Hey Guys!

Guess what?! It turns out I totally have a blog! Crazy, right? I know! It's like when someone tries to bum a cigarette and you're all like "I don't smoke", and then you get home and empty your pockets and suddenly remember that you've had a carton-a-week habit for decades as you pull out a pack of Camels, open it, lovingly caress your last one and light it. "Thank God I didn't give this one to that mooch," you think as you inhale deeply, adjusting the wig that hides the toll that months of radiation therapy have taken on your fragile frame. Just like that!
I mean, instead of ranting futilely into the void, I could have been ranting productively on the interwebs. Colour me embarrassed.
So much has happened:
I went back to Istanbul. Second time there. I love that city. Have you been? I don't know - you don't have a blog. It's a crazy exciting metropolis with millennia of history and culture and amazing food. Go.
Japan is up next. Woo hoo!
Closer to home, last week a corrupt Spanish politician was gunned down in the street by the mother of some girl she'd fucked over. Right now, the Spanish police could be kicking in my door to arrest me for suggesting that maybe some awful lady who scams over a hundred and fifty grand a year from the public coffers while faking eligibility for free trips to NYC and bullying the opposition and the press deserves to eat a lead sandwich with the works. (They're making it illegal, you know) If only I'd been paying attention to my bookmarks.
Eurovision! The fun I could have had with Eurovision. Buxom slavs and bearded ladies. Oh well. Next year.
In the meantime, I have a band too. That one is easier to remember. We recorded and played a couple of shows and I keep paying for rehearsal time, so it's harder to ignore. We've been accepted as semi-finalists in a radio contest. I'm not sure what we can win (apparently not too hard to ignore) but it's probably something cool like hats or beer, so I would really appreciate it if you would click on the link and vote for us. Just tick the box at the bottom of the page and click Enviar. Thanks.
My annual rock orgy takes place next week as I spend three days in the ugliest part of the city taking in the sweet noise of Primavera Sound. (With JB. Woo hoo!) I'll tell you all about it if it doesn't slip my mind.

VOTE FOR LES FAT JONES HERE!

For The Record...

Les Fat Jones are particularly good at one thing: rehearsing. I think we played a total of four shows in 2013, but we still meet every Tuesday evening like clockwork to shuffle down into a basement in Bellvitges to bang out some rock and roll. As a result, we have a bunch of new songs, so we decided it was time to make another album.
Local musician Joan Colomo came on board to produce. A veteran of the local scene, he's made a name for himself in recent years as a singer/songwriter. He's got loads of charisma and talent, which we hoped would seep into our recording.
With him locked down, we set out to find a studio, and man, did we ever find one. I don't know how your past few weekends have been (I mean I hope they've been good, because I'm not a dick most of the time) but mine have been pretty fantastic.

We drove out into Catalan wine country, about an hour from Barcelona, to Cal Pau, an old house sitting in the middle of vineyards that has been converted into a recording studio. It seemed like the sort of self indulgence that Bono or Anthony Kiedis would embrace, but fuck, if you're gonna play rock star, might as well play it right.

Rock and roll with a view

Part of the building has bedrooms, bathrooms, a kitchen and all the stuff you'd find in a normal country house. Also vintage motorcycles. The place is full of them. Restored, possibly functional. We weren't able to actually check.

Not that we didn't try

Meanwhile, the back part (of the building, not the bikes) has been outfitted with a recording studio. Here we toiled away. Over the course of three intensive weekends, we put nine songs to tape. (Not actual tape. I mean we didn't go all retro and stuff. Cubase it was.)

Joan surprised by his own technical acumen at the board

Our rehearsing paid off. We were able to lay our tracks down quickly, giving us time to experiment a little. Obviously, not Smile levels of experimentation, as we didn't have Brian Wilson amounts of time or drugs, but enough to throw some ideas against the wall to see if they stuck. Some did, and some slithered to the floor to lie in a puddle of their own decomposing corpses. Such is the process of creation. 

Poke on the drums

Amiel on the bass, Noah on the iPhone

Victor on guitar

Lost in thought or mouth breathing?

Drums and bass were finished in the first weekend, much faster than we expected. This gave us the rest of the time to record guitars (awesome) keyboards (fun - they had a Rhodes lying around. can a large electric piano lie around?) and vocals. Ah vocals. Now, I'm not a strong singer, just an enthusiastic one. My childhood was spent ignoring the pleas of others to stop it, or at least find the right key. I have improved slightly since then, but my range could generously be described as limited. As such, recording vocals is a weird experience. I love being in the booth, but I'm always wary of the results. I feel like as a band, we put together a tasty cake, and then I smeared some shit on it as icing. It looks like chocolate and hopefully nobody will notice the smell. 

