karl sturk

2011-12-08T10:03:00.002-05:00

2011-11-26T15:55:00.000-05:00

2011-11-03T22:17:00.001-04:00

whoa palmyra reunion
facebook

wooly

2011-10-21T12:01:00.001-04:00

got a nice write-up from someone for our show at powerhouse last night:

http://danmeade.gigape.com/user/2011/10/21/cmj-2011-day-3-photos-review-nikki-lane-bleeding-knees-club-iamsound/

october 20

2011-10-11T18:07:00.003-04:00

RSVP HERE

DETROIT

2011-10-04T01:56:00.000-04:00

good weekend.

comedown comedown

2011-09-28T15:24:00.003-04:00

go over to the summer comedown blog for some pics from the great day we had last saturday. my first foray into festival production was a success. so many people i love were involved, from my friends in the bands, to my coworkers who helped make my music and work worlds collide seamlessly, to all the familiar faces i saw in the crowd all day. thanks to everyone. the long eye's set was really fun too, playing in the lobby right next to the office i've worked out of for six years. weird and wonderful. chris took some sweet pictures of my hair - i mean, my band. maybe someday i'll produce a show that doesn't include my own band. ah, who cares.

S U M M E R C O M E D O W N

2011-09-14T11:49:00.000-04:00

S U M M E R C O M E D O W N

burning matches lifting latches

2011-09-09T11:11:00.000-04:00

congrats gina and anika!
photos by mikey

congratulations from michael and karl

2011-09-06T02:28:00.000-04:00

i dont miss them summer days

2011-08-04T22:33:00.001-04:00

it wasn't nothin, but it was close

2011-08-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

children

2011-07-08T16:37:00.001-04:00

stolen from sarah

hakeem the dream

2011-07-07T15:35:00.000-04:00

so i'm devouring this book i just bought. the book of basketball by bill simmons. i'd like to say that he's a good enough writer that even a non-sports fan would get into the book, but i'm not sure that's true. regardless, i can't stop thinking about basketball these days and now here i am writing about it. i mentioned simmons' all-time-player rankings to patrice, and she asked where hakeem olajuwon fell. the dream is number ten all time. i love that ranking. i love this dude getting credit. naturally, the next order of business is to watch videos of hakeem on youtube:

whoa. let's run these down.

10 - defense wins basketball games. hakeem totally blew the pass, but instead of watching a breakaway layup from midcourt as most modern-day players would do, hakeem hustled, and never gave up on the play. and everyone thinks lebron invented the chasedown block. please.
9 - this is just pure effort and power. and also note that he dunked on that hack patrick ewing (it's a theme).
8 - again - defense. hustle. three blocks in one play? come on. modern day centers are lucky to get three in a whole game.
7 - this is not the most gorgeous put-back dunk i've ever seen (see number 6 for that), but this highlights the freakish athleticism of this 7-footer. look at his head next to the rim! did shaq ever get up that high? jeez. also, this is one of the rare highlights that looks better in slow-motion. most get me out of my seat at full speed.
6 - wow. i jump out of my seat every time. this rivals a dominique wilkins putback. it's so good it even excuses the ridiculous kareem goggles. (and see, it's way better at full speed!)
5 - now, normally i hate these kinds of blocks (dwight howard style), because he could have kept it in play and got possession of the ball. but sometimes you have to make a statement, and, uh, well, he did.
4 - look at david robinson's face! he knows. before this game, robinson was presented his MVP trophy, and then olajuwon went into eff-you mode and proceeded to annihilate him.
3 - not pretty, just clutch. no other big man had that kind of soft touch. also, this team is one of the rare examples of an aging legend jumping ship to win a ring - clyde drexler, the dude who missed the layup - and succeeding. why? hakeem.
2 - patrick ewing getting schooled part two! man, he was terrible. hakeem pauses for a second before making his move to say, "patrick, i'm about to embarrass you."
1 - gorgeous. just perfect low post moves. why don't all NBA centers try to emulate the dream? who else ever has had hakeem's arsenal of moves? look at the quickness - you only see point guards (rondo) making moves like that. this is just perfect.

you can't really make the case that hakeem olajuwan was the best all time. he didn't have wilt's stats, nor kareem's points and longevity, nor russell's rings and winning attitude. but if i was playing a pick-up game with all of the all time greats (which is sure to happen because i'm really good at basketball), i'd pick hakeem first. what a monster.

