I know I haven’t written anything in a while, what with working 55-hours a week and all (gotta make up for all that $ I didn’t make last year). And while exciting things have been happening at The Orchard, I didn’t want to bore you with that or turn this into a fanboy-obsessed blog. So I was thinking that tonight when I got home after both work shifts that I would possibly write about

Last Saturday. I caught a whiff on Twitter that Rana Sobhany, the world’s first iPad DJ, was going to be “spinning” a set at Bluebrain, a special night at The Fridge, which is a new (to me at least) little art gallery on Capitol Hill. I was working last that night but I tweeted her and she said she wasn’t going on until 11 or so and that worked with my timetable of getting back on The Hill. The show included a downloadable iPhone app where the audience could twist the knobs and affect the sound output of the DJ, but unfortunately I missed that portion of the art show. But on the good side, I got in without paying the $5 cover. Rana was on when I got there and I listened and grooved to the rest of her set. It was pretty poppy but still fun. I talked with her afterwards and she seems like a nice person, really warm and conversational. There was some other fun art showing there too, and a live painting in process that anyone could add to. Fun.

Or I could have written about

Last Sunday. Eric H, sky mattress extraordinaire, art curator and sometimes blogger, was celebrating his 40th birthday. And what better way to do that than to get 30 friends together, start them drinking mimosas at 11:00 am and then throw them into a disco bus and take them out to the Virginia wine country for the afternoon? Some bottles of champagne made it onto the bus and there was a wide selection of yummy nibblies being passed around. We stopped at two wineries, sampled some wine, bought some wine and sat out in the hot sun. The 2nd winery had lawn bowling setup under some shady trees and that provided some recreation as well as relief from the sun. Needless to say, knowing this crowd, we all had a good wine buzz going by the time we rolled back into DC. Then topping the evening off with La Lomita? Perfect.

Or I could have written about

Today. I’ve been thinking about Mom all day, as this would have been her 73rd birthday. I miss you Mom, not only today but everyday.

And then this happened:

I’m biking down Maryland Avenue, on my way from the full-time to the part-time. Apparently I am not paying too much attention to the road as I hit a major bump and am sent flailing head-first over the bike, at 20 mph. I crash down on the pavement in a twisted heap with the bike twisting up my legs so that when I realized I’ve stopped on the street I’m not sure which way I’m facing and I cannot move. I remember at that moment being in extreme pain, yelling out “Fuck! Fuuuuuck!” and having visions of dropping florescent lighting tubes from four-story buildings, tomatoes and what it would feel like when you think you’re standing in your life and all of a sudden the walls, ceiling and floor get stripped away and you’re then standing on nothing in darkness wondering where the fuck everything went.

Luckily the kind folk who live on Maryland Ave came to my rescue. An older gentleman from across the street, who had seen the whole crash happen, came over and helped me untangle myself from the bike and get me to stand up and get out of the street and onto the sidewalk. A woman came out of her house asking if I was okay and went back in to get me a bottle of water and a wet towel. After realizing I was basically okay with only flesh wounds (no broken bones, no head injuries) and telling them I was only going one more block down the street they reluctantly left but took many thanks with them.

I hobbled on down to The School and immediately looked for a first aid kit, finding supplies and getting into the shower to rinse the blood (and hopefully the gravel too) off and clean my wounds. My left elbow and left knee took the worst of the fall, which is weird because I think I remember the wheel turning left as I fell, meaning I would have fallen on my right side. I guess it all happened so quickly those details might not be clear.

So I’m pretty beat up but at least no broken bones in this old body and thankfully there were no cars directly behind me that might have run me over. As the man from across the street said “It may hurt now but you’ll really feel it in the morning”. That’s what I’m afraid of.

styx
veruca salt
inxs
jesus jones
oasis
a flock of seagulls
eric b. & rakim
kismet
madonna
sharon redd
depeche mode
david bowie
heart
fleetwood mac
george michael
oak ridge boys
nine inch nails
blur

Last Saturday during the beginning of the SNOwhatever I kept getting emails from Matt Alber and Tom Goss concerning their show that evening. It turns out the original venue had cancelled the appearance but Matt and Tom didn’t want to call the event and found an alternative venue, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church. Since Matt’s music can get a little acoustic and atmospheric, I thought this would be a great place to see it.

When I got there it turns out the show was in their fellowship hall instead of their main sanctuary and I was a little disappointed about that, but I still got a seat in the 2nd row in the center. I was giddy!

I recognized Tom and spoke with him before the show and he thanked me for coming out. I wasn’t that familiar with Tom’s music but after seeing his performance (guitar) I’m a fan now.

