Time....Keeps Flowing Like A River

I was actually wondering when The Boston Globe would realize that it's a new century and decide to stop publishing stock quotes in the daily paper. I mean, who looks at stock quotes in the actual newspaper anymore? I'm not sure how much it costs the Globe per page to publish the newspaper, but you can damn well bet they know. And you can be sure they know that everyone and their mother uses Yahoo! Finance or Marketwatch to check stock quotes these days. Really - would you rather get your fingers all black looking for stock quotes or type in a URL and a couple of stock symbol letters online and get it instantly? No brainer, kiddos.

Newspapers have clearly reached a crossroads here. Stock quotes are a painfully obvious example, as many of the major dailies have stopped publishing them, but at some point (sooner than later) they're going to have to come around to the fact that classifieds will go away too, which is a major bloodline for them. That will be huge. Craigslist, EBay and probably Google are going to seal that deal regarding classifieds. Come on, have you seen the list of cities Craiglist has coverage in now? Not to mention that anyone under, say, 30 years old at this point can't even imagine stepping outside each morning to collect a physical newspaper. It's all on their 19-inch monitor, why the hell bother with ink?

Which goes back to my recurring point: the internet has changed everything. Newspapers can't charge for content online, otherwise people will simply go somewhere else. Hello, Google News. Charge for the content? Come on! Nobody is going to friggin' pay for it if they can get it elsewhere. They've removed stock quotes. They won't be publishing classifieds much longer. What do they have to rely on? Revenue from subscribers? Forget it, yo. That was really never their pot of gold anyway. Guys like me still go outside each morning and grab the paper because it's a romantic notion, holding up that paper each morning, but that's not going to last, even with me. Columnists? A dying breed, my friends.

Frankly, I don't know what's going to happen to newspapers. They have an extremely tough road to hoe, especially as news and video start to proliferate online (hi, Brightcove), but it's sure going to be an interesting ride and I'm cheering for them. I'm just not terribly optimistic.

UPDATE: Early this morning CNet's news.com posted this story about newspapers utilizing blog content, directly or indirectly, with mixed results. I found it pretty interesting that in terms of online pageviews, newspaper websites and blogs are running about even.

Do you still read physical newspapers?

 

Memorial Day By The Numbers:

Jeff Using Mind to Elevate Ball
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

Number of times the grill was used: 4
Number of times used my mind to lift ball in the air: 1 (see picture)
Number of songs played in ITunes: 33
Number of songs actually heard: 29 (due to shower)
Number of bowls/cones of ice cream ingested: 4
Number of pears eaten: 2
Number of crepes made: 3
Number of crepes eaten: roughly 1.2
Number of parents who came home from Greece: 2
Number of vegetable plants planted in backyard: 8
Number of tomato plants: 3
Number of red bell pepper plants: 3
Number of cucumber plants: 2
Number of lawns mowed: 1
Number of botanical gardens visited: 1
Number of times thinking about work: 0
Number of physical Scrabble games played: 1
Number of computer Scrabble games played: 643
Number of wins vs. computer in Scrabble: 1
Number of pages read in Truman biography: 70
Number of total pages read in Truman biography: 193
Number of pages remaining in Truman biography: 799

Notes:
- crepes contained vanilla ice cream and raspberry jam
- grilled: turkey burgers, steak, chicken twice
- who even knew Boylston's Tower Hill Botanical Gardens existed?

 

Desk Monkey (camera phone)

Desk Monkey (camera phone)
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

This monkey has been with me now for over five years. For all five of my years at Ask.com, it has stood on my desk, devotedly offering my business card to any takers. I think it's meant to hold playing cards, but who knows. It was given to me by my old boss from the late '90s, Kristin Lieb, who is now a longtime friend and fellow maniacal appreciator of music. Her zest for all things campy and ridiculous always manage to crack me up good. I mean, she truthfully enjoys those movies with the Chucky doll. One time, she gave me a keychain of a small pig and when you squeezed it, a little poop came out of it's butt. Yes, I still have it. Indeed, we've shared some good laughs.

Anyway, sometimes we can all identify with the desk monkey, you know? I'm feeling that way this week. When you work at a job and sit in front of a computer behind a desk, there are just some days when you ask yourself what it's all for. Honestly, though, I can't complain. The company I work for treats me terrific. But it has nothing to do with the job or the company - it's just the typical waxing and waning we all go through when it comes to satisfaction. Some days you wish it was all different. Today I looked at the monkey and I thought "I feel just like him.

Random thoughts:
- I was pretty delighted by the litany of "guiltys" flying out of the mouths of Houston jurors today as the Enron verdicts were read. You know what though? I don't want Skilling and Lay to go to jail. You know what I want? I want the judge and jury to clean them out of all thier money, then order them to work in Wal-Mart or Taco Bell (no promotions, either) until their bodies simply give out. I see no real reason to let them sit in jail with books, three square meals and plenty of sleep. Let them slug it out and try to survive on those wages. That would rule.