Singing selfie (not actually singing. fucking selfies)

Well, it's all done now, we've moved on to mixing, the fun stage where everybody in the band realises what each song needs is more of them. 

Apparently iPhone consultation is an inherent part of recording

see above

More updates will come soon, hopefully followed by (gasp!) some concerts.

Watch this space. 

Rock Report April 12th 2013

Scientists have got it wrong. They were off by a whole 24 hours. All this time,  we were worried about Friday the 13th, when in fact the dangerous day was Friday the 12th. (Disclosure: my understanding of what scientists actually do may be limited.) Someone tell Jason he gets to sleep in.
It all started when I was informed that I had not sufficiently contributed to the cleaning of the apartment and became determined to make up for my prior lack. Armed with paper and spray, I attacked the glass surfaces of the bathroom - the mirror and shower door. Unfortunately, they attacked me back. The metal frame of the shower sliced my finger tip open like a razor, causing me to run to the kitchen for paper towels, spewing blood and a stream of obscenities. After applying a tourniquet (ok, a bandaid - but it was promptly soaked through, needing a second bandaid. The horror!), I left for work.
Fridays find me with time to kill between classes near a friendly restaurant where I go to enjoy the menú de día, a Spanish tradition that includes an appetiser, a main course, a desert and a drink for a reasonable lunchtime price. I unknowingly ordered roast pork with glass, which I discovered to my distress when something crunched in my mouth where no crunch should be. The waiter was suitably apologetic and accommodating, so my freaking out remained silent, as I imagined my intestines being shredded by undetected shards I had already swallowed. I still expect to drop dead from internal bleeding at any point.
Then on the way home, I was taken out, missile-defense-style, by a soccer ball as I rode my bike. I wish there was video footage of the event, because from another perspective, it must have been hilarious to see the ball connect with the back of my head, sending me sprawling and dazed to the pavement. From mine, however, it was merely confusing. One moment, I was riding along, glad the weekend had begun, then suddenly, all I could think was "my head hurts" as I lost control of my limbs and subsequently, my bicycle, and found myself lying at the feet of two women who observed me, unperturbed, from a bench. "He's fine", they diagnosed as I got to my feet, stunned, and a child ran over, apologising profusely.
I approached the evening's gig, surrounded by heavy lighting and sound equipment, electricity and moving musicians, with a fair degree of trepidation. I would have preferred to cower in bed for the remainder of the day, but as Les Fat Jones gig calendar has been rather sparse lately, I didn't want to miss the concert, bleeding limbs, guts and head wounds be damned!
Although we have been playing concerts with the frequency of eclipses or comets, we have maintained a faithful schedule of rehearsing, meaning we have new songs that we know how to play, so the performance went well, the crowd was small but supportive, the main act Julieta Jones were fun, but most importantly, I lived to see the dawn. Put one in the win column.

Hard Rock Battle of the Bands

Les Fat Jones have joined a battle of the bands at the Hard Rock Cafe. I've been working on my swordsmanship, but it turns out that was unnecessary. (So far!) Instead, they've opted for the much more genteel solution of having people vote for songs on a Facebook page. (Tyler Durden, eat your heart out.) Please go to it here and download our song "Other Cities" to vote for it. Much obliged.

This Is 40

So that happened.
I don't mind being this age, but rather, I'm shocked. I really don't feel like I've been alive that long. Perhaps my terrible maths skills have infected the entire world and we're all just wrong on this one.
Stuff that's happened as I begin my fifth decade:
Les Fat Jones were rated one of the top ten local independent releases of 2012 by local music mag Mondo Sonoro. (Slow clap.) In the coming year, we plan to record again with a different Catalan indie luminary. We've entered a battle of the bands where people will need to vote for us. Once voting begins, expect constant harassment from me.
Questular has landed a new client. Woo hoo! It's a company with fancy properties all over Europe. As Creative Editor in charge of content, I was hoping this meant jet-setting around, exploring them all, but no such luck. Instead, I will spend the next few weeks parsing emails and pouring over Google street view. I like to think there's a certain glamour in that. (I also like to think there's glamour in teaching English so my definition is clearly self serving.) Rather, much work and little money lies in my immediate future, but hopefully, internet millionairedom lies somewhere beyond. (knock on ALL the wood!)
Will 2013 be the year we finally see some new 2 Skinnee J's music? Watch this space.
Finally, I took up dancing. As in, I signed up for dance classes. Man. I figured I'm a musician, I've been dancing for fun my whole life, I'm black for Christ's sake. This will be a piece of cake. Yeah. It's a big piece of terror cake with frustration icing. I spend the entire class staring at my feet and counting while self-consciously sweating on whichever poor woman has been partnered with me. Good times.
And that's middle age so far. Apparently adolescence is not quite over yet.