old haunts

2011-06-27T22:29:00.001-04:00

kevin eder was kind enough to capture this little stroll down ambitious brothers memory lane at my caponegro solo show sunday. not the same without michael and chris hollerin with me (and covering up the fact that i'm singing out of tune), but a fun afternoon indeed. thanks, kevin.

caponegro

2011-06-27T17:17:00.000-04:00

hey, don't look so excited everybody.

two shows this weekend

2011-06-22T09:32:00.000-04:00

#1
saturday june 25
THE LONG EYE (11pm)
SECRET PHOTOS (10pm)
GLAD HEARTS (9pm)
@ the charleston
174 bedford, williamsburg
8 bucks

#2
sunday june 26 - 2pm
KARL STURK
BRENDAN MORRIS
@ caponegro urological associates
68-10 forest ave #1A, ridgewood

this is brandon zwagerman and linda jordan's house.
it will start at 2pm and there will be delicious brunch food, potluck style (so bring something if you want).
then brendan of the band Eleanor will play solo.
and then i'll play solo.
then everyone gets blackout drunk.
it's all free, but they'll pass a hat.

so i give you a loud option and a quiet option this weekend. the choice is yours.

pick both.

lord knows i tried

2011-06-16T17:01:00.000-04:00

thanks dax. more from our union pool show here.

DIRK

2011-06-13T16:46:00.000-04:00

pepper month

2011-06-07T20:01:00.000-04:00

more info here and here

my brother, joaquin

2011-05-11T23:34:00.000-04:00

boy its really comin down out there

2011-05-10T13:19:00.000-04:00

more to come. photos by suzi sadler.

facebook

2011-04-30T15:30:00.000-04:00

thursdayyyyyyyyy

2011-04-24T20:02:00.001-04:00

click here for more infooooo

my brother, suzi

2011-04-18T14:30:00.000-04:00

jefixaisdesvertiges.blogspot.com

41111

2011-04-11T14:14:00.001-04:00

MONDAY APRIL 11
1ST \\\\\ THE LONG EYE
2ND \\\\\\\\\\ MATT JONES
3RD \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ CHIMNEYS
@ ZEBULON
258 WYTHE - WILLIAMSBURG
9PM \\\\\ FREEEEEE

http://www.eardrumnyc.com/show/21839-matt-jones-chimneys-long-eye-zebulon/

hats

2011-03-14T11:26:00.000-04:00

http://www.chariandconyc.net/blog/chari-co-nyc-2011-springsummer-cap/

my favorite target, girl

2011-03-07T13:04:00.001-05:00

photo by gina, stolen by me

by mikey barringer

2011-03-01T23:26:00.000-05:00

new jam

2011-02-16T13:20:00.001-05:00

apparitions.mp3

it's about ghosts.

this is happening

2011-01-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

as we speak. we're getting close on the long eye record. drums and basic guitar tracks are all done. i just need to juice it on a few tracks and then try to cut through the mucus in my nasal passages and sing. but we've crossed that line where it will get finished now. and its been fun too. who knew?

also, we have a bandcamp. its this: thelongeye.bandcamp.com. its still only got those two old songs on it, but myspace has gotten so bad we had to jump ship. itll also be a much better place to put the new jams when they are done.

with love and levaquin,
karl

must be friday night

2011-01-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

FRIDAY, JANUARY 14
THE LONG EYE
@ MATCHLESS
557 MANHATTAN AVE - GREENPOINT
WE'RE ON AT 10
BANDS START AT 8 ||| $10

we lied. sorry.

2010-12-14T17:34:00.002-05:00

sold out.

2010-11-23T15:23:00.000-05:00

great country

2010-11-17T15:03:00.000-05:00

palmyra's time on this earth is winding down. our singer/songwriter/bandleader/guitar player/friend/motivator/accomplice gina pensiero is off to LA come the new year. it's a little bit of a soft ending - perhaps simply a hiatus - for gina will be back in the greater new york area here and there, and you can be sure that we'll end up on stage at some point or another over the next two and a half years.

but there's some good stuff coming before we go:
- we've got a brand new recording for you - a five-song tape of our newest stuff - coming out soon.
- we've got a show in philadelphia in december with both big apple and brotherly love friends.
- we've got a new bandcamp website where you can get all our previous recordings - palmyra.bandcamp.com
- we've got our last new york show at cake shop on november 26. above is a flyer i whipped up with the help of gina's photo. we're playing with some great bands - heather duby, the ashes, and my pal hillary's band, la defense.