- Well, it's May, and you know what that means. No, my birthday has already gone by, but thanks for remembering. It means I start really paying attention to the NHL. Everyone knows that the only truly passioniate hockey occurs during the playoffs and I've become addicited to the Edmonton-Anaheim series like a metrosexual on lattes. Tonight's game was another thriller, even though the score may not seem it.

- Harry S. Truman biography update: I'm on page 123. That's 12% of the way through, for those of you scoring at home. McCollough is a masterful writer. I read his writing and I think to myself "why do I even bother trying?"

- It is now confirmed: the world is is going to hell.

 

The News - As We'd Want It

Man, The Onion always gets it right.

Today I offer public kudos to my pal over at Fort Miley for his creative panache in "saluting" the Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski. Well done!

 

Hello

Nice piece here about EMusic and their approach to the purchasing/downloading of music online. It's the only place I'll buy music for download anymore. If it's not available on EMusic, I buy it on CD, rip it to MP3, and sell it back to a used record store.

Contact lens wearers: I've been in lenses now for a year and about once a week, I still run into problems inserting them to the point where it takes 20+ attempts. Other days, they pop right in. This ever happen to you?

 

Rating the Season Finales

The TV critic in me is loose. Alias wrapped up its five year run last night and although I missed the first two seasons, I was a regular watcher for its last three. Watching the finale prompted me to write this morning's post, which will contain a few sentences about the season (or series) finales for most of the shows I watch with some regularity. Warning: there are spoilers in here, so if you haven't seen the episodes yet, be careful.

Alias: a fairly satisfying, if not predictable, conclusion here. The only surprise was that Syndey's father ended up dead, but the methods which he employed to get himself dead - by trapping Sloane for life (don't ask) - were an interesting spin. I just knew that Syndney and Vaughn would end up on some beach house at the end, too. Naturally, Sydney had her ultimate crying moment, too, forever sealing her fate in my memory as Sydney McBeal, cry-horse deluxe.

Grey's Anatomy: as long as you can get comfortable with the fact that this show has no basis whatsoever in reality, it is one hell of a fun ride to watch. I love how Meredith Gray comes within mere feet of dying in a huge bomb blast in one episode, then in the next episode, she's back to her neurotic, 74-pound self - and the hospital ward is magically fixed! Anyway, Burke getting shot was an interesting arc and let's be real - you never pictured Denny alive by the end of the season, did you? I mean, come on. Meredith and Shepard, though: that's got to end fast if this show is going to last.

Scrubs: haven't seen the last two episodes yet, but it's worth mentioning because it's one of television's best shows.

Will & Grace: ugh. What a huge, huge disappointment to end like it did. Jack and Karen were relegated to singing "Unforgettable" to each other in what can only be described as a painful waste of time. Seriously - if it were me, I would have just written four minutes of them in a final "banter-off" - just trading barbs back-and-forth, instead of that dreck. The final episode wasn't funny, it wasn't poignant, it wasn't anything except for a major disappointment for a fairly groundbreaking show that deserved a better send-off.

That '70s Show: I didn't watch a single episode from the last two seasons or so - without Topher Grace and Aston Kutcher, it simply isn't the show I got good laughs out of a few years ago. But since it was the last episode ever in the series, I had to tune in. Topher Grace, as Eric Forman, made a token appearance at the end and Kutcher did little more than be what he always was, a goofy-eyed marginally acceptable sitcom actor. So I was mostly tuned in for two reasons: to get my last dose of the excellent Red Forman (Eric's dad) and to see one last smoke-filled basement scene, which didn't disappoint. Red's final diatribe was one for the ages, featuring many "boots in the ass."

The Office: right up there with Scrubs as some of the best, most inventive TV of this decade. in the final episode, Jim finally professed his love for Pam. They've gotta be careful here - Jim and Pam make really good TV as just great friends, so I'd hate for this show to get marginalized as a Ross/Rachel or "do they/don't they" type show. Other than that, terrfiic laughs and writing all around. Dwight Schrute is quickly elevating himself into the pantheon of TV sitcom's greatest characters.

Still waiting for Lost - very anxious for that one! I missed the season finale for another of my favorite shows, "My Name Is Earl" so I guess I'll have to grab that on ITunes, as much as I hate the idea. Onward......to a summer of reruns.

 

A River Gushes Through It

It's not uncommon for me to go six months wondering where the good new music can be found. Many people often ask me "how do you find all the music you listen to?" It's a slippery slope, kids. Most of my discovery comes in two forms these days: word-of-mouth from friends and sampling songs online, either at the ITunes Music Store or Emusic.com. It bears noting that I have not purchased any music from the ITunes Music Store for many months now and I will not until they lift their Digital Rights Management from their songs. That shit is strangling the music business right now and the people who run the labels, the 60 year old white guys, can't get their heads around the fact that this isn't 1982 anymore.

There are yet more ways I source music: I subscribe to a couple of music magazines, so now-and-then I'll pick up some stuff based on knockout reviews, but that's relatively rare. One other way to find good music is to simply read the liner notes of the albums you purchase to find out who played in the band. I call this the Benmont Tench Effect, which basically means that if there's a musician in a band you like who plays on a different album with different musicians, you'll probably like that, too. Benmont Tench's presence on Dramarama's Vinyl, for example, is a shining beacon of the Effect (for reference, Benmont Tench is Tom Petty's keyboard player who also happens to make guest appearances on roughly 84% of all the recorded music in the history of the world).

