Yeah, it's pretty much going to surprise no one that I'm about to rave over One-Eyed Doll's performance in Baltimore last night at Ram's Head Live, but that's because I'm a sensible person. How anyone can see the mighty Austin, TX duo in action and not be blown away is simply incomprehensible!
Was beyond psyched to finally get to see One-Eyed Doll live after months of singing their praises here on the blog, over on my Facebook page, and, frankly, anywhere anyone would listen. Assiduous readers will recall that shortly after I was introduced to the band they were scheduled to play in Allentown, PA - not too far away from good ol' Lancaster - and I was geared up for that show only to find it cancelled at the last minute. (Long time friends will recall that I like to use the word "assiduous" whenever I can. I can be a vocab snob sometimes.) Of course, as soon as the current tour in support of Orgy was announced and a Baltimore show was added to the itinerary, I knew I would be there come hell or high water!
I've mentioned before that Baltimore is swiftly becoming my favorite town for music. It's only about an hour and a half each way from where I sit in PA, and this particular venue is easy to get to (pretty much a straight shot down I-83 right into the city) and has an attached parking garage with entrance right to the club door - no waiting in long preshow lines on the street like most clubs! Heck, the restroom even had an attendant - and after many years of experiencing seriously dodgy if not outright vomitous club bathrooms, it was nice to see a clean one that didn't make me feel like I should burn my shoes after setting foot inside.
The show was originally scheduled to be three bands, with Richmond, VA's Faultline joining One-Eyed Doll and Orgy on the bill. Had a chance to talk with One-Eyed Doll's drummer Jason Rufus "Junior" Sewell before the show at the merch table, and learned that Faultline would not be there. Apparently, they have split up the band. So, it became a two-band show with each band getting a little more stage time. Nice.
Technically the set-up was One-Eyed Doll opening for Orgy, but it felt more like Orgy mopping up after One-Eyed Doll tore the place down! Kimberly Freeman is simply an unstoppable force. From her stark good-little-goth-girl look to her gymnastic choreography (how does she kick that high?), she seizes your attention from the moment she steps onstage and never lets you out of her clutches. She tells stories, insists on crowd participation, showers the front rows with mouthfuls of water, stalks around the stage like a lioness protecting her territory, and collapses in apparently complete exhaustion between songs only to quickly rise and begin the process anew. She is constant motion, leaping the barricade to become one with the crowd, tumbling back onto the stage like a rag doll, literally bending over backwards for her performance at times. She pulls various hats out of a bag behind her amp, but none of them stay on her head very long: a few seconds of wild hair-whipping headbanging sends each one flying. Yet through all the fury, her guitar never stops - and when you look past the show, she's a damn good guitarist.
Speaking of damn good, if you can somehow manage to summon the strength to tear your eyes away from Kimberly, you'll notice Junior bashing his drums as though his job is to pound them into the ground like nails in a board. On this evening, his intensity was such that by the midpoint of their set one of his cymbals was literally cracked halfway though! While he may not be the visual focal point of the show, he is the constant driver of it's ferocity.
On this night, they scorched through an excellent set, opening with "Committed" and including "Nudie Bar,""Fight," "Pao!," and "Be My Friend" among others - a good representation of their material and their wicked sense of humor. The closer was an awesome rendition of "Monster," culminating in Kimberly's running leap across the stage into Junior's drum kit, sending drums, cymbals, and Junior sprawling across the floor. Always helpful, she then picked Junior up by the throat and drug him to center stage where they took their bow before demanding that we all follow her as she leaped the barricade into the crowd and became our pied piper leading us to the merch table, where she and Junior spent the better part of the next hour or so talking to fans, signing autographs, and taking pictures. Kimberly and Junior are simply two of the nicest, friendliest people. They truly seem honored by their fans' adulation, and were more than willing to spend time with each and every person.
Orgy turned out to be better than I expected, especially given the task of having to try to follow One-Eyed Doll. This tour is Orgy's return after 7 or 8 years of inactivity; in actuality, this version of the band contains only one original member, Jay Gordon, and his newly-assembled troupe of musicians. Orgy was one of those bands that always somehow flew under my radar in the '90s. Of course, I knew of their cover of New Order's "Blue Monday," and had heard other tracks here and there, but I never really got into their music for whatever reason. They sounded good last night, though - a bit like Pretty Hate Machine-era Nine Inch Nails crossed with a slicker-sounding Pop Will Eat Itself. But even with five band members and an LED light show projected behind them, they didn't produce the same energy that two people with a guitar, drums and a bag of hats had created earlier in the night. And while Orgy's set has inspired me to go back and learn what I missed the first time around, they ran probably about three songs too long - it all started to sound same-y too me.
