☵ Dragging an Ox through Water ☵

The Tropics Of Phenomenon (Sweet Dreams Edition) 2010/11/01

2010-10-13T09:15:00.001-07:00

On 11/01 Tokyo's Sweet Dreams label will be releasing an expanded edition of The Tropics of Phenomenon record on CD (originally released on Awesome Vistas / Freedom to Spend).. featuring a reworking of the original cover art by original cover artist Dana Dart-McLean plus replicas of several new paintings by Dana Dart-McLean.. five new tracks by Dragging an Ox through Water, and covers / remixes by Grouper, TJO, The Polyps, Thicket, and ZZ Tapes (E*Rock & Yoni).. writings by Patrica No (Publication Studio), and more.. super expanded Japanese Edition!

New 7" now available

2010-07-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Now that the physical vinyl 7” is out, the conceptual ghostly disembodied shadow digital one can be too! listen to it if you like it. buy it if you like it more. get the seven inch if you like it morer. come see me play if you like it most. http://bit.ly/dmpbf

<a href="http://dragginganox.bandcamp.com/album/theyre-gonna-send-me-to-the-dead-mumford-pencil-box-factory">Alright Solids by Dragging an Ox through Water</a>

Release Show!

2010-06-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow marks the release of the new 7" on Stank House Records. Please join us for the release party at Valentine's!

/ Soft Metals / Golden Retriever / Kevin Shields / a song from th’new 7” / calendar info

"Among The Rock" from upcoming 7" free until 23:59 on 20100519

2010-05-18T09:37:00.000-07:00

that's wednesday night!

http://bit.ly/dragginganoxamongtherock

very excited about this new release coming out on Portland's Stankhouse Records.

2010-01-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

New Video directed by M Blash! first actual Music Video of Dragging an Ox through Water! "Snowbank Treatment" interpreted in light patterns, alright. Thanks to a number of people and a number of extremely aroused salamanders. Such a beautifully complimentary world this video conjures! NW Blash.

so many things which qualify as "news" and haven't been updated here. apologies and I'll commit to more updates in the future.. in the meantime, there's generally plenty of minutiae in the 'other things' section on the side there..

I'll be heading out on another tour with JOMF in early February.. there will be some Dragging an Ox through Water sets scattered in the mix as well.. and I'll try to add them to the calendar as I become aware of them.

started renting a studio space.. it's just out of the realm of what I can afford, but I'm willing to hustle for it.. working on a new seven inch for StankHouse among other things.. very excited for some new work to see some daylight.

Hope everyone made it through the sort-of-dark holiday season and is pushing forward into better futures than any yet seen.

Home Now. Upcomings.

2009-08-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Portland at just about midnight on the evening of July 20th, rested for a day and a half, played a show at Mississippi Studios on the 22nd, and left that night to head down to California for the Awesome Vistas show at the Mission Creek Festival. I was sorry to miss PDX Pop Now, but we had some nice beach time and rad shows with Sic Alps, Linda Hagood, Inca Ore. Chen Santa Maria, Perfect Teeth, and Radar Bros.. (in that order and I am forgetting to mention some I'm sure.. sorry..) This was Tom Greenwood, Danny Sasaki, and I in California.. we weren't doing JOMF, but Tom and Danny were doing a band called "Tom Greenwood" and I was playing Dragging an Ox through Water sets.
And Europe was great. We droooooove and droooove. Thanks to everyone everyone.

I'm playing a show next Wednesday (8/12) at Holocene which I was asked by Gina to curate. Decided to make it a benefit for Yellow Brick Road, because it's their 25th anniversary. I'm very excited about it.. Salt Orchard (snare drum and vocal duo, members of Xh and The Better to See You With) and Operative (Scott Goodwin from Bonus, sawtooth waves, live drums I'm told by Jed and Spencer) will both play, as well as Dragging an Ox through Water (me), and label owners from local labels like Below PDX, Together Tapes, Eggy Records and Distro, and Awesome Vistas will DJ from their catalogs between, before, and after sets. Liz Harris (grouper) will show some video work.. and there will be a wearable sculpture procession / fashion show curated by Dana Dart McLean with works by Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Storm Tharp, Alicia McDaid, Loyal Mantooth, members of Oregon Painting Society, and many more along with some choreography by Jane from Janet Pants Dans Theatre. Real strange free-associatively gathered together world kind of night! Please come!