so come on dudes. eat turkey, drink wine, watch football, loosen your belt. then the next day, ditch the fam and come to a rock and roll show. all right?

sparky

2010-11-04T16:17:00.000-04:00

snaps

2010-10-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

zebulon was big fun. mikey's been taking some rad pics:

nocturnal beasts

2010-10-18T19:51:00.000-04:00

i'm pretty fond of erik hall, both as a dude and as a musician. he's been playing in nomo for years, and recently released a solo record under the name in tall buildings. i love the record, and now i'm lucky enough to play in the band for one night. in tall buildings will open for nomo at zebulon in williamsburg this saturday, with yours truly on the bass.

saturday october 23
NOMO
IN TALL BUILDINGS
@ zebulon
258 wythe, williamsburg
9pm, free

nomo shows at zebulon are always the best. now i get to play one with a rad band. super fun. come hang out.

writing

2010-09-27T14:35:00.001-04:00

There’s a house on my street that my mom would call “bad news.” Surely they are selling drugs out of it, she’d say, and she’d probably be right. The house is a vestige of the old neighborhood, when it was Bed-Stuy, and not the darling neighborhood of Clinton Hill we whiteys claim to be our own. It’s a brownstone, like all the homes on the block, and it’s stone façade is crumbling. An eyesore, you could call it. The wrought-iron railings are rusted and bent, and the eight-by-eight cement yard out front is littered with trash and junk. There are bicycles with no wheels, two grills that can’t possibly work, ragged blue tarpaulins, ancient exercise equipment, and trash – trash in bags, trash on the ground, trash cans overflowing. And most days the crew sits on the stoop, smoking weed and listening to hip hop and constantly texting on their cell phones. They rarely wear shirts in the summer, but always baseball caps and baggy pants. They sport clean sneakers and some have gold in their teeth. They probably are bad news, they probably do sell drugs, and that’s fine. I nod at them as I pass the house; they sometimes nod back. We’ve exchanged an “all right” or two. One Friday night shortly after I moved to the neighborhood – when white people were still the minority – I excused myself through a large crowd of people on the sidewalk. As I continued on to my house I heard one guy behind me say, “There he goes. A lone white man in the night.”

What I like about the house, besides just liking it out of defiance and superiority over all the other white people on the street who think of the house as a problem, is the synthesizer music that comes from the top-floor apartment when the windows are open all summer long. Someone living there is a budding hip hop artist and the beats and synth melodies are the soundtrack to the sweltering city days. I see one kid with a pen and pad practicing rhymes out on the stoop sometimes. It could be him. But I have no idea. And I like that I have no idea, that this music is just in the air of the neighborhood.

Right now, it’s pouring, and I write with the windows open and I listen to the rain. Faintly I can hear him on the keyboard. The melody sounds a little evil, like a cartoon evil, or like the music that plays when you reach the boss at the end of an old video game. He drops in a beat and the menace gets real, and the snare hits are bouncing off the brownstones on the other side of the street and the synthetic organ hums in the echoes behind the beat. And he’s just wailing on it. The same part over and over, and I know he’s feeling it and I can practically see him in a white t-shirt and sweats, hunched over his keys and bobbing up and down, up and down.

the maine event

2010-09-09T15:43:00.000-04:00

portland and acadia

more: flickr

champion

2010-08-24T12:57:00.000-04:00

more: flickr

matchless

2010-08-10T16:22:00.000-04:00

this one's going to be fun because pals are joining us.

i just caught my friend hillary's new band, la défense, at bruar falls last weekend, and they were great (and no, not just because i'm partial to duos). they mesh pretty, kim deal-style vocals with an aggressive riotgrrl noise thing really nicely. love it.

plus, there's the mythical ultra death men, featuring jonathan and sean of palmyra. trying to describe them is impossible, but if you take equal parts jazz, math rock, and metal zone guitar heoics, and add just a splash of tongue-in-cheek, you kind of get the idea. well, probably not, but point is, they are insane, and i'm so excited to share a bill with them, finally, even if it means that the world will recognize that it's a joke that i claim to be a guitar player while being in a band with sean lango.