Rock Report November 27th 2012

Tuesday is the day Les Fat Jones normally practise. We head out to Bellvitges, an ugly neighbourhood of monolithic buildings on the way to the airport. There, we descend into the basement of one and create musical gems bash out arrangements of songs like smiths over a hot fire. Last night, we lugged our gear across town to do the same thing at Rocksound in Poble Nou. The difference was the eight to ten people who witnessed it.

Barcelona has great weather. It rains infrequently. The occasional time it does rain, it does so heavily and plans get cancelled. Last night was one of those times.

However, even if it had been a beautiful autumn night, I doubt the crowd would have been much bigger. We were opening for a band that not many people (nobody I know) has heard of: Mothlite. The tickets were expensive and there was zero promotion other than an event on Facebook. I felt bad for the band who were on tour form the UK.

Nevertheless, I had a good time as we tore through a 45 minute set. The sound was surprisingly good, and we played well. You can see a video here. Our guitar players our fickle tuners, leaving me to ramble between songs, a prospect even less thrilling (or interesting) in Spanish. 

Mothlite performed to a few more people, maybe as many as 15. That didn't stop the singer from adorning the stage with leaves and dressing up in a variety of costumes to play some experimental pop.

A Renaissance getup with mesh over the face

Hipster orfanato

The circle of life

Our next gig is in a couple of weeks in Badalona (awesome name). Hopefully, somebody will turn up.

Rock Report November 25th 2012

Poble Nou is a neighbourhood by the sea where this:

lies across the street from this:

Its mix of old and new, of families and businesses, of labourers and hipsters reminds me of Brooklyn. My teaching duties take me there every day of the week. This week, I also spent the weekend there, first seeing a concert on Saturday, then recording on Sunday with Les Fat Jones. 

The session was organised by Desert Pearl Union, the music collective we joined this fall. The goal was to record and videotape two songs that will be released on a compilation. It had been scheduled and cancelled before, so we were all quite enthusiastic to get it done. We therefore did the least rock and roll thing possible and arrived precisely on time, finding the place shuttered and abandoned. 

"Did I say five? I thought I'd told you six," was the reply when we called to find out what was going on, so we went to the bar around the corner to watch Formula 1 racing. I'm not much of  a sports fan in general and watching vehicle races come at the bottom of the list of ways to spend time, right after golf. (Rooting against the Jets is now at the top. So satisfying.) 

Mario and Victor of Desert Pearl did show up and we went to the studio to set up. The downside of being a keyboard and vocalist means I am the only musician in the band who is at the mercy of others for sound. When we play a concert or set up in a studio, the guitarists plug in and play, Poke can hit his drums at will, while I stand impotently by, waiting for the engineer to turn on the d.i. and mic. My random-noise-making potential is thus diminished. My random-picture-taking potential is however given room to flourish. 

We recorded a couple of new songs live, Peel-style. The idea is to have them out for Christmas. And I'll be back to Poble Nou tomorrow night for our gig. 

Paris is Rocking

November has been, and continues to be, a rocktacular month. I've been putting off writing about it with various excuses (too tired, too busy, not inspired...) but too much is going on to let it accumulate in my psychic outbox.
After opening for the Gaslight Anthem, I took off to Paris for a few days. I spent several years growing up there as a child and like to return occasionally. The Paris I frequent now is completely different from the one I roamed as a young teen. Then, I escaped from International school or Bar Mitzvah class to explore the Latin quarter and Les Halles, eyeing the punks in awe and coveting the Doctor Martens in the shop windows. Now, I head east where artists have settled in amongst the large Muslim population that dominates the 18th and 19th arrondissements.

The closest I got to the Eiffel Tower

I went there for a concert. As part of a multiple-night festival in an old theatre, Alabama Shakes and Michael Kiwanuka were playing a show together with some other bands. The first one I saw was called Wild Belle, and play the sort of light reggae that Les Fat Jones does in our rehearsal space when we're fucking around. We often joke about doing an all-reggae set some day, but after watching these guys play, I'm even more convinced it's something only to be done in the privacy of basements in distant suburbs.

Willy Moon

They were followed by Willy Moon, a natty bean-pole with slicked back fifties style hair backed by a female Hot Topic drum and guitar duo and a DJ. The played the weirdest mix of rock and roll with hip hop tinges imaginable, a kind of reverse aesthetic to typical rap-rock. It was funny, endearing and lasted twenty minutes, the exact amount of time before the schtick wore out its welcome.

Michael Kiwanuka

Up next came Michael Kiwanuka, a Londoner who does a spot on take of "What's Going On" era Marvin Gaye. The sight of a multi-culti group of Brit hipsters reverently playing 70's American soul would be obnoxious but for two things: he's a pretty good songwriter, with strong melodies and riffs, and they were clearly having tons of fun. Their joy and his affability disarmed my cynicism and I thoroughly enjoyed the set.