All that said, the last month or so has been an absolute treasure trove of great releases. Some are below:

The Racontuers, "Broken Boy Soldiers" - when I heard that The White Stripes' Jack White had started this "rock/pop" band, I pretty much wrote it off because my dislike of The White Stripes is, um, strong. But this album is surprisingly good and while it doesn't break new ground, it will make you happy if you dug T.Rex, Sweet and a little Led Zep. I hope they cover "Jeepster" live.

The Black Keys, "Chulahoma" - This is an aggressive electric blues/rock duo from Akron, OH whose last record sounded a lot like all their other stuff. This new one rights that ship as they explore some other sounds, but not obnoxiously.

The Yayhoos, "Put The Hammer Down" - Dan Baird, Eric Ambel and crew have put together their best record yet with this collection of songs that make me envious I wasn't there to see it recorded - it sounds like it was about as much fun as you can have recording music. Baird's "Fittin' To Do" will be one of my top 10 songs of the year.

Built to Spill, "You In Reverse" - these guys are unstoppable. Doug Martsch's ultimate indie-rock band is tight, his voice is unique and the songs are......superb. There's only one or two this time that are over seven minutes, but this time those long songs don't even feel long. It's like one of those three hour movies that is so good it feels like a hour-and-thirty.

Drive-By Truckers, "A Blessing and A Curse" - another sweet set of songs from the band I never thought would take it this far. The three-pronged songwriting beast rears its head yet again, except this time they do their best at getting their Ya-Ya's out, channeling Sticky Fingers-era Rolling Stones into their own blend of tunes. Very impressive.

The Whigs, "Give 'Em All A Big Fat Lip" - got this one from, of all places, Rolling Stone magazine, who labeled them America's best unsigned band. I felt like I was being dared and also set up for great disappointment, nonetheless I went to their site and lo and behold, we've got ourselves another terrific band from Athens, GA. They have that Athens, GA sound, too. You know it, don't you?

The Bottle Rockets, "Zoysia" - read the Brian Henneman interview from earlier this week for more. This new album simply has some of Henneman's best songwriting ever on it. The title track is a bit of a departure for the B.Rox - seven minutes, half of which find the band in a long, tight jam and the other half where the lyrics really make you think about the world we're living in today. Can't we all just get along?

Bruce Springsteen, "We Shall Overcome" - Finally! A good new Bruce Springsteen album. This collection of old Pete Seeger songs showcases Springsteen doing what he does best - recording live in the studio, off the cuff and having an absolute blast doing it. I was so taken aback and surprised by its excellence. A total romp.

Others that I'm digging: Tim Easton, Tarkio (old, but new), Milton Mapes, The Hotel Lights, Gomez, Jenny Lewis/Watson Twins, Isobell Campbell & Mark Lanegan........

This is a very rich time for new music and I am loving it. As always, you can see what I'm listening to anytime by checking my page on the excellent Last.fm website.

 

Non-Fiction Defeats Fiction

Harry S. Truman (Missouri-Columbia)
Originally uploaded by lambdachialpha.

As much as I'd like to keep that ridiculous picture of me with the obscene moustache at the top of the page, it's time to move on.

I spent much of last year with my head buried in various books covering World War II. I've always been a bit of a history buff, but over the last, say, three years, I've done some pretty deep dives. In 2003 & 2004, there was the positively monstrous two-volume Theodore Roosevelt set, which covered a lot of the world's events in the early 1900's. That led me to a tour of Roosevelt's boyhood home and it will eventually lead me to Oyster Bay at some point.

The World War II discovery mission last year led me through several terrific reads and also, to my utter astonishment, one of the world's best-kept secret museums: The Museum Of World War II, right in my backyard in Natick, MA. I also ended up writing letters to several WWII soldiers I'd read about and seeing many film documentaries and exhibits. A horrific and fascinating era, really. One where you'd think we would have learned something about the costs of war from all angles. Clearly we have not.

So it should come as no surprise that I am now tackling the post-WWII era and I'm starting with David McCullough's ridiculously large biography of Harry S. Truman. How big, you ask? Well, I'm on page 62 and I'm only 6% finished. That's right, it's a 992 page tome about a man who served as President from 1945-1953. This is actually my first McCullough book and I've been told by many friends about his meticulous research and crisp writing style. This has proven quite true thus far - the author has a knack for really taking you there.

I expect that the front half of the book will take me through the decision to drop the atomic bomb in Japan - one part of WWII I have not read much about yet and am very curious to find out. After reading so much about war, I'm really looking forward to the back half of the book, which will take me through the relatively peaceful few years after WWII. It will be a nice segue, hopefully, into less-bloody times.

