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Things To Do In Philly, 8/31 Edition

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Here is my totally biased and personally endorsed calendar of things to check out this week in Philly.

Let me know if you’re headed out to one, and maybe I’ll come too! And, don’t forget about my two upcoming shows:

Saturday 9/11 @ Collingswood 2nd Saturday, 6pm-9pm, Free!

Thursday 9/16 @ Tin Angel w/Dante Bucci, 8pm, $10

Cris Valkyria, as shot by me at the Northstar Bar, earlier this summer.

Wednesday 9/1
What: Amazing local indie rock!
Who: Post Post
Where: 7:00pm, Rittenhouse Square Park, Free!
Why: Filmstar split a bill with Post Post earlier this summer, and Post Post blew me away. Like a cross between Built to Spill & Thao w/the Get Down Stay Down. They will NOT be playing free shows in Philly for long, so get on it now!

Thursday 9/2
What: 90s-esque girl rock!
Who: Cris Valkyria & The Opponents
Where: 8:30pm, The Tin Angel, $8
Why: I was dumbstruck when I first heard the typically acoustic Cris with this fantastic backing band. Shades of Heather Nova, Bjork, Alanis, and Elvish Costello, among others.

Friday 9/3 (I’ll Be There!)
What: Gallery show opening & entrancing music
Who: Jennifer Vessells & Dante Bucci
Where: 5:30pm, Muse Gallery, 52 North 2nd Street, Free!
Why: Jennifer is an amazing visual artist whose paintings I completely lose myself in; Dante is a hypnotic hang drum player who I’m splitting a show with later this month.

Britt Miller's "Pieces of My Heart"

Friday 9/3 (I’ll Be There!)
What: Gallery show, drinks, & mingling!
Who: Britt Miller, my arty partner in FAME
Where: 5-9pm, Drink Philly Office & Gallery, 239 Chestnut St., 2Flr. B
Why: Britt and I keep each other on the path to fame, and this is one of the many gallery shows that are on her road this year. Plus, free food and drinks. Be there!

Friday 9/3
What: Chunky folk riffs!
Who: Andra Taylor supports Charlie Phillips
Where: 7:30pm, Burlap and Bean, Newton Square, PA
Why: Andra is one of my favorite people to split a bill with – if you share my love of Ani DiFranco and Patty Griffin you’ll adore her.

Friday 9/3 – Monday 9/6
What: World premiere play!
Who: Gina & Ocelot on a Leash Theater Company
Where: 3/4 @ 8pm & 5/6 @2pm, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut Street, $10
Why: My musical other half Gina Martinelli costars in Prudence, a play by one of my former directors Mary Ellen Cosaboon. I got a sneak preview of this last fall, and it’s a legitimately funny – not some freaky unintelligible Fringe-fest-thing.

Saturday, 9/4
What: Local CD release!
Who: Boy Wonder
When: 7:00pm, World Cafe Live, $10
Why: Boy Wonder is a crazy-amazing songwriter – every one of his tunes is immediately catchy with some wicked guitar interludes. Also, one of the nicest dudes I have met in the Philly music scene.

Saturday, 9/4
What: Chill acoustic tunes!
Who: Bill McConney
When: 9pm, Myra’s Place, 615 Macdade Blvd, Collingdale, PA
Why: Bill’s folk riffs and legato baritone voice are sometimes a dead ringer for Nick Drake, but the songs are all his own.

Also filed in Philly, philly music | | Comments (0)

Monday Morning Remainders

Monday, August 30, 2010

I performed with Filmstar for the first time on Saturday, but you have to wait a day or two to hear about the results and if I’m still feeling conflicted about playing with the band.

First, here are your Monday Morning Remainders – eight blogs I’ve enjoyed or tweets I’ve flagged.

1. Philly (and the internet at large) got up in arms last week about a so-called “Philly Blogger Tax,” which was really just the city’s business privilege license being applied to Bloggers. My virtual friend JoeBeta sussed out a sensible explanation and critique of the policy, from Technically Philly co-founder Sean Blanda.

It’s certainly a horrible waste of resources to pursue blogs with revenue in the hundreds when some companies and individuals owe the city millions in back taxes, forcing the city to do things like offer a tax amnesty to the dead beats.

2. Rocking local blog Phrequency had a flash concert for TJ Kong on the freaking Broad Street Subway. I love TJ Kong and my old promo shots were from the Walnut Street station, so in my opinion this is approximately the best thing ever.

Do not hold your breath waiting for me to do one on the El, though.