Alabama Shakes

Alabama Shakes have been getting hyped in the music press, playing Southern rock- soul that sounds and feels like the real deal, a collection of music nerds fronted by force of nature Brittany Howard. She prowled the stage, guitar in hand or casually slung over her back, belting out her songs like a rapturous preacher. The crowd went nuts. The band got their hit "Hold On" out of the way early and rocked the house like a revival tent making fervent believers out of the Parisians who hollered and cheered for more even after the lights went up.
Watching to two bands got me thinking about identity and music. I wondered how Kiwanuka felt watching Alabama Shakes effortlessly pull off music that, by an accident of birth, they can claim as their own, while he and his cohorts will always be seen to be donning a look and striking a pose. I wondered how Howard felt, a black singer in a band that usually has a white singer trying to sound black (Janis Joplin, Black Crows), playing in a city that historically welcomed black American artists shunned by their own country.
Mostly, I just danced and sang along.
I'll be seeing more concerts this week, as well as recording with Les Fat Jones and playing next Tuesday, so hopefully, I will be better about writing. If not, you can always read the throwaway lines I drunkenly put as my Facebook status. People seem to like those.

Rock Report November 9th 2012

This week Les Fat Jones have been coming apart at the seams. In what is becoming a tradition, (twice is a tradition, right?) I was sick on the day of a big show. What started as a sore throat on Monday night ended up with me spending yesterday in bed with a cocktail of painkillers and decongestants. Carlos' van, our trusty steed, gave up the ghost, becoming an expensive pile of useless metal. More tragically, (way to bury the lead, Green!) Victor's grandfather passed away on Wednesday afternoon. My condolences to him and his whole family.
Nevertheless we soldiered on and opened for the Gaslight Anthem last night at Apolo. (Sorry spellcheck. Only one L or it's a chicken.) Victor had to attend the funeral so was unable to play, but we decided to forge ahead with only one guitar. We played on our largest stage to our largest crowd to date, and it went well. People clapped! Not just at the end of songs, but along with a breakdown! We sold merch! I sold merch. Unless you have spent time in 2 Skinnee J's, you're probably like, so? Well, former bandmates will know my allergy to the t-shirt table and my preference for hiding out backstage after shows. I'm far more comfortable relating to hundreds of strangers from the safety of a microphone than one on one. Yet, after we were done, I manned the stand and hawked our wares. It was a record night: one t-shirt, two bags. (Close the deal, Gil!)
As for the headliners, I became a fan of the album American Slang when it was released two years ago. The Joe Strummer meets Bruce Springsteen aesthetic appealed to me, and the songs were good. I have one problem with the band, somewhat with that album, more with the most recent one and quite pronounced at the concert: they have two songs - a fast one and a mid-tempo one. Pretty much their entire oeuvre is a variation on these templates. When I first discovered them, I was willing to put in the time to find the differences that make each song its own, but less so on a subsequent album, and a two hour concert became a bit of an endurance test. Nevertheless, the passion and personality they played with carried the day, and the packed house enjoyed the hell out of them.
So far, it was the pinnacle of our career, and I wish it was a wave we could ride to new shores. However, I know that a lone opening gig doesn't change fates and sadly, we have no shows booked until January. We are trying to book something before the end of the year, so I will keep you updated. In the meantime, here's a video from the show. (I can't embed it cuz stupid Blogger can't find it.)

Rock Report - October 26th 2012

Joel claims to be a sucker for basic marketing. Any place that advertises "best whatever in wherever" (eg. lobster, Maine) gets his hard earned dollar. This, despite the invariable let-down when such heady claims are not only missed, but not even approached. The kebab place in Cerdanyola should now be added to this list of lying liars who lie. Their sign proudly proclaimed to be the king of fast food. Already, this is a diminished proposition. Everybody knows that for sheer hegemony and bloodshed, McDonalds is the undisputed monarch. And it's a shitty kingdom anyway, populated by disgruntled serfs and stomach aches. To lay claim to such damned territory displays a tragic lack on regal ambition.
Nevertheless, this pretender to the throne is where Les Fat Jones chose to eat before our show in Cerdanyola last night. Don't ever make that mistake.
Cerdanyola is a suburb of Barcelona, and is surprisingly suburban. Most suburbs around the city are older villages which were absorbed by the capital's expansion and they tend to be grids of older row houses stacked together behind walls that come up to the sidewalk. This one, however, was a collection of tree-lined streets with gardens and so many teenagers. Not that many of them actually came to the gig, but they roamed the streets like the pubescent living dead, smoking, driving and going to the king of fast food.
The show itself was fun. The sound was great and we had a record low number of fuck-ups. (The starring one was when I forgot the piano-only opening riff to Other Cities. Thanks, brain!)
The club was nice, and clearly progressive minded, as it seems they hired a hearing-impaired bartender who told me I sang like David Bowie. That's going on my resume.