Oh, when it rains it pours, though. Along with the Truman book, I've also bought Stephen Ambrose's biography of Dwight Eisenhower and yet another biography on Joe McCarthy, which I'm really looking forward to. After that I suspect it'll be on to Vietnam - of course, I've already purchased a book for that, also, but it'll be some time before I crack that one open. Not ready to jump back into war yet.

For me, non-fiction is the best fiction there is. I think I've read three works of fiction in the last 5 years or so (all of which were excellent as well). Tonight's blog post, though, was spurred by a passage I read earlier tonight in the McCullough book, regarding Truman's love of history:

"He had a real feeling for history," Ethel said, "that it wasn't something in a book, that it was part of life - a section of life or a former time, that is was of interest because it had to do with people." He himself later said it was "true facts" that he wanted. "Reading history, to me, was far more than a romantic adventure. It was solid instruction and wise teaching which I somehow felt that I wanted and needed." He decided, he said, that men make history, otherwise there would be no history. History did not make the man, he was quite certain.

I agree.

 

Where's The John Deere Hat??

Jeff 1970s
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

Those of you who've seen me in person over the past month know that I spent the last 30 days or so growing a beard. I did this for no reason whatsoever. Perhaps I did it so I wouldn't have to shave for a while. But there was no conscious decision - I just decided to stop shaving and it went from there.

Yesterday, I decided this experimental phase was overwith. So as I started to shave, I thought "why not have some fun with this?" The results are shown in the picture here. I do wish I had some kind of trucker's hat - you know, the ones with the meshy back half and some kind of tractor logo or whatever on the front. But I didn't.

And yes, although I was very tempted to walk around for a few days with this look, I did end up shaving the rest. Adieu.

 

Stop, Hey What's That Sound?

It's nice to have co-workers out on the west coast, some of whom I consider pretty close friends of mine. I don't make it out to Ask.com headquarters as much as I probably should, but that doesn't mean I'm out of the loop when it comes to goings-on in the Bay Area. In fact, if Massachusetts were ever erased from the map (and judging by the weather right now, we're getting close), I'd have a solid network of friends on the left coast to rely on for fun and shelter to get me started again. In fact, ever since I graduated from college, I always thought I would end up in the Bay Area, at least for a little while. Hasn't happened.

Regardless, I was mightily amused on Friday when a co-worker sent me the link of highlights from the Regional Finals of San Francisco's Air Guitar Championships (you have to sit through a rather amusing local commercial first). I guess they have championships for everything now. Of course, I've been playing air guitar since I was a wee boy, which reminds me of a story. I had a ton of dental work done as a kid - spent many years in braces, retainers and rubber bands - and sometimes my mother used to go out and get me 7" vinyl singles if I was in the chair for a particularly difficult procedure. After one certain appointment she presented me with a 7" vinyl single of Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero," which at the time was a big hit on radio in 1981. She said she bought it for me because she walked into the living room the week before and said she saw me standing there in the middle of the room playing air guitar to it. I was 10.

The video is damn funny. The co-worker who sent me this actually attended the festivities and she is friends with the third performer in the video, who donned some pretty serious '80s gear to do his work. She also said it was hilarious to witness first-hand. My favorite is the guy who "sings" and "plays" on "More Than A Feeling," with an obviously fake and nearly-falling-off Brad Delp-ish moustache. There's also a female performer whom I hope didn't win - she tries to pull off Bon Jovi's "Living on A Prayer," but her air guitar playing is very poor - it appeared more to me as an weak attempt to advance to the national tournament by pretending to be a stripper or something. All it really appeared to get her were some catcalls from the audience, most of whom I assume were males.

Extremely funny. I wonder if Boston has regional air-guitar finals, too? If I were to do this, I'd have to do something obscure like The Soft Boys "Black Snake Diamond Rock" or something, just to see the look on people's faces.

 

Item Five: Wave That Flag, Hoss

Brian Henneman of The Bottle Rockets
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

Back in August, I kicked off my "Favorite Bands of the '90s" series with Festus, Missouri's finest band, The Bottle Rockets. So as to avoid any repeat writings, I encourage you to visit that post if you want to for a quick refresher on what I wrote about the band. Here and now, though, I can talk a little more about them, because they deserve it.

When I'm old and creaky and I look back and reflect on what feels like thousands of live shows I've seen, I already know that The Bottle Rockets will rank right up there (top 3 easy) as my favorite live band of all time. Some of my fondest memories and best times in a club have come with this band on stage. There are not many groups out there who can just put a shit-eating grin on your face for 2 hours - The Bottle Rockets are one of them. Huge on talent and short on luck, The Bottle Rockets brand of pure-bred American rock and roll just keeps rolling. Whenever I try to explain their sound to someone (a cross between Metallica and Lynyrd Skynyrd? A combination of Little Feat and Guns 'N' Roses? I don't know), I just feel like I've failed to get it correct. You just need to watch and listen.

Their lead singer, the always affable Brian Henneman, is part musician, part comedian and BIG part songwriter. He's not flashy, not theatrical, just.....terrific. The other day I was reading a biography of Norman Rockwell and it's a little difficult to make the connection here, but I think Henneman is rock and roll's version of Norman Rockwell - a guy whose art exposes everyday, common life. A guy who may not have gotten the respect he deserved. A guy who can tell a story with a simple piece of work.

