Feed Us A Live Insect

Mechanookie--a radio play

2012-02-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this over not much sleep, so perhaps it won't be very coherent--

One of the reasons I haven't been out much is that I've been squirreled away, working on writing and recording a radio play for the Monolators. It's called "Mechanookie," and it's going to be a 6-episode sci fi series starring my various actor friends as well as friends from the LA music scene. Each episode is about 15 minutes long and ends with a new Monolators song sung by a member of the cast.

Press release blurb/plot summary:

Mechanookie takes place in 3000 AD in the futuristic city of Magicopolis. Two citizens, a dumpy robot named Mechanor and his famous roommate, The Magician are in love with the same girl, an attractive cyborg named Robot Girl. Robot Girl must choose between the two rivals for her affection all the while protecting her human sidekick, a teenager named School Girl, who is cursed with the possession of an extremely dangerous and desirable secret: The Secret of the Universe.

Mechanookie has its own web page (which I encourage you to explore), blog, and facebook page. I will try to make sure all updates are posted here as well as on the show blog. The first episode will broadcast (well, podcast) from the Mechanookie site on Thursday, March 8--two weeks from today. There will be a new episode posted every week for the following 6 weeks, and on April 14 we're going to do a live performance of the whole play at the Hudson Theater in Hollywood.

So--yes, that's what I've been doing. I'm (mostly) finished editing episode one, I still need to write and edit in incidental music and some more sound effects...and...I'm...tirrreeedddd...

That is all.

Some other band has a Don't Dance song!

2012-02-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

I can't say I'm too surprised, but I just found out that some other band has a song called Don't Dance. It's sort of...emo hip-hop. Excellent.

Jersey Shore

2012-01-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

Just learned that some (or all?) of "Push And Pull" from the Silver Cities ep will appear on tonight's episode of Jersey Shore on the MTV. We don't have cable, if anyone else out there watches it, lemme know if you hear it.

Might be the vocal version or it might be an instrumental with the vocals removed--hard to say. If the latter you might have a hard time picking it out. We'll see!

Where were you when I needed you?

2012-01-13T08:33:00.001-08:00

Christopher Cross Super Comics #8

2011-12-22T13:53:00.002-08:00

click to enlarge

Christopher Cross Super Comics #7

2011-12-22T13:53:00.000-08:00

Christmas #1

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Christopher Cross Super Comics #6

2011-12-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

Art

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Christopher Cross Super Comics #5

2011-12-21T15:37:00.000-08:00

Big Hat

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Christopher Cross Super Comics #4

2011-12-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

I Need A Haircut

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Christopher Cross Super Comics #3

2011-12-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

In The Studio

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Christopher Cross Super Comics #2

2011-12-19T15:40:00.000-08:00

French Movie Star

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Christopher Cross Super Comics #1

2011-12-19T11:23:00.000-08:00

New comic strip by Zebra (click to enlarge).

Alcohol (Part I)

2011-12-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

By Robert Jay, circa 1973. Great raw song, one chord, great lyrics. Phenomenal drummer.

New favorite blog

2011-12-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

Tales from the Junk Store

Junk Pirate is the found art empire of images, objects, ephemera, and other oddities encountered and collected through my job sorting junk.

examples:

This Monday at Manhattan Murder Mystery's residency

2011-12-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

Monolators has the 10:00 spot this coming Monday at Manhattan Murder Mystery's residency at The Satellite--this one will be extra rad because it's an all-Highland Park night. The idea of recreating a night at Mr. T's at the (ex-)Spaceland is kinda hilarious, but we love all of the bands involved and it's an honor to be asked to play.

Matthew Teardrop says:

Hey! Come to the Second night of our residency if you want to!
It's free!

Dec 12th we're playing with

Seasons 9pm

The Monolators 10pm

The Mormons 12am

dj Cholo Carwash

Facebook page invite here

Please come! We love you all.

Nice review from Shonen Knife show

2011-11-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

"Charmingly shambolic." I'll TAKE IT!

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/151249-shonen-knife-slices-through-modern-tension/

Question: are we power-pop? I don't think I have any power pop records, what exactly are the big power pop bands? Maybe we're more like Power Slop.

Also, anyone seen any pictures or video from that show?