michigan, vol. 2

2010-08-04T16:10:00.001-04:00

disposable:

michigan, vol. 1

2010-08-04T16:10:00.000-04:00

digital:

cigarettes and cans

2010-07-16T13:21:00.000-04:00

here's a video of the long eye from the northside festival for your eyes and ears. head over to scott's blog for more videos from the showcase. speaking of scott, the new drunken barn dance album will be coming out this summer, and based on the two songs he posted, it's going to be a monster.

also thanks to jesse for snapping a few pics from the show:

ok i'll stop talking about northside now.

juncture reading

2010-07-07T13:14:00.001-04:00

i'm really excited to announce an event on this blog that doesn't have anything to do with my bands. juncture: a writerly newspaper is a brooklyn-based literary journal that i think is just tops. i've had the pleasure of having pieces in all three of the magazine's issues, the third of which is being released this saturday at park delicatessen in brooklyn. the release will feature readings by whichever authors are currently in town. in terms of admission, it'll cost you three dollars, but you can think of it in two ways: 1, the event is three bucks and you get a free copy of the new issue, or, 2, the event is free but you will be forced to buy an issue for three dollars. pretty sweet deal regardless. details:

J:AWN - issue 3 release and reading
saturday, july 10 at 8pm
@ park delicatessen - 533 park place, prospect heights, brooklyn

the issue features new poetry and prose by:
Jeremy Cherson
Paul D'Agostino
Paul Damon
Sara Gretina
Matthew Hunger
Dana Keith
Edward Joseph McGrath
David McLaughlin
Brian Maloney
Sean O'Donnell
Gina Pensiero
Matt Reeck
Karl Sturk
Chris Timmins
Allen Wilcox

back from the dead, or at least from the bathroom

2010-07-06T17:55:00.000-04:00

you'd think with all the promotion i did for the northside festival showcase that i would have written some kind of follow up, but, lo, i got punched in the gut the morning after by big bad viral gastroenteritis (most commonly known as the stomach flu, despite the fact that it is not the flu nor occurs in the stomach). i was down for the count from monday morning through independence day, eating nothing and spending all my time either in bed or in the bathroom. finally by sunday i was back on my feet, just in time to catch some fireworks from a williamsburg rooftop. human again. man, did that suck.

anyway, the showcase was fantastic. great sets by drunken barn dance and ribbons, and i was super pleased with the long eye and palmyra sets. we ended up with a great crowd, especially on a sunday, and all my thanks go out to my co-presenter, gina, and the L mag staff, specifically LB and the ever elegant DK deluxe. supposedly scott took some video of the long eye, so i'll be sure to post that when it comes along.

now if you'll excuse me, i'm going to have some plain white rice and a banana for dinner, paired with a fine cool blue gatorade.

i remember it fine on my own

2010-06-22T13:33:00.000-04:00

the very talented and very good looking nathaniel shannon took some snaps of the long eye's show at cake shop the other night. i think they turned out fantastic.

also, the headlining band, the daredevil christopher wright, was awesome. super fun to hear what's going on in the wisconsin music scene these days.

thanks nathaniel:

showcase

2010-06-20T15:47:00.001-04:00

and if you are a member of this thing called facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136238299721000

NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL

2010-06-19T15:48:00.003-04:00

super super excited to announce a showcase curated by me and one sweet song (also known as my friend and bandmate, gina) for the 2010 northside festival, featuring my two bands and two great friends!

NORTHSIDE FESTIVAL!
ONE SWEET SONG & KARL STURK PRESENTS:

SUNDAY, JUNE 27
@ PUBLIC ASSEMBLY

RIBBONS

PALMYRA

THE LONG EYE

DRUNKEN BARN DANCE

7:30 DOORS
$7 (BADGE HOLDERS FREE)
70 N. 6TH ST. WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN

i'm really proud of putting this thing together, and had big time help from gina, obviously, and couldn't have done it without DK deluxe and LB at the L magazine. i'd love to see friends come out and hang - you can get tickets at the door or get a badge for the whole festival, which runs from june 24th to 27th, for only 50 bucks.

check out one sweet song's northside showcase page here to get some free mp3's of the bands playing.

spread the word!

nothing like a sunday night

2010-06-09T14:04:00.000-04:00

i am what i am, are you surprised?