Henneman's songwriting is so everyday and workmanlike that one starts to take it for granted, like a sweatshirt or old pair of shoes you cannot bring yourself to get rid of. They become friends. The stories spun in his songs are such ordinary yarns about characters you come across every week and Henneman makes you feel like you've known him and hung with him for years. These songs - they stick with you. For good.

The Bottle Rockets mean a hell of a lot to me. They continuously take me back to another part of my life and those memories of listening to their records with friends or seeing them live never fail to fill me with nostalgia and joy. The even better part? They're still together, still making damn good records and still playing live. They have a fantastic new album called "Zoysia" coming out in June and they'll be here in Boston on June 17th (Harper's Ferry, for you locals). If you need to find me that night, you know where I am. Look for the guy with a huge smile and a couple of beers.

I am beyond psyched to present this interview with lead singer and songwriter of The Bottle Rockets, Brian Henneman. Enjoy.

1) Did you know that the most inebriated I've ever been at a live rock show was at a Bottle Rockets gig during one of those SxSW's in the 1990s? It was at the Waterloo Brewing Company in Austin, TX and I had to sit and literally prop myself up against the wall of the building opposite the stage. Does it make you feel proud that you were able to be present during my most inebriated moment?

Man, I STILL run into people who talk about that show, and every single one claims it to be their drunkest night. Thank GOD everybody was was drunk. God was watching out for our reputation, by fucking up every single person in that crowd. I have a recording of that show, and we were HORRIBLE. Every song was twice as fast as it should've been, and every instrument was twice as out of tune as it should've been. We even had Eric Ambel, on a TWELVE string that was absolutely out of tune. We must've been as drunk as everybody else...

2) It's '95 or '96 (or whenever). Your song, "Radar Gun" is actually getting airplay at mainstram rock radio - it's even getting popular - and I'm non-chalantly bragging to all my friends that I saw the band play at the Middle East Upstiars in Cambridge the year before (I was obnoxious like that back then). What was your mindset at the time? Were you thinking you might hit it big? Were you suspicious of the machine? Or were you just proud to hear your song played on the radio?

ANSWER: All of the above. I had no idea what was going on. It was pretty cool to be in Detroit, and hear it come on the radio right after Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love". 'Twas our 15 minutes of fame.

3) You don't have to answer this one if you don't want to (I know nothing), but do you think you'll work with Eric "Roscoe" Ambel again at any point?

I am old, and wise enough, to know that you never say never.

4) What was the last thing you laughed really hard at?

A dream I had, where my wife and I had a baby, but it hatched from an egg in a crib in our bedroom. When it was out of the shell, it was a big, plastic snowman, like people put on their porch at Christmas, with my wife's brother's face on it. Wonder what I had for dinner THAT night?

5) The band's new album, called "Zoysia," comes out in a few weeks. The songwriting on this thing is just immense - and that's a compliment. Is it just me or does this set of songs feel a little more.......cynical? Is that a product of the times? Or do you feel more cynical as the years go on?

I think cynisicm is a by-product of old age. I wish I could still look at things with child-like wonder but the more you learn from life, the more easily you can call bullshit. First, the tooth fairy goes, then Santa, next thing you know, you realize rock and roll is dead, your parents are dead, Neil Young looks REALLY old, you can't relate to modern pop culture at all, you know politics are too corrupt to mean anything, and you're thinkin' about how much time you have left on earth. At that point, it's all about figurin' out how to get the most from the time that's left. You stop looking for the meaning of life, and start actually celebrating life. You have no time for bullshit. "Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think..." Was this a cynical answer?

6) You have a real secret weapon in songwriter Scott Taylor. He's kind of like your personal version of Karl Rove - in the shadows. I never, ever thought I'd mention Karl Rove in an interview. I'm really sorry about that (me no likey the Karl Rove). What is your history with him? I mean Scott Taylor, not Karl Rove. Does he play music or just write?

I've known Scott for many years. He came to Festus, from Troy, Illinois, for his first teaching job. He's an English teacher. He actually taught our drummer, Mark. Somehow, through the grapevine, he learned about us weirdos who had Ramones albums, and were trying to start a band. In Festus, that was revolutionary. At that time, Festus was all about Styx, Journey, and REO Speedwagon. He actually suggested Mark to us, for a drummer. He has the most amazing record collection. He taught us everything cool thing we know about rock and roll (although, we DID discover the Ramones on our own, guess that counts for somethin'...). He can't play very well at all, just rudimentary chords on guitar, but, he sure can write a mean lyric.

7) Who penned the lyric "a plastic plate of sorrow from a buffet of regret" on the song "Happy Anniversary?" (I don't have the liner notes yet) When I heard that lyric, I nearly pooped myself because it's so goddamn brilliant. Do you have a song or moment on the new record that really gets you?

That was me. I love this entire album. We finally made one I like all the way through. Every moment gets me.