Monolators on Vanity Projects Fall/Winter comp!

2011-11-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

And now for something a little less sad (well, actually, not even remotely sad, but instead, wonderful):

As you may know, Geoff Geis, who we've known and played shows with in various guises (GET IT???) for years now, runs his own cassette/cdr label called Vanity Projects. His "Princess" solo cassette has been a very frequent visitor to our Sony Walkman Sport and handily makes my top ten for new releases this year.

That's why we were extremely stoked when Geoff asked us to contribute a track to the Vanity Projects Autumn/Winter compilation for 2011, which features tracks from friends like Pizza!, Bug Whup, Magick Orchids, and So Many Wizards. The comp is right here via bandcamp and you can download it for free--please check it out, I'm so happy to be on there.

Mary and I debated at length as to what we should contribute--something old, something new? Eventually we went with a track from the very first Monolators incarnation, "Office Drone," which is circa Rejection Set Us Free, our first full-length from 2004. Mary on drums, Mike Dennis on guitar, me on bass. It's a ballad and I think the theme is something you might just possibly be able to relate to. Also--this is still in its earliest stages, but I'm excited to report it--we're planning a release/retrospective on Vanity Projects in 2012 to mark the (egad) tenth anniversary of the Monolators, and I'm very much looking forward to that. More info as it comes.

How could you not love a face like that?

Last Cobra Lilies show tomorrow at Taix

2011-11-10T08:43:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's true. I'm not sure if anyone actually reads this blog anymore, but there are more details here on why we've decided to cease being Lilies. Arlene, Alissa, Mary and I will continue playing CL songs in the future, but as a new band with new instrumentation/arrangements; we're just not sure what yet that will be yet.

Anyway--it's just us and Tommy Santee Klaws playing; they're first at 10:30, we're second at 11:30. It's free and I hope you can make it.

Last Cobra Lilies show this Friday at Taix

2011-11-07T10:44:00.000-08:00

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=264085436969673

My Life with the Knife pt III: Rock Animals

2011-11-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

There's been some confusion as to what time we're going on tonight--we're first, at 9:00, and I hope you can attend!

Here's my third and last little article about Shonen Knife and some of their overlooked records that I'm especially fond of.

If you listen to critical consensus--well, Allmusic (whose opinions I find suspect much of the time)--then apparently you'll find that SK's best work is from their earliest, pre-Saint-Cobain-Benediction phase, when they churned out a series of charming, extremely ramshackle cassettes and LP's on tiny independent labels that almost nobody heard at the time. On signing to Virgin they ended up recycling and re-recording some the best songs from these early records for Let's Knife, in some cases years after recording the original versions. I wasn't aware until fairly recently that Let's Knife contains almost no new songs--it's all stuff from their early records, but re-done with a bigger budget. Can you imagine a current indie band being asked to re-record old songs? I mean, I'D do it, but I'm easy.

Now of course we all know that the original versions are always the best, blah blah blah. And they are pretty cool, especially for people who equate muscial incompetence with authenticity. In fact I do like some of the songs off of these 1980's documents that didn't make their way onto Let's Knife--like "Spider," which splices a cover of Edith Piaf's "Milord" to a chorus that goes "I wanna wanna wanna be a spider man," and is, okay, pretty fantastic:

But, dated/booming 1990's rock drum production aside, I don't think that the re-recorded songs on Let's Knife suffer from tighter playing and "bigger" sound--you know why? Because they're really good songs! They're novelty songs, but they're very well-written novelty songs. Big strong hooks, extremely memorable, and unlike so many "lo-fi" bands, their charm does not solely lie in production or performance styles. So yes, although I do like the early records with their tinker-toy sound and fizzy guitars, really--give the later stuff a chance, there's some really good songs and ideas on there.

For instance! Let's take the generally panned follow-up to Let's Knife, Rock Animals. Let's look at the cover:

No candy colors or crayon drawings of kitty cats in rockets! Instead we have three serious-looking people. In Leathurrrr. I'm not sure what concept they were going for (this is their "edgy" album?), it was probably ill-advised and I'm sure lost them points with people craving more crayon drawings of kitty cats in rockets. But even so, this is a solid album from front to back and far better than the TWO STUPID STARS awarded by this gentleman. For example:

"Butterfly Boy" has a fabulous, noisy guitar/bass riff/hook, and also Thurston Moore! Really! It's the only record of his that I own! HA HA HA HA!

