May 31, 2010

The new Hollow Earth Radio space is looking soooo good!












The new vegan bar on Capitol Hill, Highline, is really rad. In the first three days, I went there five times. Whoops!










I'm sell about half of all my records. It's somewhat sad, but mostly I'm just happy to be downsizing.

















At the Finches/Dear Nora/Lake/Iji show at my place the other day, I made a huge coconut curry - perhaps the best and most delicious I've yet to make. I made enough for 40-50 people, and it was all quickly consumed within the first hour or so of the show.









Brita and Kirsten hid in a box to surprise Tasha.











Rad shows have been happening once/month at The Bread Factory. I'm always thrilled to have another space to see DIY events.

May 27, 2010

Kombucha adventures!

I made a couple batches of kombucha yesterday. The process took about an hour, and I spent about $20 altogether (two glass bottles, two bottles of the good brand of store-bought kombucha, free tea from a dumpster!).



First, brew a shit-ton of black tea. I did a blend of plain black tea and oolong. It's what I had available for free. It was dumpstered. No big deal.

For about 2.5 gallons of water, I used 10 bags of tea.








Add that tea to your pipping hot water. Brew it for a while. You know, till whenever. Just don't brew it too long. Make it yummy.











Once your tea is brewed, add a bunch of sugar to it. I put in a cup of sugar per batch. That's some sweet fucking tea.







Chill the tea to room temperature. It's best to chill it fast. Do it like you learned in your Food Handler's Permit classes. Do an ice-bath. I put cold water in these water dispensers, then added a bunch of ice. It took about 20 minutes.



Once it's at room temperature, add the bottle of store-bought kombucha to your tea. One bottle per batch.







Cover that shit. I use clean paper towels, rubber-banded over the lid. The important part is to keep the fucking germs out to prevent your growing mother from getting infected. Dirty kombucha is gross. Keep it clean, and you'll end up with way better kombucha.




Store it in a mid-temp, dry place. It's gotta be an ideal temperature for bacteria to grow and for the fermentation process to go smoothly, but not exposed to conditions that could stunt that growth. Not too cold, not too hot, no direct light.









Cover that shit. Keep the light out.


I used a scarf.









These are good instructions. My kombucha is delicious.


(ps, I was slightly tipsy when I made this blog post.)

May 26, 2010

Meg and Benji


Meg and Benji
Originally uploaded by btmspox
yo - eating food at the Alley Cat Acres work party & BBQ.

Springtime II

Early spring was quite a doozy. It started off with my band (My Parade) going on a brief tour down the west coast with our friends Agatha, which for me was cut short by having to fly back to Seattle from Reno to make it to class on time. It's my final quarter of school at Seattle University, and soon I'll have an oh-so coveted bachelors in sociology. There was a bit of activism-related drama that I'm hoping is all done with. Lost my job, due to it being outsourced to Taiwan.

Now it's the final stretch of springtime. Lots of fun stuff is in the works. I'll be graduated soon, and immediately after I'll be going east to the US Social Forum in Detroit, and maybe mill about in the area for a wee bit. Shortly after I get back I'll be leaving for another tour with My Parade, this one being for two weeks, going to southern California, over through Arizona, then back home. Right after that, there'll be all sorts of changes at the warehouse/venue space where I live, as I gotta get 5 people squarely lined up to move in, as all of my current roommates will be leaving (all on good terms! folks are moving to other cities, or to places with sunlight). And finally, I'm making good plans to go on some bike trips in late summer.

Good things are afoot. Life is filled with smaller rewarding things right now, too. I've started brewing Kombucha, writing zines again, about to start practicing drums again (after a 1-year hiatus, save for playing during brief quiet band practices + playing shows), been going to a lot of excellent shows, going on woodland excursions, started volunteering a little with Alleycat Acres, helping out with construction for Hollow Earth Radio's new public space, and I've been working on lots of little projects around the home, like temporarily putting up a makeshift trapeze swing in our living room.

I also just got a phone with a camera. So I'll be posting silly photos from my days on this blog, possibly. You know, given free time (because it's always so abundant).
<- Erin made a cool calendar out of an old window, at Pet Seminary!








at the new Hollow Earth Radio space. It's the DJ booth, guarded by Christian's dog.







Jordan's cardigan has three cardigans on it.







a bunch of crusties moved in next door to New Crompton and built a walled garden. cooool.




and finally, check out this cool video about Hollow Earth Radio!

Hollow Earth Radio Kickstarter Video from Garrett Kelly on Vimeo.


I'll probably be posting more about music to download on this blog, too. Really soon, I promise.
But fuck it, in the meantime, just go ahead and download these albums:
Bow + Arrow - live on KEXP
Dear Nora - Dreaming Out Loud 7"
The Good Good - Furrows
Prozac Memory/Back of Dave split LP
Republic of Freedom Fighters - self titled LP
Assfactor 4 - Smoked Out 7"
Waffle Stomper - self titled

Apr 26, 2010

Radio show in the works!