7) Many years ago, I was at the Mercury Lounge show in NYC when, after you flashed your breasts to us, you announced that you had placed every Bottle Rockets song in your hat and that the audience would pick the set list that night. And that's how it happened. Do you remember this? Were either of those events (audience picking songs, breast flashing) a one-time thing? I'd like to tell people that "I was at the only show ever where Henneman......."

Those were the drunken days. That setlist thing happened, I think, two times. Once in New York, once in St. Louis. The breast flashing, as far as I can remember, only happened in New York, but, I don't remember THAT, so, who knows?

8) I asked Farrar and I also asked that dude from My Morning Jacket this question: What are your thoughts on the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper's" album? My opinion is that it's one of the most overrated albums ever made, although it did revoloutionize record-making. Farrar kind of agreed. The guy from My Morning Jacket wanted to kill me. Your thoughts?

"Sgt. Pepper's" was one of the very few albums I had, as a child. I loved it then, but, it is SOOOO not my Favorite Beatles album now. I, too, would put it in the "overrated" category.

9) Why don't you ask me a question?

What do you feel has prevented the guy from My Morning Jacket from killing you thus far?

Jeff answers: Hmmm. Good one. I think it's because I told him my name was Jeff Tweedy.

10) Tell us a really good "this band is flat broke" story.

Every story leads to that story. It would be easier if I could just send you a bank statement.

11) Did you know that I'm the guy who wrote that feature story on the Bottle Rockets in the very first issue of No Depression magazine back in 1995? Using my basic math skills, this means that I'm due to interview you again in 2017. What will you be doing in 2017?

Probably, ridin' around in a van, playing the same clubs, writing even MORE cynical songs, unless I get Alzheimer's and am able to revert back to my "wonder years".

12) Did you find it difficult to write "Mom & Dad?" That one gets me the same way Farrar's "Dent County" gets me. Always makes me think about my own family.

I didn't write "Mom & Dad." I just sat there, and it popped right out. I have no memory of writing it. I channelled it. I find it difficult to LISTEN to Mom & Dad.

13) Are most of your songs written based on personal experience? Take, for example, "White Boy Blues." Do you actually know someone that you equate with that image?? ("gets in his Turbo Volvo and he heads for home.....") It's funny to think about, because there are several folks I know who are like that. I don't even want to ask about "Love Like A Truck"

Most all of my songs are, basically, like police reports. All facts. No filler. Yeah, I know several of "those guys."

14) Okay, so you portrayed yourself a few years back as a pretty simple guy in the song "Helpless" - do you feel you've evolved? For example, the song indicates that you are not online. Yet here you are, doing an email interview. Have you come around to the internet? Are you ok with people downloading and sharing your music? For what it's worth, I've made quite a few fans of the band by sharing your music and I know for sure they've purchased later on.

When I wrote that song, I did NOT have a computer. I really felt that way at that time. Wish I still felt that way but I don't. I still don't have a cell phone. If I get a cell phone, I won't get an iPod. I always have to be defiant of some kinda technology. It really IS killing humanity, you know...

Downloading, sharing... whatcha gonna do? The illegal stuff hurts my income. We're right at the "success level" that actually gets KILLED by that. If you make less than us it doesn't matter, 'cause you ain't makin' a livin' with it anyway. If you make MORE than us, it doesn't matter, 'cause you're still makin' a livin'. It has definitely hurt album sales, which filters down to royalty checks. It gets the music out there but puts me into a part-time job scenario. It's alright. Like I said, whatcha gonna do? Maybe if I flashed my breasts more, we'd make more money...

15) In all seriousness, I want to tell you here that the Bottle Rockets are, without question, one of my favorite bands of the last ten years, musicially, lyrically and comedy. You have provided me with some truly amazing memories - live, on record, etc. So thank you. Just wanted to say that.

Whenever you may feel shitty about this business (and there's lots of reasons to feel that way), don't ever forget that there's a lot of us who feel the same way I do about the band. See you in Boston on June 17th.

Thank you, my brotha! See y'all out there somewhere...

Big thanks to Brian Henneman!

 

I Was Born in a Little Bitty Tar Hut, Part VII

Angry Johnny in Entertainment Weekly, June '98
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

Looking back at Tar Hut, there are many occurences and accomplishments we have to be proud of. Getting a national retail/distribution deal after just three releases is one of them. But our efforts in the field of PR and publicity for our music and our label are near the top of the list. There is an old adage which says that any publicity is good publicity and that's an adage I certainly subscribe to. Thankfully, most of our publicity was quite favorable and positive.

Publicity in the music business is a very curious animal. Publicity when you run a 3 person indie record label with only one full time worker is downright surreal. The trick is this: there are literally thousands of albums being released monthly, most of them backed up with publicity departments. In a lot of cases, labels will even pay gobs of money to independent publicity firms. These are firms who actually specialize in securing album reviews, TV/Radio appearances and interviews for the artist. These independent firms charge an absolute boatload of money to the labels for such things and the labels seem glad to pay it. As you might expect, this was not even a remote option for us. We were on a very tight budget.