2010-06-05T13:06:00.003-04:00

the forest just full of logs

2010-05-26T20:24:00.001-04:00

playing a show is a good excuse for me to slowly but surely improve my photoshop skills. tonight was levels adjustment layers and the type mask tool. whatever that means. so i made another flyer for the other show this weekend. and this is probably the only place you'll see it.

people are just mountains

2010-05-25T15:27:00.005-04:00

if you know me, then you know that michael beauchamp is one of my all-time favorite people. he'll be coming to town with his barn roughs and supported by laurel premo for a few shows, two of which are with palmyra (who has a slick new website here). so if you know me, then you know i'm pretty excited. we're at the lex leonard gallery in jersey city on friday, and the sidewalk cafe on saturday. here's a flyer i made for the former:

it's really that color

2010-05-20T14:55:00.001-04:00

here's a poorly designed website holding all the rest of the pictures from eleuthera. please peruse if you're prepared to keep hitting that back button.

eleuthera photos

oh, and happy birthday to meeee!

highlights -

from the eleuthera journal

2010-05-19T17:16:00.000-04:00

5 17 10

in case, god forbid, i forget -

wednesday -

arrived in eleuthera around 1:30pm. took a cab from north eleuthera airport with rick, an american with a summer house on the island, who, along with our cabbie keith, clued us in to the relaxed, friendly nature of the island. arrived at our hut, at kim's place in gregory town, and it was lovely. we met kim and let her point us to the closest beach, a rocky little cove behind the school, through the basketball court, down a private road ("it's ok"), and there they were - the clear blue green caribbean waters i'd only ever seen in pictures. dk and i swam, in shock, almost distrustful of such perfect beauty. after our swim we visited a few little groceries in gregory town and got some things for a dinner we cooked in our hut. after dinner, an rinse in the outdoor shower, then deep, deep sleep.

thursday -

called wallace, a wonderfully friendly local, and rented a jeep. it clanked and clunked, the trunk didn't open, and you had to yank the drivers side window up by hand, but it had four wheel drive and got us everywhere we wanted to go. turned out wallace works for rick, our american cab-mate from the day before, and rick told him we were nice and that we'd probably need a car. so we got a discount and didn't have to pay until we returned it. we got a map and found some beaches - rainbow bay, a gorgeous public beach with still waters in a cove. we swam and rested and i climbed the rocks. headed down to governor's harbor for lunch, found a decent little place for conch fritters and a grouper burger, and got a good tip for a beach and restaurant from some other tourists; the man had a funny new hampshire accent. the tip was good - a white, pinkish, sand beach where a club med had been in the island's heyday and a restaurant, the beach house (the man from new hampshire had called it "tupper's," somehow mentally warping the "tapas" they served with the restaurant's name), where we had a drink as the sun set. back home for dinner, and more sleep.

friday -

decided to go to harbor island for the day. harbor island is where the tourists go in eleuthera, but even there it felt remote and local and low-key. to get there, we drove past the airport to a dock where a ferry, which is really just a man with a boat, zipped us across the harbor to the island. there we rented a golf cart, the vehicle of choice on the island, and got a map from a cute nineteen year old kid. the famous pink sand beaches were, in fact, pink, and i swiped an umbrella from one of the resorts to lay under as dk sunbathed. we got a couple kaliks to go with our roasted whole snapper, mac and cheese, rice, and coleslaw from harry-o's, and then the amazing fresh conch salad from queen conch. best meal of the trip. dk later chauffeured us through the island, checking out the town and stopping for some fresh fruit, and then took our cart back to the dock to catch a boat back to eleuthera at sun down. we made a little dinner at home, and i then promptly passed out, all my energy sapped by the sun.

saturday -

we headed south, hoping to catch a nice, quiet beach and then lunch before following a tip to make the long drive all the way down to the lighthouse at point eleuthera. we struck out three times though, at south palmetto point (too trashy), windmere bay (private), and winding bay (too mucky). all these beaches were fine, quite good probably, but we knew what the island had to offer and we were spoiled. a little frustrated, we grabbed some lunch in rock sound and then bolted for the point.we knew it would be tough to get there, and after asking some locals for a quick direction, we started rumbling down an amazingly rocky road. three miles of potholes and sand and big ruts and rocks, past a smelly sulphur lake, and then the horizon opened up before us and we were there. pristine pink sand, beautiful rocky coast at the point, and not a soul around. we saw only four other people in our five hours at the point. we swam naked, read, wrote, and went exploring. the road continued a little past where we had parked and we walked it to the end, to the tiny deserted light house to the equally gorgeous beach on the atlantic side with its black choppier water, to the massive cliffs bearing the striations of years of the ocean pounding and cutting the rock away. people had carved their names in the rock over the years - i saw one, cranshaw, and pointed it out to dk. "wasn't he the guy in the maugham book who knew the meaning of life?" i wasn't sure, but if there were ever a place to learn such a thing like that, it was here.