I'm in the process of working on a radio show for Hollow Earth Radio http://hollowearthradio.org/). I'm stoked about it - it's something I've wanted to do for a long time, but thus far I've been too busy to put a lot of work into it. I've had a few discussions with people from HER about doing a DIY punk/hardcore show, and I've had a few different ideas bouncing around in my head about where I could go with it - something different than just a playlist of songs that I think are cool.

So here's my idea: The history of punk and hardcore has been full of an exploration of ideas, be it an expression of disillusion, specific and general social critiques, philosophical musings, talk about having a good time, or directly addressing issues within the punk community. One of the things that I find most compelling about punk and hardcore is that these songs don't often just exist in isolation - they're directly expressed from the performer to the audience, and they're often in direct response to things peers have said in songs or in zines or casual conversation. Punk and hardcore songs represent an ongoing dialogue about these ideas, exploring different approaches, critiquing one another, calling each other out, pushing one another further, refining these ideas, etc. Sometimes this dialogue can be intellectual, sometimes anti-intellectual, but I think it's just really cool that it's constantly going on. I want my radio show to explore this idea - looking at what these songs are about and look at how bands and zine writers are responding to one another and exploring similar and disparate ideas.

Some show ideas I have in the works:
"Edge of quarrel" - both the straight edge approach and a celebration of booze/drugs. Look at everything from a thoughtful consideration of what we intake, to puritanical rules, to party songs, to drug-addled self-destruction. Bonus: fights! A look at violent posturing against straight edge and drug users (Earth Crisis's Firestorm, and anti-straight edge songs).

"He-Man Woman Haters' Club" - A tendency of punk and hardcore is that it's dominated by boys, and there have been a lot of songs about how girls are a source of problems for boys (especially with whiny emo boys who are sad about being broken up with). A lot of riotgrrl songs (and mixed-gendered and queer bands) critiqued this boy's club thing, calling people out. A favorite example that kinda fits into this is the Born Against/Screeching Weasel collaborative song "Janelle", about a girl that they thing is the coolest girl ("Janelle, she's so swell!"). Bratmobile responded with the song "The Real Janelle", making fun of the boys for reducing a rad woman into a cutesy chick.

"Campaign for emo destruction" - A lot of emo (not the mall-pop stuff) focused heavily on introspection and a relational view of politics, focusing on a feminist approach to social justice and activism ("the personal is political"). Powerviolence and grindcore bands took a lot of offense to this, calling out bands for focusing too much on their feelings instead of demanding destruction of shitty institutions and direct action. This directly parallels a similar debate in anarchist circles between post-modern theorists like Hakim Bey and Zerzan, and anarchists who advocate direct action and class war like Muray Bookchin, who called out the former as "lifestyle anarchists".

"No Gods, No Masters" - Religion is a hotbed for debate within the punk community. There's plenty of outright critique and abandonment of religion (ala Minor Threat's "Filler" "you call it religion, you're full of shit... it's a filler in your head"), but so is there plenty of pro-religious stuff, like Shelter or 108's "Krishna Consciousness" to Christian anarchist bands like 90 Lb Wuss (or at least Jeff Suffering once called himself an anarchist), to exploration of zen philosophy by bands like The Van Pelt.

"If You're Not Now You Never Were" - sellouts! There's all sorts of (unintentionally) funny hardcore songs about being "stabbed in the back" by friends who sell out. There's also a good amount of songs both by and about bands who sign onto major labels. My favorite example of this is "Million" by Jawbreaker, where they facetiously say about signing onto a major label, "they offered me a million bucks, but all I want's a steady fuck" and a response by former peers Torches To Rome: "they offered you a million bucks, but I will be your steady fuck. I remember a purpose to punk / a reason to resist".

I also want to explore other themes that come up in punk and hardcore (animal rights, crusty cliches, anti-nationalism and anti-fascism), or just juxtapose things like mathrock vs simple songs, or fun party songs vs revolutionary politics, or bro/jock hardcore vs weenie pop punk, straight dude love songs vs queercore, critical theory vs anti-intellecual. I want to also throw in fun things like "Silly Vocals Of The Day" with cookie-monster vocals like Spazz or Man Is The Bastard, or Brothers Keeper (the birdman!).


So yeah, I think that punk and hardcore is a really fertile place for looking at interesting public discourse on a whole range of ideas. I'm hoping to also bring in friends to read selections from zines, interview folks or have them tell stories. There's a lot of cool possibilities here. With how specific I'd like things to be, I'm definitely going to need to get a lot of good input and ideas from friends, though. I'm looking forward to seeing how it'll come together.

