Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Group w/ Zechs Marquise - Asheville - 03/26/2011

i went to asheville, nc last night to see the omar-rodriguez-lopez group and zechs marquise at the orange peel. my cousin adam lives in hickory, nc, so i drove up to his house to pick him up, then we headed on to asheville. we got to the venue about 20 minutes before the doors opened, and it was raining and cold. when i left charleston earlier that day, it was in the 70's so i didn't even bring a jacket or anything. they opened up the doors right on time, though, and we went straight in to grab a sweet spot in front of the stage. while adam held our spot, i checked out the merch table and picked up a sweet purple ORL t-shirt and the Omar/Lydia Lunch vinyl album (one i have been coveting for a while on vinyl, and out of stock on his website - score!).

once the show started, zechs marquise came out and completely blew me away. I have never seen these guys play together before, and they made it worth every dollar spent to get to this show. total energy and killer grooves. i will definitely see these guys again. after the show, i bought their album on vinyl as well ('our delicate stranded nightmare'), and three of the members were gracious enough to autograph it for me and chat for a moment after the show. swell guys.

photo courtesy of myself!

The omar rodriguez-lopez group came out shortly after zechs marquise finished their set. as soon as i saw cedric walk out with the guys, i turned into an excited 12 year old girl. i saw a video from SXSW that ORL Productions posted on youtube where cedric came out and sang with them, but i never thought in a million years he would be touring with them. it made the show just a tad bit more exciting for me, since all 5 members on stage are current members in the mars volta!!!

photo courtesy of myself!

they proceeded with a set of all new music (at least i have never heard any of it before) with cedric singing lead vocals the entire set. lots of energy and even some between-song banter, which i have never experienced with the mars volta before. extremely exciting times. i hope to see these excellent tunes getting an official release soon. i was able to capture some pretty sweet video of most of three songs from the performance. sound quality is decent, but not great, but it is better than nothing. check it out!!!

amazing...

i have got to start blogging again...

so, it has been a while. a long while. but i am back! let's see...what have i been up to? with tax return money, i got a whole mess of resealable record sleeves from bags unlimited. always impressed by their selection and quality. i have finally finished bagging every single record we own. it was great fun going through the entire catalog one by one. i ran across a lot of records i forgot we owned. this collection is one of my most prized possessions...

we have had a few busy weeks with a few more ahead. a few birthdays coming up (calla's and others), a few concerts coming up in the next three months that i am totally looking forward to (omar rodriguez-lopez and the deftones). the charleston record expo is happening on march 26th. this should be very exciting! it is being put on by the great monster music and movies. captain's comic expo on march 29th. record store day 2011 coming up on april 16th. lots of exciting releases coming out for this. free comic book day on may 7th. dang. fun stuff indeed! hope i can handle all of this.

anna has been super busy with her etsy site, making hair bows/rings/other assorted things. and of course she has been busy with just being a stay-at-home mommy. we are so lucky to be in a situation where she could stop working devilish retail and focus on spending time with the girls.

will be posting more stuff here soon, so please stay tuned. i promise to make this more interesting than i have been (for all 2-3 of my readers...).

BlackDiamondSkye Presale

pre-sale tickets for BLACKDIAMONDSKYE are only available for a few more days, so get decent seats while you can: http://bit.ly/axwNpw

my imaginary friends

here is a band that i recently discovered via an old coworker. her daughter is the singer/pianist/guitarist. i enjoy their music. check them out and sign up for their mailing list:

dang.

i need to get back into this thing. the 140 character limit of twitter is convenient and quick, but sometimes, you just need to say more, even if you are the only one listening.

d.i.p. king of pop

coutesy of Obamicon.me

aaaahhh yes.

this makes me very happy.

don't forget...

...at monster music and movies in west ashley across from target, in the shopping center with bed, bath, and beyond. it should be an amazing day full of great live music and great sales. support your local independent record stores. please.

'cause i love 'em, that's why - installment 2

for the second installment of my ''cause i love 'em, that's why' series, i will write a bit about bjork's album debut. i bought this album when it was released in 1993 based on hearing the song 'human behaviour' and seeing the video on mtv at ron r's house. we both fell in love with her quirky lyrics and voice, and loved her accent. and it certainly helped that she was so easy on the eyes.



her music was a lot different than other things i was listening to at the time. less loud rock sounds, more dancy beats, with a few tear-jerking ballads in there as well. i spent a lot of my time sitting alone in my room listening to this album that year. i also got my first car that year, so i dubbed the cd to tape and cruised around town with the windows down, speakers blaring. i included a few songs from the album on mixed tapes as well, whether for myself or for some lady friend (at age 15, i made lots of mixed tapes). this particular album opened my eyes to a different kind of music, added more to my musical intellect, let me feel that there was amazing music out there that could be made without distorted guitars. which led, i am sure, to me seeking out bands like cibo matto or portishead or morcheeba years later.