(Photo by Alba Mora)

Free Fallin

Hell yeah!

Go to your room, David Blaine.

In other exciting news, Les Fat Jones will be opening for the Gaslight Anthem in Barcelona on November 8th.

Long Weekend!

There was an impressive storm in Barcelona last night. As I watched the lightning flash through my window, I remembered that David Blaine did that thing in New York this week. You know, with the electricity. He stood in a something something a million volts (watts?) something days. Google it. Does anybody even care about this guy? I was going to say anymore, but did anybody ever care? I mean, he was kind of cool when he wandered around the streets doing card tricks, but his daredevil shit? He sat somewhere once for a while, he stood somewhere once for a bit. Has the whole profession really devolved from the insane spectacle of Evel Knievel to the winner of Celebrity Survivor: Boringest Challenge? (Survivor jokes in 2012. #current #relevant #keepingupwiththekids)
It's a long weekend here. Tomorrow is national Spanish day. Living in a secessionist region dampens the festivities somewhat, as does the general state of the country. The Red Cross held an annual drive yesterday that in past years has gone to help Haiti, but this year is being channeled to the 2 million citizens here with no income. Being sat next to the third-world earthquake-ravaged orphans is not helping anybody's mood. But whatever, man. Day off! I'll be out of town, hoping to sneak in another beach day before winter (or the Spanish equivalent thereof) arrives.
Great news for Les Fat Jones. I can't tell you yet, but some awesomeness in the near future was confirmed today. Watch this space.

Rock Report - October 9th 2012

A second rock report in the same week?! Crazy times.
Last night, Les Fat Jones played at La [2], the best stage we've graced thus far.

Our name in lights!

Drawback to part time rocking: a 4pm load-in conflicts with jobs. Not mine, as my current self employment affords me some flexibility. Only half the band was able to make it, so we faked our way through sound check with an assist on bass from the guitarist of Esponja, one of the bands we were playing with. This led to a mercifully short sound check. The downside was an improvised stage sound when we started the set. Oh well.
Show notes: I'm still not a great singer. (understatement?) Some painfully out of tune screaming at the end of a new song led me to think am I really doing this in front of people?
A decent size stage meant I could move more, so I'm back to deluge-levels of sweating. (Too sexy?)
Pacing - Needs improvement.
Rocking - achieved.
Overall grade - B
Thanks to everybody who came, especially the row of screaming ladies in front. (They were all friends, but it made us look cool.)
We've got some cool news potentially getting confirmed this week. I'll let you know as soon as it is.

Rock Report - October 6th, 2012

Last week brought an old friend to Barcelona. Sid, the drummer from Me Mom & Morgentaler, the band I joined the first time I dropped out of university, was in town with his family. It was great to catch up. I hadn't seen him since a rather drunken New Year's Eve party several years ago. We went from terrace to bar, from beer to mojitos, and chatted about a range of things. One particularly interesting story was that of the sandpaper handjob his most recent band got from the music industry. Only the details differ in yet another "major label expresses interest in your group, throws money at you, wastes your time, kills your career" narrative that I and others I know have lived through. It's a sad reality that what is perceived to be the peak of your music trajectory is often just the last foothold next to a sharp cliff.
And yet, we persevere.
This weekend was Les Fat Jones' first out of town gig. And by out of town, I mean outside any town.

The venue

Next to the venue

The show was nominally in Torrello, a collection of houses about 80km north of Barcelona. Situated on the outskirts of town meant in one direction lay a church and some buildings, and in the other, trees. We played with 2 other bands: Twisted Nails, a heavy groove and riff band (think Queens of the Stone Age) and Zero Absolu, a solo guy with keyboards, guitars and pedals who built really intricate soundscapes and then screamed over them.
The people at the venue and the other musician were all friendly and helpful. Thank God, because right before our set, the bass amp crapped out and we needed to borrow one.

Not something you want to see five minutes before set time

During the third song, the PA died, leaving me with no amplification for my keyboard or vocals. After some desperate scrambling by the board, sound returned in a weakened state. Yet despite these setbacks, we played well and I had a good time. Driving to the middle of nowhere and playing for a couple dozen people still seems like a decent way to spend a Saturday evening. Especially when you have no career depending on it. Part time rocker is turning out to be as much fun as full time rocker, without the stress.
Tomorrow, we play in Barcelona. If you're in town, come on down.

Desert Pearl Union

Les Fat Jones have joined a collective. I initially thought that meant we were gonna sit around and smoke pot and have sex with naked hippies, but it turns out this is much better. More rock, less patchouli. 