by then our few neighbors had disappeared and we were all alone and we laid naked on the beach and i let the place fill up my entire being. as the sun got lower i felt i could soak up no more, and we drove back down that old road, black crabs scuttling across in front of our jeep, knowing that we'd been some place more than special or even magical, but important. important in that it taught us that such beauty does exist in this world.

we drove up to governor's harbor for dinner at the beach house. the food was ok, i preferred our homemade pasta from the first night, but the mood was right as we ate under the stars on the beach. then a long drive home in the dark, exhausted.

sunday -

we wanted to take it a little easier so we planned a route in the north of the island. first was a little beach which kim had recommended, gaulding cay, that we had dropped by to check out on the way back from harbor island and already knew to be small and quiet and secluded with perfect flat clear green blue water. we played in the water a lot, tossing dk into the water, i her diving platform, we skipped stones, and raced from the sea to shore. we had such fun together, this and all days. for lunch we went to a local place, daddy joe's, for conch fritters and jerk ribs. talking with the locals was always so pleasant, everyone so friendly and didn't pass judgment (at least not in our earshot) on our being tourists. after lunch we drove to the northernmost point of the island to preacher's cave, a huge cavern whose mouth faces the beach where apparently the first european settlers took refuse after a shipwreck - the birthplace of the bahamas, so they say. the beach was again gorgeous and completely deserted - save for a strong wind, it was perfect, and dk and i promptly took off all our clothes and took a dip.

we relocated to some stretch of beach around past a grove of pines to avoid the wind and saw many bonefish in the ocean and white crabs emerge from their hols in the sand. we wrote more and lost track of time.

once home again, kim and two other lodgers, andy and angie, invited us out to the cabana for soup. it was delicious and fun to gab with some new friends and learn all about their crazy life stories - kim, an aerial photographer and former multimillion dollar real estate broker, both a divorcee and a widow, who has eight kids and twenty-six properties on the caribbean islands. andy - six months out of the year he builds communications towers in antarctica, then travels around the world for the other six months. he has no permanent home. angie - recently divorced, came to eleuthera for a vacation, ended up staying six months. she has no plans for leaving. it was fun to be social, since we'd been skipping the nightlife, going to bed by ten or eleven each night and waking around seven to make coffee and eggs and plantains.

monday -

time to go. breakfast, then an hour at gaulding cay, the most peaceful beach that we'd come to love. we packed and got a ride to the airport from kim and angie and had an easy time at the airport, with time for lunch. the island was beautiful from the sky - the waters green and clear on the caribbean side, black on the atlantic.

we were then thrust back into the united states - miami - thrust into customs and security and crowds and the american news and american noise and i won't be able to say i'm happy to be back until i'm home in brooklyn with dk, where we can store our memories of the past six days together on a shelf, to then take them up and look at them whenever we like.

if you want to be a bahama mama

2010-05-18T15:50:00.000-04:00

DK and KS just returned from the out-island of eleuthera in the bahamas. my tiny camera captured what it could, but my traveling companion's camera did a lot more work, so, more pictures, and words, to come. for now, here's a few -

we all know how they get so old so fast

2010-05-06T10:55:00.000-04:00

thanks to the lovely dk deluxe for taking some snaps from bruar falls saturday. we were all bummed the sights couldn't make it out after all, but we had a super fun time anyway. those suckers from detroit missed out. we're going to try to make it happen for real in july so who knows. you might see eddie eating patrice's cymbals after all.

and it's long gone

2010-05-05T09:47:00.003-04:00

i usually fall in and out of sleep as my alarm clock radio plays npr's morning edition, but this morning, during the local new york news, i was roused awake: "...the city of detroit and baseball fans everywhere are mourning the loss of a legend." oh no, i mumbled aloud, it's ernie harwell. "ernie harwell, the voice of the detroit tigers for over forty years, passed away tuesday. he was 92..."