We also didn't have a publicity department within Tar Hut. By and large, the publicity department was yours truly. So here's how it usually played out:

For each "run" of CD's that we had pressed, we'd give roughly 50% of them away for nothing. Let's say we press 2,000 copies of a CD, shall we? We'd earmark about 1,000 of those as "promos," with a hole punched in the barcode to prevent re-sale. Out of this set of 1,000, about 400 would go out to radio (radio needs its own blog entry someday) and we'd generally set aside 500 or so for press/publicity. The rest we'd keep on hand for subsequent requests or last minute emergencies ("Jack at the Cotton Club in Atlanta wants to book the Ex-Husbands, but he needs a CD! Send it today!")

Anyway, seeing as though we didn't have a shipping department, the task of stuffing a CD plus a band biography into a padded envelope and then lugging all 500 of them to post office usually fell to myself and Leo. Leo would come to my place in Somerville, we'd plop in some music, have some food/beer and proceed to methodically stuff hundreds of padded mailers.....for hours upon hours. Ah, the glorious life of indie-label record execs. One major regret is that I don't have any pictures of my old bedroom in Somerville, MA, which featured a stereo, a bed on the floor and CD boxes stacked up the walls on all four sides of the room. I mean, the damn things were just everywhere. It was quite a sight.

About a week after the CD's were mailed, the phone calls would start. I'd call in the morning, I'd go home for lunch from my day job at Rounder and call while I was eating. After I'd come home from work, it was right back to the phones, furiously dialing all the people I'd sent our CD's to. 98% of the time you leave voice mails and never hear back. Nonetheless, you still call them, week after week after week after week, hoping they'll answer and tell you a review is running on such-and-such a date. Most of the time, you just talk to machines, but when you did snag a review, it was like finding those last quarters you needed for laundry - relief. Near exhilaration. Some of the time, you'd get treated rudely, like the day when I called the irrational and cantankerous rock critic Robert Christgau at The Village Voice and he actually answered! I was completely stunned he even answered and I remember thinking there must be a mistake. I was correct. He get very aggravated when I told him who I was (i.e., someone he didn't give two shits about) and yelled at me that he was expecting another call and promptly hung up before I could even get my band's name out of my mouth. Unforgettable.

You know what, though? We worked our asses off for publicity and it paid off. The reivew in the picture above was our crowning achievement, a review of an Angry Johnny album which we landed in, of all publications, Entertainment Weekly! It is extremely, extremly rare for an indie-label of our size to land a review in such a huge publication, but through persistence, we did it. The album itself obviously played a huge role - the uniqueness and creativity in the music deserved it, in my eyes. That it drew comparison to Dock Boggs was a very nice touch. I never read Entertainment Weekly, but ever since then I've always respected the publication. To a degree.

Our other releases did quite well in the newspapers and magazines, too. At one point or another we managed to land coverage in Stereo Review, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe, Magnet Magazine, No Depression and many, many others. We even managed to land a feature story on Angry Johnny in Billboard Magazine, another coup indeed.

If I'm missing anything, I'm sure Leo and Dave can fill in the blanks. All told, I'm insanely proud of our publicity efforts. Did it lead to an explosion in sales? Probably not. We saw the occasional blip as a result, but nothing crazy.

Publicity like that helped us more in other ways - leverage to get booked in some clubs, to sell the story better to radio, to get retail paying attention. Naturally, once a good national review was published, we made nice copies of it and simply mailed it to our press list to get them thinking there was momentum and to continue considering writing about it. An endless wheel.....spinning.

 

Dorking Out, Part IV

Foxy Tunes
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

One of the reasons I like the Firefox browser so much is because of the neat bells and whistles you can attach to it to make your computer life all that easier. For the geeks of the world, it probably makes them feel the same way as a mechanic who totally pimps out his car with aftermarket products.

One of these add-ons that has really made my life easier is FoxyTunes a free application (pictured above) that attaches itself to the bottom of Firefox and allows you to control your ITunes software right from the browser. If you want to skip a song, you just click the right arrow. You can pause, play and basically perform the most oft-used ITunes tasks. Precious.

Free-market innovations like this make Firefox a nice tool to have. I downloaded the newest Microsoft browser (IE7) last week and have been fooling around with that, also. So far I must give it pretty good marks - it looks as though this may have some open-source options as well, so I'll be curious to see what kind of add-ons people will build for it. It's a step in the right direction for sure, but I'm on Firefox for the foreseeable future.

 

A Nice, Round Number

Me, probably 7 or 8
Originally uploaded by rustedrobot.

Well, I'm about 54 minutes away from turning 35 years old. I could easily launch myself into another diatribe about life and the seemingly endless amounts of mystery and bewilderment associated with it, but I already did that this week. I could attempt to wax poetic about where I am in my life, but frankly, I'm fresh out of serious.

Tonight, on the cusp of Cinco De Jeffro, I'm simply thinking about 35 as an accomplishment of sorts. In fact, I'm looking at each birthday now not as a time to expect attention, but as a time to kick back and appreciate things small and large. That's all. I'm not looking at it as a gateway to anything ahead, nor am I being overly reflective about the past, other than wondering what might have been coursing through my young mind in the near 30-year-old picture up there. I look a little surprised. Or guilty.