Overall, I don't think I could have spent a better twenty bucks for a Sunday night's entertainment. Now, I want you to listen to me closely: if One-Eyed Doll plays anywhere near you, you must - MUST - go see them. Drop whatever else you're doing, change plans, whatever, but you must go. I promise you will not be disappointed! I sure wasn't!
As always, more pics from the show will be up on the That's What I Was Going To Say Facebook page later tonight. Stop by and maybe "like" the page while you're there, won't you?
After a rough couple of weeks, The Universe turns around and gives me a truly awesome gift:
ONE-EYED DOLL ARE GOING TO BE IN BALTIMORE NEXT SUNDAY MARCH 11!!!!
After missing out on seeing Kimberly and Junior in Allentown, PA on their last tour due to a cancellation, I get another chance. Here they are in the area again, and you can bet your ass I'll be there!
One-Eyed Doll will be at Ram's Head Live in Baltimore, opening for Orgy. It's an all-ages show with doors at 6:30. Faultline (from my old stomping grounds, Richmond VA!) is also on the bill - 3 bands for only $20! Can't beat a deal like that with a stick!
What, you don't know One-Eyed Doll? Are living under a rock somewhere?!? For those of you yet unenlightened, here's a video primer on Austin, TX's greatest export:
"I'll give you some advice that cannot be fought Now I'm gonna warn you: Don't you get caught... Don't get caught in my brainstorm..." - The Fleshtones
I'm picking fights with everyone lately.
Not sure how I got into this frame of mind, and I seem powerless to stop it. I've been here before, though. Many years back, before I was diagnosed with my demons, I went through a phase that led me directly into what I refer to as my "Hermit Phase." Before I even knew what Social Anxiety or OCD were, I realized one day I had changed from a very sociable, friendly person into someone who grew easily irritated when others seemed oblivious, whether consciously or unconsciously so, to things that seemed so simple and obvious to me. Further, whatever filter most people have that allows them to shield others from that irritation didn't seem to be functional in me. Coupled with my natural tendency towards sarcasm, I quickly found myself driving people away, pissing off friends, and destroying relationships. Yet, I felt incapable of stopping myself from doing it.
Once I began working with my therapist and began to learn about the processes that were likely happening in my brain, I also began to learn coping skills. The process went like this: My OCD Demon would see something not "right" in what someone else was saying or doing, and immediately fire off the alarm that it had to be fixed; my Social Anxiety Demon would begin whispering in my ear that whatever that other person was saying or doing was being said or done in order to make me look bad, or to attack me in some way, and would insist that I go into full defense mode - fight or flight, so to speak, except I couldn't flee because OCD compelled me to stay and fix it, so that left "fight" as my only option. I upset a lot of people over a lot of little things.
A combination of learning some coping skills (especially recognizing the warning signs that such a process was beginning and getting myself out of the situation before it reached the point I couldn't "flee") and finding the right medication (better living through Zoloft!) helped immensely. I also believe that, in many ways, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, helped me to improve to a point where I could begin being social in the real world again, because the built-in buffer created by being able to simply turn off the computer let me begin to push and stretch my boundaries.
As I've shared here before, my fight against my demons is never, and will never be, finished. I must always remain vigilant against their schemes. I haven't written much about them in recent months because they've been relatively quiet - or so I thought. The holidays came and went with no flare-ups, and I was feeling pretty good about where my head was.
Those demons are insidious, and infuriatingly patient. They sit and wait until the slightest crack in my armor appears, and then they make their moves. They will slowly but inexorably chip away until the crack becomes larger and larger and finally, before I even realize it, they've gotten into my brain again. This time, rather than sending me on my usual depression spirals or battles of self-doubt, they pulled an old trick out of their armory: They brought back that process.
At first, I didn't even notice it. Most of my friends know I love to debate. I love a well-structured argument; I actually enjoy having my beliefs challenged in ways that forces me to assess (and, if necessary re-assess) them. And if I can find someone to debate with who is both skilled in the art of the debate and also realizes the pure joy found in a well-placed pun or sudden non sequitur in the midst of an otherwise straight, logical argument, I am beyond happy! Because it is the structure of the debate itself and not necessarily the content that I enjoy, I will occasionally take a devil's advocate stance even if it's not really my belief just for the fun of the contest. It's not a malicious thing at all; I don't debate to make personal attacks, nor will I remain in a debate with an opponent who is so unskilled as to devolve from arguing his point to attacking me. That's not fun.