it's fitting that i heard the news on the radio. even before i cared about the tigers, or about baseball, or about anything, i listened to tigers broadcasts with my dad in the car. from chet lemon and lou whitaker and alan trammell and cecil fielder - even milt cuyler - to justin verlander, magglio ordonez, placido polanco, and god knows how many others, ernie harwell told us of their stories. i remember his voice reverberating in the frame of the car, overloading the small speakers, his unmistakeable voice not a sound of sports, but of summer, and of childhood. here's to one of the good ones -

this saturday:

2010-04-29T17:04:00.002-04:00

new jam

2010-04-23T12:25:00.000-04:00

here's a demo for a new song i wrote this past week. it's called "valley view." the long eye will be playing this one sooner or later.

valley view (mp3)

thanks to mikey for the title.

make believe

2010-04-17T11:08:00.001-04:00

i was examining the cover of the newest issue of the new yorker - a man and a woman dressed in safari clothes, sitting in a canoe that sat on the floor of their apartment. outside, it's raining, but inside, the room is filled with statues and carvings of african animals and people and plants. a man in war paint, a blue hippo, an alligator that appears to be hanging from the ceiling. the woman is holding binoculars and the man a paddle. this isn't a difficult cover to "get." it's amusing, and colorful and it catches the eye, and it fits the theme of the issue ("journeys").

but then i thought, what if this were a photograph? what if it were not staged, that this were actually a moment someone stealthily captured without the home-safari-goers knowing? basically, what if this were real? i'd think they were crazy, or at least, rather weird.

but what if they were children? would they still look strange? not at all. it would be exciting for parents to observe her two young children pretending to go on an african safari in their home while it rained outside. the parents would be proud of how well they raised their kids, providing them with some early, hazy worldview that looked beyond the town in which they live. they would be impressed that their kids are traveling to africa in their imaginations instead of alien worlds they read about in comic books or fighting like the characters in video games or imitating the sexual grinding of the pop stars on television. the parents would put their arms around each other and smile. it would probably be a little emotional.

but if mom and dad got in the canoe on the floor of their apartment, well, now they're nuts. little bobby wakes up at eleven-thirty to go to the bathroom, passes the study and sees mom and dad peering through binoculars at the wooden bird perched atop the bookshelf. he'd rub his eyes and say, "mom? dad?" mom and dad would leap form the canoe in utter embarrassment, quickly removing their safari hats, and start talking over each other in trying to explain that mommy and daddy were just being silly. having fun. just like you, bobby!

but it's really not ok for mom and dad to act like bobby and susie. they're adults. adult fantasies are pretty much limited to the bedroom and the computer. it's considered totally normal for a guy to create a fantasy baseball team and follow it online but not ok for a guy to dress in stirrups and pinstripes and go outside reciting the broadcast - "it's the bottom of the ninth, two outs. phil finklestein is at the plate..." - toss the ball into the air and hit his team's winning home run. an adult pretending to be a police officer or a doctor is not only weird, but it's illegal. unless your wife is at the same time pretending to be a speeding driver just pulled over or a patient with a little tickle in her through that she thought should be checked out by a hunky doctor who has locks on the doors of his examining rooms. make-believe in the bedroom as adults is fine, encouraged by therapists and all, but, even then, you'd be ashamed if you got caught.

the things we create, and call art and poetry, these days are pretty sad attempts at using the imagination. the greatest novels ever written are from first-person point of view, and the protagonists are the author with a different name. and that's ok. it's just not really much of stretch. literary fiction resides in a world of plausibility. believability is important. once you start making things up, your book is no longer literary. sci-fi and any other genre writing has a pretty big stigma attached to it. it becomes stuff for kids. pretending to fly a spaceship as a child? fine. as an adult? weird. potentially mentally ill.

maybe children become our make-believe. children let us live forever. fantasies give us pleasure and happiness via something we're not actually doing. maybe watching our children do things does the same. pleasure via the mind, not our own actions. but then i guess we have to be careful. we want them to see the world in their imaginations, to go on a safari in africa on a rainy saturday afternoon in new york, but then they might actually go someday. and then we'd be heartbroken.

may 1

2010-04-16T09:22:00.000-04:00

airtraining

2010-04-15T10:31:00.001-04:00

my uncle lives in vermont and works in ghana. he has lots of layovers at jfk airport, and if the timing works out, i go meet him at bar avion in terminal 4 for dinner. i take the air train to get there.

fish in cornfields

2010-04-13T00:37:00.001-04:00

Some mornings, Brooklyn still feels like an old harbor town. When the sun starts burning away the fog, and the air sticks to my lungs, I become a fisherman in a wool hat and a thick coat. My breath condenses on my moustache and beard as I make the trip down Old Fulton to the docks by the ferry landing to examine the boys’ catch.