songs like 'violently happy', 'crying', 'venus as a boy', 'come to me', hell, everyone of them mean something to me for that time in my life. and everytime i hear these songs, it takes me back to those days. no matter how down i felt back then as a teenager living in goose creek, sc, this music always made me happy. not to say that this album has only nostalgic value to me. if i were to hear it for the first time today, i know it would sound equally as amazing to me as it sounded 16 years ago.

when i talk about my respect for bjork as an artist and how much i love her music, most people refer to videos they have seen where she is talking about how her tv broadcasts images through to her mind or that music awards show where she was wearing the swan thing around her neck, and just talk about how they can't stand her because of how weird she is. i find it hard to believe that many of these people have ever sat down and actually listened to her music. to me, all of the 'crazy' things she does makes her that much more endearing to me. she is a unique artist, and is not afraid to stand out as an individual.

now, i am not writing this to try to convince anyone to like her music. if you've made up your mind, ok, good. i am writing this to let anyone who reads this know that i (and my wife, coincidentally) love her music, and this album got me started on a whole new world of music, including her future albums. so there you have it. more installments to come in the near future, so if you give a crap, and read this blog occasionally, keep coming back, because this will hopefully bring me back here to write a little more often than usual.

'cause i love 'em, that's why - installment 1

so, for the last few days, while driving in my car, i have been listening to an old classic in the musical library of layne, and was inspired to begin a new series of installments entitled ''cause i love 'em, that's why', in which i will discuss albums that helped shape me into the dude i am today. the album that prompted all of this is none other than shonen knife's let's knife.



i first got wind of this band back in 1992 because i was a huge fan of nirvana, and kurdt cobain talked about them in interviews often and had them open up for nirvana on one of their tours. i thought, in my 15-year-old mind, 'if they're good enough for kurdt, they're good enough for me!', so i went out and purchased let's knife, which was their most recent album released, and the only one i could find locally.

the front and back covers made me very curious. three petite japanese women on the front (at the time, and still, i was very much into female-led rock groups), wearing bright crazy multi-colored outfits surrounded by psychedelic cartoon-y flowers. the track listing on the back made me even more curious, with titles such as 'flying jelly attack', 'twist barbie', 'get the wow', and 'tortoise brand pot scrubbing cleaner's theme (sea turtle)', i thought, this has to be good! i got home from the record store (i am almost positive i picked it up from manifest discs and tapes, now monster music and movies), and went straight to my room to crack open the cd. when i put it in my boombox, my mind was blown.

seventeen tracks of perfectly crafted pop music, innocent child-like lyrics, rockin' guitars, good guitar solos, tight drumming, vocal harmonies that made me weep (i have a thing for good vocal harmonies), and the list goes on. at age 15, i had never heard anything else like it, and i devoured it, listening constantly and trying to learn all of the songs on guitar. come to find out, they had quite a back catalogue of albums, so i had some work to do tracking them down through special orders, mail orders, etc (no home internet access back then, kiddies, at least not in the harvey household - i had to order though the mail (!)).

i pushed the album on all of my unsuspecting friends, and a few of them were equally impressed, most notably ron r., oscar r., and charles r. (none of them related, and not the charles r. that i currently associate with). three years later, i discovered they were playing in atlanta, where, coincidentally, ron r. was going to school, so charles r. and i made the road trip and saw them at the masquerade. we were like a gaggle of prepubescent girls staring at a joey mcintyre poster on their bedroom walls, except this was way cooler. we were right up front within reach of naoko yamano, the lead singer/guitarist. they were amazing and larger than life up on that stage. we thought, how can these three little ladies make such an incredible mind-blowing sound? after their set, they came out and signed autographs and stuff. they were very quiet when it was our turn to chat - they were probably a bit freaked out by the 6'3" ugly pimply white dude towering over them. we stood there like idiots, not thinking of anything cool to say. they signed a setlist and a ticket stub for me and i was in heaven.

anywho, on that note, i will leave you with some thought-provoking lyrics from one of my favorite tracks on the album 'i am a cat':

i discover whiskers of a cat
in a timeless zone
and i put them on my face.
in a moment i become a sweet little cat
and i dance on a flying saucer.

so, so cool.

more of this type of thing to come, so stay tuned, if you wanna.

captain's comic expo!

neko case - new album and single

neko case has a new album coming out on march 3rd called middle cyclone. she also has a new single, people got a lot of nerve, to promote the album that her label, anti-, is offering for a free download on their website. additionally, for every blog that promotes the new single, neko case and anti- will make a cash donation to best friends animal society. download the new track for free here.

to find out how to promote this on your blog to help a good cause, check out this link.

where did all the good shows go???

there is a serious lack of good shows recently. haven't been to one in almost two months, i think. if anyone hears of anything i might like, please drop me a line.