We have joined forces with Desert Pearl Union, a collection of musicians and groups that have banded together for promotional purposes. The union acts as as an agent to secure shows, and as a publicist, sending out promo material to clubs and media outlets. 

We're psyched as we were starting to stagnate in our basement rehearsal space despite our best efforts. Granted, our best efforts were somewhat paltry because we are, after all, musicians. Getting the five of us to show up in the same place at the same time can take Operation Overlord levels of logistics. 

The decision has already reanimated the band. We have shows lining up over the fall, both in and out of town. More recording is scheduled. Hopefully, we will finish our aborted attempt at shooting a video. (It turns out shooting a video is hard. Like you need to know how the camera works and stuff. Sounds basic, I know, but so far we have had two separate shoots and have produced a fraction of the footage we intended to.) 

In short, you can expect a flurry of activity over the next couple of months. Check out the website. Like the Facebook page to keep abreast of what we, and a bunch of other artists from Barcelona, Spain and the UK are doing.

See you soon onstage!

Rock Report - July 29, 2012

Les Fat Jones have seemed dormant to the outside world (read: the 40 people who are aware of us) but we have been busy making moves. And by making moves, I mean making movies. We spent Sunday on the beach and streets of the city, as well as in our rehearsal space, shooting a video for the song Modernista. Even more than our previous efforts, this is a DIY job, with help from several willing and talented friends.
Having secured the raw footage, we now move to the stage of editing and adding special effects (yup) and plan on having a finished product by the end of August.

Some lessons from the shoot:
Most people are surprisingly unresponsive to somebody wearing weird costumes in the street.
Barceloneta is still gross.
Playing to a click track is hard.
Acting is hard.
Filming is hard.
Goofing off with your friends on a sunny Sunday rules.

Coming soon...

School of Rock

I have spent my adult life doing two things: avoiding responsibility and judging the shortcomings of others making music and teaching. Like peanuts and bubble gum, this very particular set of skills (skills I have acquired over a very long career) united today in a salty sweet mix of passable competence as I gave a songwriting class to a group of moderately interested teenagers.
My friend, writer Sion Dayson, has been here from Paris for the month of July leading a creative writing workshop for privileged American teens. Over the past weeks, she has had them studying fiction and poetry while leading them around a city she barely knows. Encouraged to bring in guest speakers, she asked if I would be interested in talking to them about the songwriting process, as several of them had expressed an interest in that. And so I found myself facing seven impassive fifteen-year-olds, armed only with a cd, a laptop and ever increasing misgivings.
My usual interaction with teenagers is as a tutor with one or occasionally two kids in their house, often their room. The dynamic is markedly different from a classroom in July, far from their friends and families, exhausted from a month of class and trips. Also, I teach English. There is a right answer, and a wrong answer, and I didn't make it up. Sometimes the reason for the answer is illogical or unknown, but it's there, verifiable. Explaining the creative process is another matter completely. Especially since a large part of my creative process takes place in traffic. I get around the city by bike, and often use these stretches to work on lyrics or melodies that have been bumping around in my head. Combine that with my explosive impatience with cars and pedestrians, and you get a man speeding through the streets with little regard for the rules of the road, alternately singing and swearing.
I decided that was as good a place as any to start, and brought in some songs from both 2 Skinnee J's and Les Fat Jones to listen to and explain a little about the work that went into them. I gave some biographical information, discussed the genesis of particular ideas, the elaboration that goes into developing lyrics and the communal editing and arranging process that I've experienced in bands. And I played them some music.
"Is today Thursday?" asked one girl as a song finished, its dying notes still ringing in the air.
I think they liked me.

NDGU!!!

  

Never don't give up! You know who gets it? Linkin Park gets it. (Is this one of their tattoos? I bet it is!) Nu Metal's Nsync just released a new album. In 2012. And have a song in a vampire movie. Also in 2012. CULTURAL RELEVANCE. Their teenage fans (did they have any other kind?) could almost have teenagers of their own now. Some of them probably do. Named Linkin, I'm sure.

I am taking this inspirational slogan to heart and reuniting once again with my 90's rap-rock band apologizing for my laziness in blogging this past week. I'm sorry. Something something lack of inspiration excuse. But no more. ABNDGU!  (Always be never don't giving up. Duh!)

I did some cool stuff. I saw St Vincent in concert on Wednesday. Live, Annie Clark is a guitar goddess who stalks the stage with zombie swagger. She doesn't just crowd surf. She crowd WALKS.