I find gulls as far inland as Prospect Park on certain days. I can’t imagine they shoot straight up Coney Island Avenue from where the Atlantic seems as big as it is. I’m sure they were hanging around the garbage barges in the Gowanus Canal and heard the ducks and swans bathing in the little lake, primping in front of cyclists taking a break.

On the days when the sun can’t cut through the fog and the storm clouds roll in, Brooklyn shrinks. Hell, the whole city shrinks. Manhattan disappears in the clouds. The river sharpens and blackens, and when I trudge between warehouses under the two bridges, the gray sky might as well be a Midwest sky. There’s nothing there to tell me that cornfields don’t lie beyond my shallow horizon.

solid dudes

2010-04-07T11:53:00.002-04:00

couple of exciting things in the lives of my pals recently:

erik hall's solo project, in tall buildings, released it's first record yesterday on chicago's whistler records.

nathaniel shannon's solo show is up at manhattan's sacred gallery. the opening night was way fun.

nice job, dudes.

studio time

2010-04-06T19:09:00.001-04:00

patrice and i lugged all of our stuff over to the momentarily unoccupied st anns warehouse dressing room to start on our first record. we loaded up the old zipcar minivan yesterday and drove around sunny brooklyn jamming to hot 97. with everything set up, we were able to come back today and record drums for seven of our songs in about three hours. patrice is a machine. i'm really excited to be getting moving on this - and i'm curious to hear how it will all turn out. this is the fun time where a two-piece band can sound like a twenty-piece if we want.

i'm definitely motivated after the somewhat grueling palmyra recording sessions yielded a five-song e.p. i'm really proud of. it's called the city, on repeat. being able to see into the future makes it a lot easier to haul a bunch of heavy stuff and be cooped up in a small room on the first beautiful week of the year.

more to come from makeshiftstudioland.

don't get ahead of yourself

2010-04-03T17:06:00.001-04:00

it was supposed to be seventy-one degrees in brooklyn today. best we got was sixty-two. but the promise brought droves out to the sidewalks in dumbo.

i stood outside of the theater, watching everyone pass, sweatshirt zipped up and arms folded. the promise brought out sandals and shorts and sunglasses, and i got a kick out of seeing the forced smiles covering up the thoughts of how chilly everyone was. but they fought hard against it, with ice cream cones and iced coffees in hand.

a baby in one of the millions of strollers about the neighborhood was discovering language on this sunny day, and was amusing herself with a new syllable. "die," she said. she liked it, liked the thud of her tongue bursting from the roof of her mouth with a quick exhalation, the morphing vowel sound as she compressed the volume of her mouth, the buzz of her vocal chords in her throat. she repeated it, over and over, like a drum beat.

"die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die..."

i had to laugh. i liked it too.

live jams

2010-04-01T14:36:00.002-04:00

here's a live jam from the long eye's show at bruar falls a couple weeks back:

lovesong.mp3

no envelope

2010-03-31T11:09:00.001-04:00

i got a postcard from sarah:

see more of sarah's wonderful work at no-envelope.blogspot.com

hi.

2010-03-30T02:10:00.002-04:00

i just got back from the city center show, and it made me think about blogs. fred's blog is great. what i like best is that it takes all the pressure out of releasing things.

i've been working on a solo record for almost five years now. it's been around so long that the current proposed track listing has approximately zero songs on it that were on the original track listing. it's just because it's the first one that i can't finish it. i still think it has to be perfect, and that's just a real good way to never do anything. erik finally did it. we were kind of racing for a minute there. he won.

it's not just music though. i write and draw and photograph things that i'd like you to see. there is news i'd like to share. my friends do and make great things and i want to share them as well.

point is, this is a good way to release things without all the pressure. the hope is that the pressure is all internal, and that this blog is just me removing the radiator cap while the engine is still running. and, hopefully, that i manage to avoid burning my face off.