Who took it? It wasn't my mother - that's her standing right behind me (hey! nice pigtails there!). It may have been my dad. I don't know. Suddenly, I really wish I could remember this day. But I don't. Hmmmmm. I can only venture a guess as to what I'm doing with a red marker and paper in my left hand. I have no idea what that even is in my right hand. Any ideas?

35. Not bad.

Just for history's sake, tonight's playlist:

Simon & Garfunkel - "Homeward Bound"
Tim Easton - "Watching the Lightning"
Guided By Voices - "I Am A Scientist"
The Byrds - "Mr. Tamborine Man"
Drive-By Truckers - "Aftermath USA"
Doug Martsch - "Window"
Nick Drake - "Horn"

That's it. Glad to be here.

 

You Can't Take It With You

I've finally wrapped up many weeks of my being totally obsessed with HBO's Six Feet Under. Steph and I had watched the first season on DVD a couple of years ago, but I went solo for the remaining 4 seasons worth of DVD's. Now that I've seen every episode, I can say with a good degree of confidence that I believe this body of work to be some of the finest television ever made. HBO's distinct advantage over "public" television is obvious, is it allows for a degree of reality that the CBS's and NBC's of the world simply cannot touch.

In short, Six Feet Under is the story of the Fisher's, who run a family-owned funeral home in Los Angeles. In the first scene of the first episode, Nathaniel Fisher, Sr. is hit by a bus and killed, leaving the operation of the funeral home in the hands of his 30-something sons, David, who is uptight and gay, and Nate, a free-spirited resident of Seattle who only found out about his father's death when he returned home for a visit. Somehow, his mother persuades him to stay and help with the business.

The remaining episodes deal with the fallout of Nathanial's death, the decisions and directions we choose in life and how each and every one of us are flawed, some far more severely than others. The show's subject matter leans towards dark and sometimes dreary, yet there are moments of unfettered happiness and even borderline comedy. The occasional fantasy sequences never go over the top like fantasy sequences are known to do; they are, in fact, a necessary and mostly serious part of the show which fill in a lot of essential facts about the Fisher's lives before that bus hit Nathaniel. It is, without doubt, one of the most unique shows to ever hit the airways. Death itself plays a huge role in the show - after all, it still remains a fairly taboo subject in our world today, so it certainly is one of the driving factors in the show uniqueness.

Much like any other truly great show, however, what makes Six Feet Under head-and-shoulders ahead of the pack are two elements: the characters and the writing. Don't think so? Check the laundry list of awards its won. The actors, many of whom only had made their mark in theatre and not in television, were spectacular as well. Each and every one of them were so utterly convincing and persuasive at their art that I found myself believing their personalities in theo show must be what those people are like in "real life." At one point, Steph walked into the room during a scene featuring the moody Fisher daughter, Claire, and Steph remarked "Oh, I hate her." Even after a couple of years, Steph remembered how unlikeable that character could be at times - that's powerful acting. There must have been a conscious reason for choosing theatre actors, but I haven't read up enough on that yet.

Anyway, I'm writing this with a little hesitation because I know of at least two people who are still in the middle of watching the series, so I don't want to give anything away and I won't. I can say that the last episode of the show was about as moving and emotional as television gets. I'm not sure if it was the last episode itself or my looking back on the scope of the whole series, but after finishing I had an almost sick feeling in my stomach. Why? I'm still trying to understand that. I think the show left me really thinking and considering in detail about the things I've would have (or should have) done diffrently so far in my life. I believe that kind of reflection is something that should be held at arm's length - you simply cannot change the past, so it won't help any to obsess about it. But the story of your life is such that you need to reflect on those things from time to time in order to set your path the way you need it set, to learn those lessons before it's too late.

Depressing? Perhaps. But the show also left me with an overwhelming and intense feeling of hope. Hope that I can set straight anything I need to change, or hope that I can get the most out of the time I have with the people I care about. We're all complicated, and that's the challenge. But there's always hope.

The idea that a television show can make me think like that is indicative of its power. You may not feel the same after watching it, but I guarantee you that if you watch a few episodes of the show, you'll also have some degree of reflection, regret, laughter and hope. Those are life's dominating elements, after all, aren't they?

Shows like The Sopranos have superior acting and great, compelling storylines. Sex and the City was, largely, a light and amusing vehicle whose characters weren't necessarily individuals, but caricatures. Entourage appears to be a show custom-built for boys. Six Feet Under is the only HBO show that truly felt real and with each episode, made me think about the emotions that come packaged with everyday life - good or bad.

A terrific piece of writing about Six Feet Under by The Boston Globe's Matthew Gilbert can be found here. WARNING: this article contains some plot giveaways, so if you haven't seen the show or haven't seen the ending yet, do not read this article.

Claire: "Why do people have to die?"
Nate, Jr: "So we'll love life."

I'm thinking about my grandmother today, whose birthday would have been yesterday.