in other news, i went to a christmas parade downtown with my daughter today, and we had a blast. we watched all of the cars drive by and stuff, then we had a picnic in marion square that consisted of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fruit snacks (yum!). mina then played on some giant inflatable things (slide, obstacle course, jump castle) for about 45 minutes. we topped it off with some cake-cake and hot chocolate at the starbucks across the street and a quick run through of urban outfitters. 'twas an excellent time. i left the camera in the car, but took this shot right when we got back before leaving downtown.


photo taken by myself

good advice. really.

at the drive-in on letterman, a long time ago

this is one of my favorite live performances by at the drive-in (future members of the mars volta and sparta). it is a performance of their song 'one-armed scissor' from their album relationship of command, live on letterman, some time ago. i wish i could have seen this band live before they split up. just ran across this while surfing the ol' web.

'tis a girl

and on a completely unrelated topic, my wife and i just found out we are having another baby girl. where my ladies at?!?!

check out the eyeball!!!

normal 'ol ultrasound shot.

new john frusciante solo album announced!!!

here is an email i received from redhotchilipeppers.com recently:

***********************************

Friends and Fans, 

The Empyrean is my new record and will be released worldwide via Record Collection on January 20th 2009. It was recorded on and off between December 2006 and March 2008. It is a concept record that tells a single story both musically and lyrically. The story takes place within one person, and there are two characters. It contains a version of Tim Buckley's, 'Song To The Siren' and the rest of the songs are written by me. My friend Josh plays on it, as does Flea. It also features Sonus Quartet, Johnny Marr and The New Dimension Singers. I'm really happy with it and I've listened to it a lot for the psychedelic experience it provides. It should be played as loud as possible and it is suited to dark living rooms late at night. 

- John Frusciante, November 3rd, 2008 

The Empyrean Track listing:

1. Before The Beginning
2. Song To The Siren
3. Unreachable
4. God
5. Dark/Light
6. Heaven
7. Enough Of Me
8. Central
9. One More Of Me
10. After The Ending

***********************************

holy crap. i cannot wait. this email makes me so happy.

john frusciante - dying song

here is a nicely done video put together by some youtube-er with john frusciante's 'dying song', which appears on the soundtrack to the movie the brown bunny, playing over the top of scenes from that movie. i love the movie, my friend charles was not a fan. john frusciante contributes five tunes to the soundtrack, although none actually appear in the film (bummer). john frusciante rules, and this is my favorite song by him.

what in god's name... (halloween fun)

so, i was sorting through mina's halloween haul, as all responsible parents should do before letting the kids loose on all that stranger candy, when i found (amongst the few opened wrappers, chewed up sucker sticks (not by mina - eww!), and just plain weird candy) a piece of gummy candy in a wrapper labelled 'gummy body parts candy'. that's all good. in the spirit of halloween, body parts candy is quite normal. i'm all for it. we found a set of teeth still attached to the gums (awesome) and a gummy nose (sweet) and something else that kinda looks like an ear. well, not really. what is that? wait a minute!!!!!


photo courtesy of myself

is it just me, or does that sorta resemble a...nevermind, use yer imagination. anna says it is an ear, but i have never seen an ear that looks like that. comment please, and let me know your thoughts.

jucifer, the pour house, 10/10/08

this past saturday night, i went with my friend shane to see jucifer, a band that we both love and have seen numerous times now. they played at a small bar on james island called the pour house. my friend chris thomas plays drums in the band that opened for them, banana hammock (the best band name i have heard in a while). they are kind of a thrashy, screamy, metal group with lots of mid-song tempo changes. i liked them. chris has made some amazing music over the years, and this is a continuation.

jucifer came on stage at around midnight, and once again blew me away. the band consists of two members, g. amber valentine (maniacal guitar/vocals) and g. edgar livengood (maniacal drums/vocals). the guitar rig consists of no less than thirteen 4x12" speaker cabinets, which is about twelve more than most guitarists have at a small club show like that. upon the first strum of the guitar, my innards instantly turned to liquid (luckily this has happened before, so i thought to bring an extra pair of undershorts).


photo courtesy of myself

they continued on and played a loud, screaming, psycho-drumming set that truly ruled. there was a lame turnout, but that did not effect their spirits in the slightest. and the few people that were there were going nuts.


photo courtesy of myself

after the show, amber v. promptly manned the merchandise booth, chatting with folks and signing autographs, showing no signs of just having blown minds. i bought their new live dvd, jucifer - veterans of volume: live with eight cameras and can't wait to watch it. if you like the band, order it from the link in the previous sentence. it is only $10 plus postage, and it is a limited pressing. the dvd contains a live show, music videos, and tons of other stuff. this is a great band and they need all the support they can get. i also purchased their new album l'autrichienne on pretty pink vinyl. it is a beauty. hope to see you all at the next show!