3. A Vancouver realtor’s Facebok page gained over 4,000 fans in 12 days. Crazy pyramid scheme for iPads? Nope – good old fashioned content that people give a shit about. (via @morganb.)

4. I’ll just repeat what Torrez said:

Imagesoak is a fantastic application for finding things to read and look at based on the interesting photos and images that accompany them. Nevermind what I just said, just go there.

5. Matthew Leone, bass player for the Chicago based band Madina Lake, sustained life-threatening injuries while trying to defend a stranger from brutal domestic abuse. Sweet Relief, a fund that supports musicians in times of illness, is raising funds to pay for his treatment and rehabilitation. Matthew’s band member and brother has been blogging through the ordeal.

6. Leslie Hunt was one of my favorite recent American Idol Semi-Finalists – she had a real identity and real taste in music, but was quickly kicked to the curb for her quirk. Mpomy.com blogs a video from her new project, District 97

7. Amanda Palmer’s life is so serendipitous. On break from her hectic schedule, she sees a random trio of teens whose photo she feels compelled to take. Almost after she’s gone, one realizes who she is, and catches her to tell her that he’s a big fan. One thing leads to another, and suddenly he’s playing a concert to thousands of internet viewers from her apartment.

8. Amanda’s fiancé is super-famous comic, fiction, and film writer Neil Gaiman. Neil has been in a legal struggle with Todd McFarlane since 2002 regarding unpayed royalties on creator-owned characters he developed for McFarlane’s Spawn. Neil blogs part of the judge’s new decision, which contains delicious text like:

Much as defendant tries to distinguish the two knight Hellspawn, he never explains why, of all the universe of possible Hellspawn incarnations, he introduced two knights from the same century. Not only does this break the Hellspawn “rule” that Malebolgia never returns a Hellspawns to Earth more than once every 400 years (or possibly every 100 years, as suggested in Spawn, No. 9, exh. #1, at 4)…

I hope your Monday is going well. More news (and video) on my weekend as a Filmstar coming up!

Also filed in Philly, linkylove, weblinks | | Comments (0)