But slowly, over the past month or so, I've noticed the tone of my debates growing darker. I've found myself almost incapable of passing up opportunities to jump into the fray with anyone, and I've heard the sarcasm in my own words grow. I'm no longer asking others to defend their beliefs because I am interested in how they think; I am now insisting that they defend stances that I see as, for lack of a better word, stupid. My demons have taken one of the mental and logical exercises I enjoy most and once again turned it into a weapon against me.
I know it's happening because, over time, the old familiar symptoms are resurfacing: I find myself getting actually angry at what I perceive as personal attacks that probably aren't; I find myself thinking of the other person as at best ill-informed and at worst stupid for not seeing things that seem so obvious to me; I find my inner frustration level rise to the point where adrenalin starts coursing through me and I feel as if I am physically fighting to get out of my own head. More to the point, I find myself pissing people off or getting pissed off at people and pushing them away over the slightest perceived infraction.
What becomes even more frustrating is, now that the rational observer in my head is aware that this is happening but not yet able to do anything about it, I have begun internally dissecting each and every conversation, whether argument or not, to try to determine which are the battles that are worth fighting - the situations where I really do need to stand up and fight for something valid - and which are the inconsequential skirmishes that my demons are trying dust up into life-and-death battles. It's not easy to define which is which; right now they look identical from inside my head.
But I'm not giving in. I can't and won't. I've noted before that the hell of this all is that sometimes the demons win. But I know they won't win all the time, and I know I can get back to a place where I win more often than they do. Writing these posts helps - a lot. I just hope that this time around I don't have to count as many causalities among my friends and relationships as I have before.
Since the band had been built on the foundation of a former XTC keyboardist and a one-time Gang Of Four bassist, it was no surprise that Shriekback's earliest independent singles found receptive ears on UK dance floors. Their rather unusual sound was part New Wave, part funk; slinky melodies that burrowed into your brain as they slithered over and under vocals that sounded more breathed than sung, all propelled by pulsing bass and busy percussion designed to keep bodies in motion.
Barry Andrews (the keyboardist) and Dave Allen (the bass player) recruited guitarist Carl Marsh to form the original Shriekback lineup in 1981. This trio released the six-song Tench EP, which included early singles "Sexthinkone" and "Accretions," both of which garnered both critical praise and minor chart action. They followed that in 1983 with Care, one of the most under-appreciated gems of the New Wave era. Leading with the gorgeous "Lined Up,"Care takes the listener on a trip through a dimly lit maze of electronica and rhythmic ambiance that hints at darker things but stops short of plunging over the edge. There is a constant tension that begs to be resolved and teases that resolution before fading into vague shadows and echoes. "Accretions" is reprised and the single "My Spine (Is The Bassline)" is added on the American version of the album, but neither detracts from the flow. It's an album you can easily get lost in, and highly recommended. Both Tench and Care are found in their entirety on a 2000 CD called The Y Records Years, but that disc is out of print and commands a pretty penny. The vinyl can be had for much cheaper on eBay.
1984's Jam Science saw the band move to a major label (Arista) and expand to a quartet with the addition of drummer Martyn Baker. The lead single, "Hand On My Heart," was the perfect appetizer for the full LP. On it, Shriekback sounded more confident and poised without losing that sense of eeriness that pervaded their early work. It's a fine album that made perfect sense as the next step after Care. The overall album is not as visceral or as memorable, but "Hand On My Heart" stands alongside their indy singles with no problems.
Their next album, Oil And Gold, continued the band's progression from underground critics' choice to international hitmakers, thanks to the muscular single "Nemesis." Even more than Jam Science, this is a one-single record, but what a single! Andrews' hissing vocals are still there to lend a shroud of potential danger, but where once was slippery, ethereal melody there was now insistent, no-punches-pulled power. "Nemesis" became their biggest hit, and will forever be remembered for rhyming its title with spelling-bee stumper "parthenogenesis."
After that peak, though, came the inevitable fall. 1986's Big Night Music wasn't that bad, but had no key single that really drove it as the previous two records had. Arista was trying to make Shriekback a commercial success, and was slowly stripping the band of its personality. Go Bang!, released two years later, has very little to recommend it. Shriekback's demise was sealed with that album's completely unnecessary cover of "Get Down Tonight." Hard to believe the band that did this was the same band that recorded Care just five years previous.
