West Palm Beach, FL [Cruzan Amphitheatre]
Sat-May-09 Tampa, FL [Ford Amphitheatre]
Sun-May-10 Atlanta, GA [Lakewood Amphitheatre]
Thu-May-14 Albuquerque, NM [Journal Pavilion]
Fri-May-15 Phoenix, AZ [Cricket Wireless Pavilion]
Sat-May-16 Chula Vista, CA [Cricket Wireless Amphitheater]
Mon-May-18 Las Vegas, NV [The Pearl]
Wed-May-20 Irvine, CA [Verizon Wireless Amphitheater – Irvine Meadows]
Fri-May-22 Mountain View, CA [Shoreline Amphitheatre]
Tue-May-26 Englewood, CO [Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre]
Wed-May-27 Kansas City, MO [Starlight Theatre]
Sat-May-30 Noblesville, IN [Verizon Wireless Music Center]
Sun-May-31 Clarkston, MI [DTE Energy Music Theatre]
Tue-Jun-02 Toronto, ON [Molson Amphitheatre]
Wed-Jun-03 Darien Lake, NY [Darien Lake Amphitheatre]
Fri-Jun-05 Camden, NJ [Tweeter Center At The Waterfront]
Sat-Jun-06 Holmdel, NJ [PNC Bank Arts Center]
Sun-Jun-07 Wantagh, NY [Nikon at Jones Beach Music Theater]
Tue-Jun-09 Columbia, MD [Merriweather Post Pavilion]
Wed-Jun-10 Burgettstown, PA [Post-Gazette Pavilion]
Fri-Jun-12 Charlotte, NC [Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre]

there is a whole lot of cross-platforming going on these days; actor/musican/model/artist/dj/novelist. a direct symptom of the confluence of the easy one to one distribution of internet technology/culture combined with our myopic obsession with celebrity. in other words, we are easily interested in everything done by someone we are interested in. mouthful. but last night belle and i walked away from bergamot station talking about how impressed we were with the quality of the artistic work by the musicians in this show. gibby haynes works were our personal favorites but we began speaking specifically about the folks from sonic youth; lee ranaldo, kim gordon, and thurston moore. unlike my crazy admiration of gibby and the butthole surfers, i was never as fond of sonic youth as i always knew i should be. not to say i didnt like them, i did, but i think i admired them more than i listened to them. after all, sonic youth were undoubtedly one of the most influential and artistic bands during my lifetime. to see that at least the three of them obviously qualified as visual artists in their own right was, not a surprise but, an affirmation of the creative power that can be brought to bear when you put together a band of folks that are, in a way, sort of creatively overqualified for their positions.

i think i bought my first computer in 1991. i have always known that it would be wise to habitually backup my hard drives. but i can safely say that i have not done a hard drive backup more than three or four times over all those years. it has never been an issue. last night it became an issue. the hard drive, that i had recorded the last years work to, bit it. i mean BIT. maybe a few thousand dollars later i might be able to get some of it back. bit. belle and my friend john (a computer tech over trying to help) were pretty mortified. i was not. not really. and today i have some excitement in my stomach about music, about writing. i still see music as a process of learning. all the music i wrote this year hasnt gone away. only the songs have. ive learned alot this year and that continues to inform me and my work now. in that sense it will exist in my work upcoming. living is a process that involves alot of loss and in the last year ive had a bigger than normal portion. and of course i wouldnt choose loss, or choose to have my work erased, but losses create spaces and i have to fill those spaces with something and in so doing i am defining my life; the space i fill. if the tibetan sand mandala makers are the model, then the sand is dispersed and it is time to begin work again. i might setup an automatic backup system this time.

fyi, my friend josh klinghoffer is a brilliant musician and his band 'Dot' is the opening act tonight. last minute addition. this is their second show. anabelle and i saw their first at the troubadour a few weeks ago. im really looking forward to the chance to see them again tonight. so if you need a good reason to get there early tonight and get out of the rain, they have the 9:30-10:15 slot tonight. im stoked.

bring your ten bucks. we will bring the janes addiction.

echoplex monday night at 11. this one is 18+ age limit. first 500 folks that register here get on a list that enables you to walk up and pay 10 bucks at the door. we wanted to do something in a proper club this time with a proper pa, stage and reasonably large room. and yes this is the largest amount of warning time that was possible. i wanted you all to know as soon as i knew. just home from rehearsal, really fucking hungry, so i want to go get me some chow, but i did want you all to know. see you there.

fuck. im really sorry but the show i briefly blogged about, then pulled, is postponed. it seems we cant seem to put together one of these shows without some major malfunction. we will be doing something over the next few weeks. will of course let you know. as the blog post mentioned this was a last minute thing. here is the proof of just how last minute it was. will keep you all posted. again please accept my heart felt apology.

America is a better place today.