She really doubled down on the eccentric and the rock. It's a look that suits her well. No "Marry Me" or "Paris is Burning After All." The only song she played off her first album was the weird one. I was standing next to her biggest fan. He probably tells you shortly after meeting you how he's St Vincent's biggest fan. He was wearing a backpack, and inside he certainly had a revised and updated list of questions to ask her because how often is she in the same city and what if he had a chance to speak to her, it would be foolish not to have his revised and updated list of questions on hand. He sang and interpretive danced along to every number. But far from being obnoxious, his unabashed joy was charming. On the other side, I had two knuckleheads who were aggressively frustrated that the crowd was not reacting in a way they deemed proper. I understand the disappointment that indie rock crowds tend to just stand there at shows, but "Year of the Tiger" really isn't a mosh song guys.

Annie Clark is a talented musician with a great voice, a unique perspective and a kick ass live show, so it was a bit disappointing to see her met with cries of guapa from some fans. (Guess which ones.) I realize cultural relativity all, but I see your cultural relativity and raise you one gender sensitivity. That being said, if you ever want to yell gorgeous at me, feel free. I'm happy just being a pretty face.

Then, last weekend, I saw a nineties band I was glad to see live.

Portishead! They played for two nights at Barcelona's own Spain-centric Epcot Center called Poble Espanyol. A strange relic of a tourist attraction, it's main square of fake olde tyme buildings did provide the show with a certain ambiance.

The opening bands were mostly a bust. MF Doom did his best late eighties style hip hop show. Unfortunately, hip hop acts in the late eighties sang along to their album for twenty minutes then walked off stage in a huff. Keep it real, Villain. The band Thought Forms played music I can only describe as the soundtrack to being buried alive. There is plenty of music I hate, but they were a band I didn't understand. Watching them really rock out to atonal drones and pedal effects in monotonous ten minutes intervals was weird, then funny, then annoying.

From their album of the Roseland show, I suspected Portishead would be good in concert and they did not disappoint. Beth Gibbon's voice is more powerful on stage then I would have guessed, and her awkward grateful demeanor was an endearing contrast to the downer-fest that is their music.

Meanwhile at the beach...

Sant Joan! Where everybody gets drunk, throws firecrackers at each other and hangs out on the beach till they are cleared out by bulldozers.

In more NEVER DON"T GIVE UP news, Les Fat Jones' first out of town concert next Saturday has been cancelled. When your band is a hobby, sometimes people's lives and commitments (non professional musicians have these things) get in the way. I guess my life and commitment to the beach will have to carry me through these trying times.

NDGU 4 EVER!!!

Ultimate Rock Report - May 2012

How much rock and roll is too much rock and roll? One of life's great questions which will not be answered here, because all I can say for sure is not this much. Nope, this much rock and roll is just fine. The month of May was so rocktacular that someone should write a song about it.
First up, Les Fat Jones.

In the summer of 2004, brother Eli and I spent countless nights (probably nine or ten, which I am apparently unable to count to) shaking our tail-feathers to indie hits at Razzmatazz, a giant factory turned club in Barcelona. It was the era of Bloc Party and the Rapture, and dancing til dawn was always in the cards. Other than a few concerts recently, I hadn't been to the place in years, but the memory of the summer of clubbing kept the Razz flame burning, albeit softly, in my heart. It was therefore something of a personal victory that Les Fat Jones got to play a show there on Saturday 5th May. We had a new banner! Victor jumped! People came and were rocked. Our album is still available for free download, so grab a copy and learn the words for our next show. June holds our first out of town gig, so yay.

Then...
On Tuesday 8th May I embarked on the 2 Skinnee J's Pre-Apocolypse Now and Forever Tour. (We are absolutely nothing at all if not hyperbolic.)

The days leading up to my departure were hectic. Working in education (I use both the words "working" and "education" lightly) gives me lots of vacation time. However, it's at specific points during the year, and one month before the end of term is not one of those points. Nevertheless, my boss had reluctantly acquiesced to my pleas for time off and I wanted to leave everything in order during my absence. A mere ten minutes before I was due to leave, a teacher called to quit, effective immediately. (The level of professionalism in the foreign language teaching world matches that of the New York Jets, and the results are often the same too.) I scrambled to find a bunch of contacts so that my boss could deal with it and hopped in a taxi. I had a plane to catch. (See above re: professionalism)   
Two flights, a German layover and a Sherlock Holmes movie later (Robert Downy Jr. should have an award named after him for most charismatic actor in a shitty movie. see also: Iron Man 2), I touched down in Miami the next day just as the rest of 2SJ were arriving from New York.
Our last reunion was in 2010 and, as fun as it was, I pretty much figured it would be the final one. The format, semi-acoustic with a Q&A session, was one step removed from dinner theater, and it appeared we had effectively ridden our horses off into the sunset.
It is no doubt a sign of our advancing years that it took a cruise to pull us out of retirement. (Also, retirement from music means getting a job...) 311 invited us to play their second Caribbean boat bash, and in a move that is probably surprising to nobody, we accepted. ("Music? Sea and sun? Buffet? Uh, no thanks. I'm too tied to my nine-to-five." - no musician ever.)
Since playing together involved rehearsing for the first time in a couple of years, flying me in from Europe, and getting everybody to Florida and back, it was decided that we would add some dates up the east coast.  And thus, a tour was born: 4 days on a cruise with 3 shows, and six more from NC to NYC.
On the day of our arrival in Miami, we rehearsed as a full unit for the first and only time. Fortunately, I have muscle memory for those songs and after a couple of takes, it was like riding a slightly wobbly bike.