Apr 2, 2010

Goodbye good bands

Two of my favorite releases from this past year were released by two bands who coincidentally also just broke up. So it goes. I thought I would share their albums with any readers of this blog, especially considering that they're both fairly hard to get.

First is Melbourne's The Diamond Sea. Though they're clearly named after a Sonic Youth song, they sound more akin to old PNW riotgrrl like Excuse17 or Sleater-Kinney, but with the melodic sensibilities of The Wipers, the old emo band Dahlia Seed, or perhaps Hot Snakes (is that a stretch?). Their music is driving and sometimes choppy, with well-balanced juxtapositions between instruments, and plenty of harmonizing all over the place. When I first heard this, I seriously said aloud, "who the fuck is this? It's amazing!" So yeah, get it. I especially recommend the songs Heavy Skies, and Safe Keeping.




The Diamond Sea - Slow Single EP



The other band that broke up recently is Fleabag, who were going to be in Seattle in about a week to play a show with my friends and recent tour-mates Agatha. We listened to their tape a lot on tour, lamenting about how sad it is that they split up. I don't know too much about them, but they sound akin to other current lo-fi female fronted pop-punk bands like P.S. Elliot, Little Lungs, or classic bands like Discount. This tape is drenching with positive vibes and earnestness, the perfect thing to listen to when it's gorgeous outside, or if you need a little pick-me-up on sad days.


Fleabag - self titled cassette EP

Feb 1, 2010

Bow + Arrow - Mathmatics Is The Study Of History

So, it took a while to record, and a long time to release in any fashion, but Bow + Arrow recorded a full-length album in 2008. It got a little bit of press, although we did little to promote it or attempt to get it released by any labels. By the time we were ready to put it out the band was already on a dramatic down-swing. One of the best things written about it was by Eric at The Stranger, ultimately seeing it as a timely and relevant return to the earnest days of DIY-spirited post-"revolution summer" emocore that prevailed in the days before corporations, eyeliner, and hair gel defined how people saw "emo" or current hardcore.

More than anything, I feel like this album represents the general undercurrent of the personal dynamics of the band in its history; the tension between half of the band wanting to write pop songs, while the other half wanting to be a hardcore band, while pretty much everyone agreed that we wanted to be playful and weird through the whole process. As far as the content and meaning behind our songs, we were equally as divided - much like the lyrical split between Ian Mackaye and Guy Piccitto in Fugazi (Ian generally not mincing words and being direct and blatant with his politics, while Guy was more abstract and less declarative), we tended to not want make grandiose political statements or wear our hearts on our sleeves, yet at the same time we didn't want to be too high-minded or aloof to the point of meaninglessness. Ultimately we ended up writing songs that reflected and spoke of the experiences of our closest friends, stylistically reflecting the records that we listened to together, and singing about the goofy art that we were surrounded by. One of my favorite moments of our songs lyrically was on "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things," where Jay laments dramatically about a friend who committed suicide, while Lucas relates a piece of graffiti that our friend Clark put up everywhere - "these are truly the years of hair", insisting that the years of hair reflect the moments of awkward growth that we seem to be completely incapable of controlling are compounded by forcing religion down kids throats ("the years of hair, bastardized by faith").

A lot of this album has a lot of significance for me, and I could go on telling long-winded stories about each song, but mostly I'm sad that we never did hardly anything to get these songs into the open for people to listen to. Instead we have CDRs packed in boxes, probably never to see the light of day again. C'est la vie!

Thanks should definitely go to Sabory, who played cello on "Sweaty Kids Cutting Loose", Jeff McNulty who recorded the whole thing at The Vera Project, Jon Manning for doing the amazing photoshoot that was supposed to be in big gate-fold album artwork, and all the friends who we got to sing gang-vocals (like yelling "GOLF!" on Harbor Stories).

Recommended songs: Nick Watter, Harbor Stories, Repatch, Sweaty Kids Cutting Loose, We Bricklayers (I guess), Accessing The Uninteresting, and The Masses.







download the full album, buddies!

Jan 22, 2010

Bow + Arrow EP

I'm going to post the things that Bow + Arrow (my old band, which broke up this past summer) released/recorded.

First up: our first EP!



This was just me (on drums & singing) and Lucas (guitar and singing). Give Me Back compared it to Archers of Loaf & Cap'n Jazz, other people compared us to everything from Tiny Hawks to Braid to Unwound. Basically, it sounds like 90's style "emo" or whatever.
Recorded by Matt Doctor at the Old Fire House Teen Center.

Here's a video of one of the songs from this, played at Food Fight! in Portland.




download it!

also, I have a few copies left for sale at my place, Healthy Times Fun Club, if anyone is interested.