also: tonight! I am playing with Scott Kelly from the band Neurosis who opened my metal eyes when I was really young and also with Bird Costumes, with whom I have played countless Food Hole and basement shows and sometimes even shows in other cities, but with whom I haven't played in way too long.

and: I am gonna be heading down to SF for a really short trip at the end of the month to perform on the 30th as part of John Gruntfest's Raven Free Orchestra. I met John Gruntfest through my Thicket bandmates Ben Kates' and John Niekrasz's organizing efforts with the Portland Creative Music Guild. He and his "Greatest Little Big Band in the History of the Megaverse" are some of the most inspiring and creative lifer-musician-practitioners I've ever met and I'm incredibly honored and excited to get to play as a part of this large ensemble! mark your calendars, Bay Area.

Summer European Tour with Jackie-O Motherfucker

2009-05-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

Dragging an Ox through Water has been asked to open for Jackie-O Motherfucker on a tour of Europe in late June / early July. I am very excited about this. I will also be playing as a member of JOMF on this tour. The calendar is being updated as I learn details.

"The Tropics of Phenomenon" released on CD by Freedom to Spend

2009-04-10T13:12:00.000-07:00

Very excited to announce that a CD version of "The Tropics of Phenomenon" is coming out on Pete Swanson's (Ex-Yellow Swans) label Freedom to Spend.
The official release date is wednesday 20090415.

new abode are new haus

2009-01-30T12:35:00.000-08:00

tour was great. thanks so much to everyone who helped out, came to shows, or welcomed me to their floors or couches.
Portland's at almost 8% unemployment. My job kinda dried up, so I'm gonna hustle.
I hear about parallel economies starting to spring up already. Speakeasies, underground restaurants.
I hear about things getting druggier and drunker.. my old boss has to ask people out of the shop almost daily and there have been some ODs.
I heard an Oakland man purposefully quizzing his maybe-eight-year-old son in the laundromat about an article about the Oscar Grant murder-by-police. They let me do my drying for free since I did my washing there.
I heard Obama put the main focus on Israel's right to defend itself from rocket attacks just after Israel finished off almost 1300 Palestinians with mostly U.S. munitions and also maybe some experimental low power nuclear weapons and also maybe some white phosophorous and also maybe some cluster bombs. At least he's gonna close down Guantanamo.
I heard about a shooting in PDX last weekend.
I drove into a fog so dense on the mountains of I-5 that I couldn't see almost anything and the horizon just barely shone through at the end of it and suddenly it was gone. This was northbound, but at the beginning of the tour I had a terrifying dream about driving off of a cliff in the rain which brought the reality of driving into my driving.
I'm moving on Sunday into a new place in Portland and I am so excited about it!

shurts

2009-01-13T14:49:00.000-08:00

art by Jo Jackson and Chris Johanson.
screen burnt by Ron Burns (ha)
printed by Ron, Dana, Brian so far.

shirts made by American Apparel.
many thanks to Michael Parich as well for helping me order them.

(I will make a way that you can order these like paypal or something once I get back from this tour, but for now, if you're in California, come to a show. They're gonna be limited and this is the first run.)

Live tape on UHU

2009-01-13T14:26:00.000-08:00

coming real soon on UHU.

this show

2009-01-11T01:54:00.000-08:00

was good.