Catnip Dream is about...catnip, and cats, um...well, that's about it, but--it also has what I think is my favorite guitar solo of all time (at 02:26). It sounds like two people playing simultaneously, I guess it's overdubbed, so I don't know if they ever tried to reproduce it live, but still--I BOUGHT THIS ALBUM BECAUSE OF A GUITAR SOLO. I have never really done that before. Oh man it's so. Good.

There's other good songs, "Another Day" kinda reminds me of something off of Pet Sounds or something, and the "why did our beautiful summer have to end" part is really kind of haunting..."Cobra Versus Mongoose," well, I was a big Rikki Tikki Tavi fan when they used to show it in the public library when I was about 6 years old, so that's pretty special. And then there's the quiet closer, "Music Square," which is lovely and...um...yes, I'll say it, sincere in a way that most bands I know would be far too scared to even attempt:

So there you have it. Even with the creepy fused-naked-lady-twins artwork on the disc itself, that's an album right there. And, contrary to what the Allmusic review says, it DOES mark a pretty clear progression from Let's Knife. So says I, anyway. Worth more than two stars, Richie.

New trio pics

2011-11-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

Proof that Monolators is now officially a three-piece:

My Life with the Knife pt II: Explosion!

2011-10-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our show next Tuesday I'm writing a series of posts on one of my favorite bands from my mis-spent youth, Shonen Knife...

One thing I often hear as a criticism about SK is that all of their songs are either about:

(a) Animals

or

(b) Food.

This is obviously false--they also have several songs that are about:

(c) Both animals AND food simultaneously.

Actually there are other notable digressions from their usual lyrical obsessions. Today I would like to highlight one of their lesser-known records that came out in '97 after they were dropped from their major-label contract with Virgin:

Granted, there are plenty of animal and food songs on this one ("when you feel down, I recommend to you: eat lots of fruits and vegetables"). The overall production is less giddy and DIY than their earlier records, so I think it generally gets dismissed/ignored by critics and SK fans. But there are also a couple of rather heart-felt songs about boredom and inertia that hit me really hard when I first heard them, and one that actually reduced me to tears while I was driving in my Toyota Camry. I will explain.

Biographies of Shonen Knife always mention that they started the band as a hobby to relieve the tedium of their go-nowhere office jobs:

Despite Shonen Knife's relentlessly upbeat image, their origins were quietly rebellious in their own culture. The three young women—sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano and their friend Michie Nakatani—came from Osaka's middle class, where a young woman's life was expected to follow a strict path. When the three decided to form a band in the early 1980s, they had no intention of pursuing rock and roll fame...

Consequently, the Yamanos and Nakatani saw their music as a hobby only, one that would relieve the tedium of their day jobs: Naoko and Atsuko Yamano, who lived with their parents in Osaka, held office jobs with a plastic surgeon and fashion designer, respectively, while Nakatani worked as a word processor. The band's beginnings were appropriately simple, as Naoko described in Pollster. "It was after we finish school," she explained. "Me and Michie were bored so we decide to start a band, but we need drummer. I made a pretty flyer and put it on refrigerator. Soon Atsuko see.... She said she would be drummer." *

Around the time Brand New Knife came out I was working a series of frustratingly boring, low-paid, go-nowhere office jobs myself, with little sense of purpose and no idea of how to get myself to a better place. I always hear about that time (the 1990's in general) as being an era of a strong economy and easy money; I guess it was, except I had no ability to tap into that money myself, and I was hurting financially just about as badly then as I ever have. I had also managed to run up some spectacular student loans but was making maybe a third or quarter of what I'd need to make, income-wise, in order to pay them off in a timely (say, fifteen years?) fashion.