Then, came the moment when Matt (!) came out to do his part of the show and it was great to be that close while Matt was performing. He was also pretty jovial with the intimate audience which is always entertaining. After the show, I had to go up and talk to Matt and simply thanked him for his songs, the perspective he wrote them from and how all us little queer boys felt that way growing up. While introducing myself I mentioned futurejunkie on Twitter and he’s like “Oh yeah, futurejunkie!” which of course made me melt right there on the spot.

Here are two clips of Matt during the show, “End of The World” and “Field Trip Buddy” (my favorite). They sang a duet of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” but at that point my iPhone battery was dying and I couldn’t record it. Dang, but it was beautiful.

Thanks for a great show, guys!

Scruffy crooner Matt Alber finally hits the East Coast, not counting one-off publicity/fundraising shows in New York. The “tour” isn’t substantial by any means but he is coming to DC (yay!).

The first show is January 18 in NYC with Celisse Henderson. He shoots down to Va Beach and then Balmer, hon, before coming to the District on his birthday, February 6. He’s teaming up with singer Tom Goss (who I’m unfamiliar with) and playing at Delaski Theater in Adams Morgan. I’ve never heard of this theater but bought a ticket anyway and I’m excited to go. After the DC gig he heads down to Florida for a few gigs sans Mr. Goss. Hopefully he’ll add some mid-Atlantic cities to this tour, check out all the latest at his website, mattalber.com.

In my excitement of learning of the tour and purchasing an immediate ticket, I tweeted my excitement and received a personal tweet back from Mr. Alber. <swoon>

I went home for Thanksgiving this year. I didn’t go last year. Speaking with my Dad last year he said, “I know sometimes you want to get together with your friends…”. I hadn’t missed a Thanksgiving in the last fourteen years I’ve been living here so I had no idea what he was talking about. But I took advantage of it anyway, and didn’t have to deal with the travel hassle of a quick trip. But this year I decided to go, since I hadn’t seen many relatives since February and I think Christmas is going to be a little “off” this year as my brother and his family will be going to visit my sister-in-law’s in New York state.

It turned out that renting a Zipcar was just as expensive as taking the train down to my Dad’s so I chose that option, which would give me greater flexibility about traveling times and definitely less stress about getting to a train station twice. I scheduled a 24-hour reservation, leaving Wednesday evening and coming back on Thursday, after the feast.

Since all Zipcars (thankfully) have iPod adapters now I was able to leave the seemingly-archaic CDs at home and just take my iPhone and play music from there. I put on Arcadia’s So Red The Rose and headed south, reminding me of those Friday nights headed to Badlands cranking the tape (EMI Catalog: 42148) so many years ago. It still sounded good loud, exhibiting its many nuances.

Upon arriving it’s the requisite sit-in-the-living-room-watching-History-Channel stuff, and then when it gets close to 9:00 I ask “Can you switch it over to Channel 5 so we can watch Glee?”. Well. About ten minutes into it my brother (my oldest brother) says “This would be a great show if they would stop singing.” Um, yeah, I think that’s kind of the point. He gets up and leaves and then my Dad, instead of watching the show with me, starts reading a road atlas.

Fast forward. It’s about 2:00am and after going to bed and listening to some music I decide it’s actually time to go to sleep but I toss and turn until almost daybreak. Looking back I think I was dozing in and out of consciousness but at the time it seemed like I was just laying there, awake.

At times the dim light coming through the cracked bedroom door would appear to turn red like a laser beam, but only in its color not in its concentration. Then it would cloud and flicker back to a warm dim yellow which seemed more natural.

Then, and I don’t know if I dreamed this or imagined it and whether it actually happened, I felt something, a cloudy presence, off to the right of my eye. It was a form, but not a recognizable form, that slowly changed and flowed as if smoke from a cigarette was contained in a glass sphere, swirling around and around but not dissipating. Was this the ghost or spirit of my mother, who had died in the bedroom down the hall two-and-a-half years ago? Maybe I was groggy and frustrated from not being able to attain sleep. Regardless, I looked at it for a while and said “Hi Mom, I love you.” and immediately fell asleep.

The next thing I remember is waking up a few hours later and hearing my dad in the kitchen making coffee. The remainder of the day would be filled with having my five-year-old niece read a story about Pilgrims to me, getting kisses from my nephew and catching up with aunts, uncles, cousins and their children and grandparents. There was a lot of family love there, I could feel it.

Today on their website Duran Duran announced an all-encompassing repackaging of Arcadia’s 1985 So Red The Rose, arguably the best Duran Duran album never made. Nick Rhodes had hinted towards this release several months ago and I was eager to see if it would come to see the light.

History: Arcadia was one of the DD splinter groups in 1985, at the height of their fame, being comprised of Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes and Roger Taylor. The other remaining DD members joined up with Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson to form Power Station.