On the 10th, along with a couple thousand of 311's most devoted fans, we boarded the ship and set sail (or rather set giant fucking smoke stack) for the Bahamas. I'd never been on a cruise before. It's like a giant floating resort, half hotel, half mall, that does it's best never to remind you that you are at sea.
As we pulled away from the mainland, people gathered on the upper deck for the first 311 concert. Unfortunately, so did angry clouds that began chucking lightning down as the band took the stage and the show was topped after 30 minutes because:

 The next morning we got to the island, which was nothing more than a strip of beach and a restaurant. The ship sat offshore, launching little ferries of passengers to the beach. It was all very sci-fi, if science fiction involved reggae, weed and a lot of tattoos.

The Imperial Starship floated in orbit near the tiny sand planet...

Over the next three days, between grazing like sheep at the various all-you-can-eat restaurants (I typically had four meals: breakfast, lunch, pastrami and dinner) we played three shows. The outfits, designed and made by Joy Lewis,  were awesome and not as hot as they look. They did shrink over the course of the tour, which is sad. I had been planning on keeping the black one and starting my career as a superhero, but Uncomfortable Sausage Man doesn't seem particularly imposing.

Shut up, crime!

Video Keytard B.A. prepared video projections for the whole set which were so cool, they would have been distracting if they were not behind me. 
The whole experience on the boat was an opportunity to reconnect not only with each other, but also with some bands we had played with in the past. This culminated in a collective tribute to MCA during our final show. Although the Beastie Boys didn't invent rap, they certainly introduced it to a lot of white people, and it's probably a safe bet that this cruise wouldn't have existed without him, so he really deserved much more than our butchering of a classic.

We arrived back in Miami on Monday morning, and got on a plane to fly to Raleigh NC. The flight was uneventful except for the part where we were STRUCK BY LIGHTNING. At one point, thousands of feet up in the air, there was a flash, a loud bang, and the plane banked to the left and started descending rapidly, before recovering. I don't know how long the whole episode lasted, but my thought process was: underwear bomber? malfunction? lightning? everything seems to be ok. i guess we'll live. As we exited the plane, we overheard the crew talking, confirming that we were STRUCK BY LIGHTNING, something that had never happened to them before.
The shows up the coast were all great. The rooms were packed, the crowds were psyched and our spirits never lagged.
The opening bands were awesome. The first, Sound of Urchin, an old school new york band, augmented their lineup with a bunch of teenage guitarists from The House of Rock, whose energy and exuberance won the crowd over every night.
The second was Royal Teeth from New Orleans, a melodic band where everybody gets a drum. They played every show with talent and enthusiasm. I don't doubt that big things lie in their future. Plus the singer looks like Joel!

The backstage at the Norva Theater remains nicer than your house. (I know I've never seen your house, but does it have a piano, leather furniture, a pool table, ping pong and a jacuzzi? It does? I'll be right over.) The 9:30 club never disappoints. We saw our old friends the Almighty Senators in Baltimore. All great things. The super talented Ashly Covington, whose hands have probably sold you something at some point, took tons of pictures which you can see here.
The only sad moment was pulling into New York knowing I had only 24 hours before getting on a plane back to Barcelona. Which I did. And took a cab straight back to work. Still, endorphins trump jet-lag, and I'm going to be high off this for a while.

Rock Report - Sunday April 29th - Now With Pictures!

I, like many others, am guilty of walking around with my face stuck in my iphone. The joke goes that what's on your phone is invariably more interesting than what or whoever is around you, but if your real life can't compete with Cut the Rope, you probably need to move / get new friends / stop or start doing drugs. In fact, our smartphones don't compensate for a lack in the world, they compensate for a lack in ourselves. With our handy mini-computers we never need be lost, late or wrong again. Instagram has turned us all into photographers, Garage Band into producers and Angry Birds into keen strategists with in depth architectural knowledge. However, until they make an app that allows me to take pictures of myself while jumping up and down and playing the keyboard, I'll have to rely on the talents of others. Here are some pictures from yesterday's Forestival gig, taken by Alba Mora. If you need the soundtrack to accompany them, you can get it here.