So, in that context, I picked up a used copy of Brand New Knife maybe a year after it came out; dutifully made a copy to cassette (transparent red cassette--where are you now?) so I could listen to it my car, and put it on while driving to work. Instead of the expected sparkly songs about kitty cats, the record kicks off instead with "Explosion!" (see above). This is...not about kitty cats. Or food. It's an ominous punk ode to that feeling of frustration with the status quo that's so familiar these days--perhaps it resonates more strongly today than it did when it was released. The lyrics in English go, in part:

Nothing's gonna start if you and I do nothing
Nothing's gonna change if you and I are only waiting
Nothing's gonna move if you and I see only one thing
Nothing's gonna work but I can't change the system of this world

Hey money junkie, what are you living for?
I burn with anger, I set time bombs everywhere.

So, there's that, which I wasn't expecting. There's some more good songs on there, like the moody "Wind Your Spring" and "E.S.P.," which is totally charming and is about exactly what you think it is. Plus it has a great guitar solo.

But the song that really hit me was, oddly, "Loop Di Loop," a perky little number about riding a roller coaster. Except, right in the middle of cruising along happily, you come to the bridge--a bridge that, out of nowhere, completely changes the song's direction:

Trash, rubbish, foolishness
Repeating the same thing everyday
Trash, rubbish, foolishness
Feeling boredom everyday

I don't know if they had their day jobs in mind when they wrote that, maybe not; but when I heard it I was stopped in my car at a traffic light, on my way to my miserable office job, and it struck me with such force and resonance that I starting tearing up. In despair. I don't think there's many bridges that can do that, and so I hereby nominate it The Greatest Bridge Of All Time. Well, it's certainly in the Top Ten of Bridges, okay? Okay. Anyway, "Loop Di Loop" was one of the things that pushed me to start my own band with Mary, and for that I will always be grateful. Check it out:

My life with the Knife

2011-10-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

So, Shonen Knife. Less than a week until our show with them--I am very excited. Someone (was it Don of Don's Music fame?) once told me that their original drummer lives in Eagle Rock? Is this true? I keep wondering if I'll spot her at the Super A, but no, no such luck. Maybe Don is pulling my leg.

ANNNYWAY. I can't quite remember who first mentioned Shonen Knife to me--this is almost 20 years ago by now. It might have been my brother. I do remember seeing a review of Let's Knife in some gearhead guitar dude magazine in the early 90's and thinking "huh." I think this same magazine was trying to politely suggest that, perhaps, Shonen Knife wasn't quite as heavy in the gearhead guitar dude department as some other quality bands at the time, for instance:

vs.

Hmmmm...

Well, despite Extreme's manifest charms, I ended up siding with Shonen Knife, even after a young woman who (I think) was trying to flirt with me by demanding that I lift her off the ground (I failed) tartly dismissed the band with a "they just want to be cartoon characters" comment. I distinctly remember thinking "doesn't EVERYBODY?!?" I didn't say it out loud, though--too busy trying to lift said girl off the ground. Failed again. She had a lame bowl haircut and was into Sarah McLachlan. I don't remember her name. But I DO remember THIS:

...and I think you would have to have a heart of stone not to like a video like that. Personally, I suspect that more bands would benefit by shooting space monsters with lasers from headless guitars. Especially bands struggling with their image. I can think of...well, just about everyone. Just saying.

Anyway, soon after the failed-girl-lifting episode, my brother bought me a copy of Every Band Has A Shonen Knife Who Loves Them and, for my birthday, took me to see them play in Detroit. This was the show that I mentioned earlier wherein much of the audience was dressed up as either Batman or Paul Revere and the Raiders. It made a very, very large impression on me and, along with that scene in Wings of Desire where Nick Cave plays From Her To Eternity in some decaying Berlin palace, cemented in my brain the idea of what a Cool Rock And Roll Show was like.

Over the next few days I'm gonna post some more about SK--but please please pass this facebook invite around to anyone and everyone. I would love to make this show extremely wonderful by seeing all of your lovely faces there. Thanks!

Fare Thee Well, Ashley & Jillinda

2011-10-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

Feels like lately we've been saying a lot of farewells lately, first with Cobra Lilies, and now with Monolators.

Both Ashley and Jillinda have decided to move on to other things, and so from a five-piece we're officially back to a trio. We've known both Ashley and Jillinda for a long time and we've been through a lot together, but since our residency in January everyone's lives have become so hectic that it's been harder and harder to get everyone together in the same place at the same time. I believe the last occasion we all played together as a 5-piece band was to record our final Kickstarter cover song video back in June, like so:

So Monolators is now down to Ray, Mary, and I, with me switching back to bass. I was actually the original Monolators bassist! It's true! 6 years ago! I am petrified! Well, a little. Our first show as an official trio was last weekend at the Prospector and we will also play the Shonen Knife show as a three-piece next Tuesday.