Since then, Shriekback has reunited a few times in various permutations, releasing a few innocuous albums along the way, but nothing that came close to their early magnificence. That's what we'll remember with this weeks clips. First up is "Lined Up," the leadoff track from the marvelous Care. After that, Shriekback's most well-known track, "Nemesis." Enjoy!
"You don't have no Doctor Robert You don't have no Uncle Albert You don't even have good credit You can write, but you can't edit..." - Regina Spektor
Well, it looks as though my story isn't getting published after all. At least, not the way it was scheduled to be. A bit of back story, for those who need to catch up:
This past July, I wrote a short story called It's About Time, in which one of my two main characters winds up existing ever-so-slightly out of sync with the rest of the world. Originally written as part of an assignment for the writers group I was a part of, the story was quickly identified as potentially a great candidate for the Gloaming Gap website, which is run by some members of our group. At first I was reluctant, given my own internal critic's voice loudly and constantly reminding me that I do not write fiction well. After sharing the story with several folks, including a few folks who read everything with editors' pencils dancing in their heads, the feedback I received was extremely positive. "Hey," I began to think, "maybe I can write fiction after all!"
I submitted the story to the site in August. Keep that in mind - that's six months ago. Soon after, I was told that Gloaming Gap wanted to run my story, but the first available opening in the schedule would not be until February 10, 2012. In the interim the story kept floating around my head, and I found myself seeing a number of ways I could and wanted to expand on it. That short story turned out to be a seed that was quickly sprouting into a much a larger plant than I had expected, and as November came up on the horizon, bringing with it NaNoWriMo, I decided to jump in with both feet and start cultivating that short story into a full-fledged novel. I informed the folks at Gloaming Gap about my decision to do more with the story, and was told that they still wanted to run the original short story.
As I shared here on the blog, NaNoWriMo brought with it many challenges that fed my demons and eventually helped them wear me down. I was back to the mindset that I clearly am not able to write fiction, and by the end of the month had put the whole mess on the shelf. I did not write a word through the month of December. Still, I was cheered on by my writers group, and was constantly told how wonderful my short story was.
Publication date, February 10, soon appeared on the horizon, and as it approached I found within myself a renewed energy for the story. Ideas started coming to me fast and furious, often fully-formed. I was writing again! The story was growing again! Then, the first of what would be a quick succession of punches to the gut while the rug was snatched out from under me:
On February 2 I received an email announcing that my publication date was being pushed back two weeks because another author had submitted a story that related to the Pagan holiday of Imbolc, which occurs February 1. Therefore, her story would be published on February 3, effectively rearranging the schedule for the month. Of course, that last-minute change set off my OCD like crazy: for six months I had been building towards a February 10 publish date; now, suddenly, at the last minute, it was changed, and for what? A story that turned out to have an inscrutable connection at best to an obscure holiday?
After a brief exchange of irritated emails with the Gloaming Gap folks, I calmed my OCD demon down and apologized for being out of sorts. My story would be published on the 24th. Fine. Onward!
On February 10 (the originally planned publish date) I received an email from Gloaming Gap's team saying that one of their staff had edited my story, and took issue with my use of alternating perspectives. Given that my story has to do with a warping of time and the confusion and discomfort it causes, I quite intentionally used changing points-of-view, as well as non-linear chronology, as a way to create an undercurrent of discomfort in the reader - to make the warping of my characters' reality vaguely palpable to the reader on a level other than simply describing it in the text. This editor didn't get it. This editor also happened to be the author whose story caused the upheaval in February's publishing dates.
I exchanged emails with the Gloaming Gap editing team explaining why perspectives shift within my story; they came back saying, "Yeah, but sometimes they shift within the same paragraph. It's confusing." Again, I reminded them, that was by design. Further, no one who had read the story - literally not one person, some of whom were also professional editors - had said one word about being confused or even annoyed by my use of switching perspectives. The feedback was unanimously positive. I let the Gloaming Gap folks know that I did not wish to change the way the story was written.
Tuesday morning, I got an email from the editor-in-chief saying that, because he felt that stories told from a first-person perspective were most effective, those were the type of stories he really wanted; stories told from a third-person perspective were next on the acceptability scale; switching perspective stories like mine were not on the list. He wrote that "...point-of-view is something that a lot of people struggle with," and that he "...will have to insist on resolving this issue."