This re-release includes the original album as-is and all 20 remixes of the five released singles from the album, plus the soundtrack-only rarity “Say The Word”. Also included is the über-rare long form version of “Rose Arcana”. The shorter (0:51) version, according to legend, ended up on the original lease due to length of tape and vinyl allowed to be released at that time. I don’t know if that is necessarily true, but it does make for good folklore. Also included are all five videos and making-of documentaries for each video.

This project would also mark the last use of graphic designer Malcolm Garrett of Assorted Images for any of their packaging or branding related efforts.

Just for kicks, here’s video of 80s stalwart Max Headroom giving Simon and Nick a hard time:

From the Duran Duran press release, the complete track listing for the re-release is below:

Read the rest of this entry »

Watching a certain 80s drama, with it’s men-brooches and moussed hair, has got me thinking back to my 80s drama, with its men-brooches and moussed hair.

Living back in the town where all my (early-mid) 80s drama happened is always a reminder: driving down 50 in Rosslyn—that’s where Jason lived; walking Connecticut Ave on a blustery fall Sunday—that’s where me and Michael would duck into Timberlake’s to drink and watch the Redskins.

It’s odd familiarity.

This show didn’t let go off its babyboomer roots so there’s no 80s beats playing in the background, its always gotta be some cheesy Procol Harem or some shit playing. I’m throwing some Scritti Politti into my background.

And it’s more than the fashions that are throwing me back too. It distinctly reminds me of driving these (now familiar) streets of DC, going to places I’d never been, so that Jason can pick up shit from his old boyfriend’s apartment. It reminds me of dinners and cigarettes with Michael before we laughed ourselves down the street, knowing onlookers were jealous.

Now these streets are so familiar that sometimes I don’t recognize them anymore. That’s not true—they’ve become all to familiar. Which is a good thing; there are new memories now, built upon the foundations of the old. Sometimes I will point these memories out to friends but most of the times I won’t. At times I want to keep them to my own 80s self.

More on Nitevisions, the Duran offspring band and some speculation of a Spandau Ballet offspring band and a new battle that could reign supreme on the UK pop charts can be found here and their Twitter feed is here. In America maybe the closest pop battle we’ve had would maybe be Madonna vs Michael Jackson in the 80s? Unlike the Brit counterparts of the early 80s and mid 90s (Blur and Oasis battling it out for Britpop) there wasn’t a lot of public mudslinging, just a race to see how could sell more albums. Maybe a Britney vs Christina battle comes to mind? Possibly. I guess times have changed now and they let others do their mudslinging for them.

Here’s the infamous battle on Pop Quiz between Duran and Spandau:

Yesterday EMI released a two-CD (also available on LP, but with limited content) Limited Edition of Duran Duran’s seminal 1982 album, Rio. Of course, I already have my copy that I purchased pre-release during last weekend’s trip to New York.

This release contains the original UK album version, the US album mixes, Manchester Square demos (recorded 28th August 1981), non-album singles and B-sides, and Night Version & Carnival remixes and a 56-page booklet.

This is the first time the US album mixes have been published in different formats other than vinyl and cassette from back in the day. There is also an unconfirmed rumor of an actual reel-to-reel release. When Rio was released on CD the UK version was pressed so while it was nice to have the UK version, this meant saying goodbye to the US version once those cassettes went kaput.

Why the different album versions between the UK and the US? While DD was trying to break into America, EMI felt the album needed to be released to appeal more to the American market at the time. From the booklet, written by Daryl Easlea:

“Guitarist Andy Taylor, writing in his autobiography, ‘Wild Boy’ knew the and should listen to their American record company Capitol and remix the album if they were to make it there. “It gave the album a smoother, cleaner sound that went down better with US audiences. We understood that we needed to change our sound for the States, where the music industry spends far more time and money on mixing material” before cutting to the bottom line. “Not that we had much choice: ‘Remix it and we’ll support you, don’t do it and we won’t,’ said Capitol.” It was remixed under established producer David Kershenbaum’s expert ear. The US market’s appetite had been whetted by the Carnival EP in September 1982 (the mini-album including ‘Hungry Like The Wolf’), before the full Kershenbaum version of the album came out, propelling them into the US Top 10 in early 1983.”

So is the difference in these mixes audible? Yes and no. You can tell the difference listening on headphones; maybe at a party over speakers you wouldn’t be able to distinguish which mix it actually is. Still worth the price though, particularly for the demos and the US version of Lonely In Your Nightmare, which contains extra chorus which has never been available anywhere in the post-vinyl era.

If you want to learn everything you’d ever want to know about the many versions of the nine tracks on Rio, check this out. It even makes my head swim.

So while DD is getting 27-year-old albums re-released, two of the Duran offspring are going to take their turn on the stage. Sons of Taylor’s Andy and Roger have formed their own band, “Nite Visions”, in a clever wordplay of their dad’s moniker for their 12″ single recordings, “Night Versions”. Naturally, they have an 80s electronic dance feel to it. You can find out more about them, including a track sampling, here.