Ashley with Thunderbird at Pehrspace, 2008. Photo: LA Underground

We first met Ashley in...I want to say...2007, at Pehrspace. We somehow or other got to play a show she put together there, but without her ever having seen us play before. I can't quite remember how that happened. I do remember that we played that night as a two-piece and, during the course of the show, I tried to assume rock awesomeness by climbing on top of Mary's drum kit, as I often do. This time, however, I decided to climb on top of the floor tom while playing guitar (why? Don't know). The floor tom collapsed under my weight, and I fell flat on my back. This amused Ashley to no end. Later Ashley became a Cobra Lily and would fill in on bass for Monolators when our then-regular bassist, Andy, couldn't make a show. She became an official Monolator in 2008 just a week and half before we went into the studio to record Don't Dance--and, even with basically no advance notice, still managed to record half the bass parts on the album, as well as a chunk of the keyboard parts. She stayed with us through two tours and made the Ruby, I'm Changing My Number and Silver Cities records with us. Her last show with us was this past July at Pehrspace--right where we first met her. SYMMETRY. Thanks, Ashley--you will be missed.

Jillinda at The Smell. Photo: cinaferoholbeck

We first got to know Jillinda probably around the same time as Ashley, although she held out another year before joining officially (in 2009). We met her as the keyboard player of The Breakups (whose leader, Jake, happens to be the brother of one of my classmates from middle school in East Lansing, Michigan. WEIRD) and I Make This Sound, and although she didn't play on the Don't Dance record, she certainly played the record release show, and was a sort of honorary Monolator before joining for reals in 2009. She's on Ruby and the keyboard-heavy Silver Cities record, and was with us until her last official show, a house party in Castaic, California a week and a half ago. Jillinda's concentrating her musical time now on her own band, The Damselles, and also plays in High Ho Silver-o, so she's keeping busy--but we shall miss her.

Here's a picture from the last show we ever played live as a five-piece, at LaBrie's Lounge in January at the end of our Radio Free Silverlake residency...thanks Ashley & Jillinda, we had a really good time together.

Curtain Call. Photo by Jeff Koga

Also, I couldn't resist--one of my favorite moments from the 5-piece band--the ABBALATORS:

And live at the Echo, circa 2009. I always liked these pictures:

Monolators in Long Beach; Cobra Lilies at Perhspace (penultimate CL show)

2011-10-19T21:20:00.000-07:00

We have two shows coming up that I'd like you to know about--apart from the Shonen Knife show--which will be very nice indeed.

This Thursday (the 20th) Monolators will play the Prospector in Long Beach as part of LA Underground's Los Angeles Loved...2011. We haven't played the Prospector in something like...2 years? So we're very happy about this. We play first at 10, with The Vivids and Dva Damas. $5! Very nice writeup about the show here courtesy of LA Underground.

And, on Friday (the 21st), Cobra Lilies play the Pehrspace with Magick Orchids and solo Geoff Geis! Also, magically, $5, but this one is all-ages. The show starts at 8:30, we play at 10:30.

This is actually our second-to-last show under the Cobra Lilies name and with the current lineup. Both Ema and Pauline are moving on to spend more time on their other musical projects, and since so many Lilies have departed within the last year or so, we've decided to retire the band name. We feel that Cobra Lilies is very much a big band, and with just 4 members left (down from, I think, 12 or 13 at our peak) it's not really the same thing. We will miss Ema & Pauline (and the rest of our ex-Lilies) very much, but Arlene, Alissa, Mary and I will continue on playing our repertoire under a new name, which is yet to be determined. I will certainly make note of it here once we've reconfigured ourselves...and we have an unreleased EP that needs to come out...so there's still a lot of good stuff to come.

After Friday we'll have one more Cobra Lilies show as a 6-piece at Taix in November with Tommy Santee Klaws, but I hope you can make this show too, which will be a lot of fun! Thanks everybody for all the love and support you've given the Lilies these past few years!

-Eli Excelsior Lily