20090110

2009-01-07T15:10:00.001-08:00

the carmps

2009-01-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

13 days left of Bush Dynasty Rule. My dreams have been vivid the past few days.. the wind has been howling here at night.
I finished a sculpture for a show in Austin after having hated it for several days. It turned out beautiful, though, after I worked on it some more, and it is propped up unevenly on an australian fossil rock.
The wind has been howling here at night and the sky has been all orange.
I had a dream about watching a new Crispin Glover movie called 'Paperclip' about a sweet deformed boy who was as light as a paperclip when he was born. His parents had a romantic dinner which was different flavors of jelly out of tubes. this was after his mom had a wayward affair with a smooth but creepy character played by Brad Pitt which was kind of summarized in the early part of the movie. A scene of paperclip swimming in a pool when he is six or five.. his head pulls in between his shoulders like a tortoise, but when he reaches the surface his shoulders stay put and his head emerges with a lot of wrinkly extra flesh which forms a trailing hat kind of. He and his mother embrace really sweetly. It's not played up for weirdness even though the fact that it's a movie means it's inherently played up for weirdness. But the fact that it was a dream about a movie, I guess, makes it legitimately not played up for weirdness. Until it is retold on the internet.
We went to the Cease Fire in Gaza Demonstration on Saturday afternoon. This is fucking ridiculous. Now Israel's going to honor a three hour cease fire everyday to allow WFP to distribute food before it gets back down to business just bombing the shit out of all the people who are at least maybe recently fed. I'm no fan of rocket attacks, but I'm also no fan of blockading (for a year and a half) a region and allowing only enough humanitarian aid through to keep it teetering barely on the sunny side of a crisis.
Then I had a dream, the wind was howling and the sky was orange and the snow turned to whipping rain, then I had a dream of a similar storm, but the clouds were like plasma.. I saw a steady violent cyclone filled with lightning reach down into the water of a pool next door to this unfamiliar apartment where this dream was located. It magnetized a metal utility sink and I saw a wheelbarrow struggling toward it over a concrete ledge. I felt the blood in my arms curdle or clench or draw up toward the electricity in the air, it was painful like a shock and a muscle cramp and I tried to get everyone in the dream into the center of the downstairs in the apartment as far from the electricity outside as possible, but the walls were simple wood and drywall, I kept feeling surges in my arms and on my neck. It was exhilarating, I guess, too.

2009-01-04T11:38:00.000-08:00

sun 1/04 3:30pm pioneer square PDX

2008-12-31T11:17:00.001-08:00

portland got hammered with snow. we were dogsitting and I was really happy about it.
My tour is coming together bit by bit.. only a few holes left.. feel free to check out the calendar and make recommendations as I continue to scramble.

Pete Swanson's Freedom To Spend label is going to release the CD version of The Tropics of Phenomenon! Dana and I are working out the art and such, so expect updates.

and listen to this alice notley poem.

some simple homework.

2008-12-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Hey please take a moment to CALL (not just write) your representative regarding the conflict in Gaza. The death toll is mounting by dozens per hour.

regular music related news soon.

-dpqb-

2008-12-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

         i                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                                         
The Marrow of The Money Is Spoiling into Blood.
 Cynical Financial Perverts.  Leering Prophets of Doom.

argt intr unkn sab

2008-12-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

Why have I never known that the first (1st) Bee Gees record is so good?

I'll be playing in John Wiese's ensemble at Work Sound Gallery on Saturday 12/13.

Also: Oregon Painting Society plays tomorrow night and I'm excited to see them.

#OPS#

2008-12-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

“garden is a dream and willful naiveté is ignorance and ignorance leads to horrors.”

&pond sickness&

2008-11-29T17:16:00.000-08:00

you can now order "The Tropics of Phenomenon" from Aquarius Records in SF! There is a kind review halfway down the page!
also Vol.2 #2 of ANP Quarterly has a nice article on the Awesome Vistas label right at the beginning!

O

2008-11-05T02:28:00.000-08:00

What a Huge Relief. Let the Monumental Task begin.

Nivelles BE

2008-11-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

tonight I got to see Young Marble Giants play at the Factory Festival.. I was so excited to see them and then not at all let down.. the place was freezing.. this big tent in the middle of a field and it was raining outside, mud and hay all over the ground, I gotta spring for some boots. God what good music they play.

OH HEY USA: IF THERE'S ANY CHANCE YOU HAVEN'T DONE IT YET, THEN VOTE! FOR OBAMA. DO NOT VOTE FOR MCCAIN / PALIN. and vote on paper if you possibly can.

2008-10-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

2008-10-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

thanks to everyone who came out to the release show. it was one of my favorite shows I've ever been to. "The Tropics of Phenomenon" will be available to order from midheaven mailorder pretty soon, so check on that site.
I'm out of town for a while, but I'm working on a west coast tour for early December. If you wanna offer any assistance or just say hello don't hesitate to write!

also: VOTE! and I don't mean for McCain / Palin. Palin is a total moron and McCain is not a maverick and the election is not entertainment. This is too important so make sure to do it.