I wrote back that his implication that I struggle with point-of-view was out of place, and for a third time I explained the purpose of the intentionally shifting perspectives. Further, I reminded him that since it was intentional, there was nothing to "resolve."
Yesterday I got the notice: "I'm afraid that as the story currently stands, without those corrections, we cannot accept it for publication. The way it's written doesn't fit in with the style for the overall project. Please let us know if you should reconsider." I replied that there was nothing to reconsider because there was nothing to "correct." Nothing was "incorrect" in the first place.
So there it stands. After six months of being told my story was fantastic and Gloaming Gap was eager to publish it, my story gets nixed in the 11th hour by an arbitrary decision about point-of-view that, incidentally, was never mentioned at any point as a submission guideline, much less a deal-breaker. Am I angry? Eh, more disappointed than angry, really, but bottom line is it's their site and they have the right to reject content for any reason - or for no reason at all. I don't take issue with that. I do take issue with the way it went down and the fact that over six months such an obviously major point of contention was held until the final week to be brought up.
And therein lies the eternal struggle between author and editor. In what other art form does this take place? What museums add brush strokes to an artist's paintings before displaying them? When musicians are asked to alter lyrics for specific performances, cries of "Censorship!" fill the air. But in the world of writing, the equivalent is accepted as the way the game is played.
Guess it's lucky I didn't submit something in the style of The Dragon Speaks. Their heads might have exploded.
I have this habit of coming up with ideas for mix tapes (nowadays, mix CDs) that I keep meaning to put together, but never seem to find the time. In fact, I may do a separate post sharing some of those. One of my favorite yet-to-be-realized mix ideas would be a compilation of later bands and solo material by any permutation or subset of Johnny Rotten, Steve Cook, Paul Jones, Glen Matlack and/or Sid Vicious, and would be called Never Mind McLaren, Here's The Ex-Pistols. Of course it would include Public Image Ltd., The Rich Kids, maybe even some of Sid's cringe-worthy solo material (oh, that Sid Sings album...), among other odds and ends. Featured on such a mix would be this week's NW4NW band, The Professionals.
In many ways, despite PiL being Johnny (Lydon) Rotten's next project and therefore the more immediate media magnet, The Professionals were truly the most direct descendants of The Sex Pistols. Anchored by the Pistol's guitar and drum combo of Steve Jones and Paul Cook, the original lineup of The Professionals included bassist Andy Allen, who had been a session musician on the final Pistols recordings with Jones on vocals ("Lonely Boy," "Silly Thing," etc.). As a trio, these three released the first Professionals single in 1980, the bombastic "Just Another Dream."
With booming rhythm, crunching guitar and shout-along chorus, "Just Another Dream" is a nearly perfect single that sounds just as good today as it did three decades ago. It wouldn't be until their second single, "1-2-3," however, that The Professionals saw any action on the UK charts, just missing the Top 40. Around this time, Allen left the band and was replaced by Paul Meyers and second guitarist Randy McVeigh. A third single, "Join The Professionals," received wide exposure when it was included in the soundtrack to the movie Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.
Just as The Professionals were about to release their self-titled debut album, Allen sued the band for back royalties he claimed he never received. In order to avoid paying him any further, the band shelved that album and went back into the studio with the new lineup to record a few new songs and re-record the old ones. The result was the lone Professionals album to see public release, I Didn't See It Coming. A solid if slightly uneven album, it contains a few more moments of brilliance (notably "The Magnificent" and "Kick Down The Doors"). The band's internal upheaval, however, contributed to some of the tracks sounding a bit rushed and premature. Nonetheless, it's a record well worth owning, with sound that lands somewhat closer to the hard rock that Steve Jones would later pursue than the punk rock of The Sex Pistols.
After the album's release, Cook and Jones went their separate ways. They each found work as session musicians and semi-regular members of several bands; Jones eventually released a couple of solo albums. In 2005, a Best Of The Professionals CD was issued, culling its tracks from the early singles and cuts from the album, as well as rescuing a few unreleased tracks. A couple of years later, legal wrangling finally freed up the old Allen recordings, and The Professionals finally saw the light of day 27 years after its intended release.
For this week's clips, please enjoy a real rarity - the original promo clip for "Just Another Dream." After that, a fan-made clip for "The Magnificent," which has been said at different times to be about Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious. Listen for yourself and decide. Enjoy!