What I Tweeted, 2010-08-29 Edition

Sunday, August 29, 2010

I think playing w/ @miekapauley in our living room ranks up there w/ throwing our own music festival & my 1st gig at the Tin Angel. Amazing! #
I can't wait to share audio and video with you – Mieka's set is fantastic, and my new cover of Ray of Light came out kinda rockin' ;) #
@THEkrismohfanz Can't wait to send you the audio of Ray of Light! :) in reply to THEkrismohfanz #
@amanda_nan Wow, it sounds like your night was totally epic. As was ours :) – must swap stories ASAP. in reply to amanda_nan #
If any of you night owls want to hear me wailing on Madonna's "Ray of Light" live & acoustic, well, here you go: http://bit.ly/9IClBG #
Good morning Twitter! I was out of the loop (and work) yesterday, so I feel like i have to intake double the information today. Ready? Go. #
I have a pair of Phillies tickets for tomorrow night to give away via my first ever Twitter contest. Now to decide how one will enter… #
Win 8/25 Phillies tix to celebrate CrushingKrisis.com's 10th b-day; tweet a link to CK or my cover of Ray of Light @ http://bit.ly/ck10rol #
I'll randomly select one tweeter of my blog or my cover to hand a pair of Sec. 416 tickets to. I'll meet you anywhere in CCity tomorrow <6pm #
@citizengulfphl Can we pay at the door tomorrow, or is the intent to do it all through the website? in reply to citizengulfphl #
@axestatic Check out the live debut of my cover of “Ray of Light” on baritone guitar @ http://bit.ly/ck10rol #
@axestatic Wouldn't mind at all! Bandcamp has nifty little embed players for blogs. Ramping up for my big Madge covers project this fall :) in reply to axestatic #
Surely one of the reasons they keep me around is my spot-on Gollum impressions in staff meetings. #
Win a pair of 8/25 Phillies tix! Tweet my cover of Ray of Light @ http://bit.ly/ck10rol -I'll hand-deliver your tix anywhere in CC! (Pls RT) #
Madonna guitar blog @Axestatic just posted my acoustic cover of "Ray of Light!" – http://bit.ly/9Y02nA #
@axestatic My project for the fall is to start a directory on my blog of every Madonna album and begin arranging/covering each song ;) in reply to axestatic #
@brimil I know you already follow @Natasha, but this is a MUST-READ for FAME2010 purposes: RT Artist Guide: The Hustle http://bit.ly/cW1gVg #
BIG NEWS: We're confirmed to play the Tin Angel on 9/16 w/our good friend @DanteBucci! So psyched for this show; tix @ http://bit.ly/ac1009 #
Win a pair of 8/25 Phillies tix! Tweet my cover of Ray of Light @ http://bit.ly/ck10rol -I'll deliver your tix anywhere in CC! #
@iladelphia I'm excited especially because 3yrs ago when we started we played a 3-song showcase set there the same week. Now, co-billed! in reply to iladelphia #
Not too late to win Phillies tix for tomorrow! Tweet my cover of Ray of Light @ http://bit.ly/ck10rol -I'll deliver your tix anywhere in CC! #
There's a reason I stopped doing freelance. It's called: I'm the account guy all day at work – by night I'd prefer to be the client. #
On the other hand, I'm really smart, and I enjoyed being paid for that. #
@sifelaver At midnight I have to make a random selection from the people who tweeted the link. in reply to sifelaver #
@sifelaver Dude, I provided a bit.ly right to the song, whether or not you tweeted like a schoolgirl was entirely up to you ;) in reply to sifelaver #
@sifelaver That's why I supplied the bit.ly link. Their share tool is annoying. It doesn't even provide short links. in reply to sifelaver #
3hrs into freelance I ask a question & learn the client wants me to do something I don't remotely know how to do. Well, better than 30hrs in #
@RoxieKat That is blasphemy. You have to eat them as quickly as possible. If it took 2 days clearly you weren't having them for breakfast. in reply to RoxieKat #
@brimil Can you do anything w/eco friendly and/or recycled/repurposed materials? Maybe find some massive piece of scrap to paint? in reply to brimil #
@brimil Yeah, but cardboard is easy. Do they have old fixtures they're removing? Any kind of remodeling? Maybe all natural paints? in reply to brimil #
@brimil Um, I can think of a chandelier that's mostly recycled crap… in reply to brimil #
@Cecilyk Dude, when I was unlogged in to Twitter this morning you were on the "people you should follow" block on the login screen! #
Devouring salt & pepper @popchips from the sample box they sent to fuel our team for a day. Thanks for keeping us creative folks popping :) #
Congrats to my old-school (literally) friend @remysbaby, the randomly-picked winner of Phillies tix, & thanks all for RTing my Ray of Light! #
Sometimes animal humor is what I need at 2pm. RT @phillydesign I guess they just do look that way… http://hungoverowls.tumblr.com #
@johhnny5 @amanda_nan You can understand why I love her so much, yes? /cc: @Not_Pele #
@mayaREguru That was an awesome blog post. I need to share you with our own wonderful Realtor. in reply to mayaREguru #
Writing these anniversary posts always stresses me out, but I always enjoy them in retrospect. #
I seem to be trying to shatter that million-word mark on my blog w/this post alone. It bears mentioning that I am 15k words away from 1mill. #
Last year was over 1700 words… can it possibly run that long again? #
It is, finally and unbelievably, the tenth anniversary of my blog, CrushingKrisis.com! #
@HallmanComposer Thanks for tweeting my Ray of Light cover! What are you up to lately? We still need to meet, and maybe collaborate ;) #
Wait until you see the 20+ photos of me in my 10th Anniversary post. It's like an annotated history of my amazing hair. #
Alright, here it is – 10 years of hair cuts and the complete abridged last year of my life, all in one post: http://bit.ly/c4XmqM #
How is it that I didn't realize my blog shares a birthday w/my favorite frontwoman and all-around idol, Shirley Manson of @garbageofficial? #
What the hell – Facebook notes don't accept standard HTML anymore? Wow, they really have turned into MySpace. #
Does anyone know of a WordPress word cloud plugin? I can only find tag cloud ones, at the moment. I want a cloud of actual words in posts. #
PS: Also seeking a plugin/widget that will display "posts from X years ago" automatically. #
Check out this amazing 10-year statistic: I have posted *107* original songs to my blog in 10 years. That's 10 albums' worth of songs! #
@Cecilyk @THEkrismohfanz @ChrissMari @PhillyMarketing Thanks for spreading the anniversary joy! ;) It's been a surreal day thinking about it in reply to Cecilyk #
@wockerjabby You will not regret a binding machine. I feel like half of your supply stress always comes from how to collect papers. in reply to wockerjabby #
A brisk day of work, followed by a @filmstarband rehearsal, packing, and heading to a gig in NY tomorrow morning. Ah, the life. #
@seesawshuffle Oh, I hear you there. I sometimes feel ostracized as a musician because I do not want to jam into the wee hours ;) in reply to seesawshuffle #
@amanda_nan I really cannot say that word with any kind of credibility. in reply to amanda_nan #
@amanda_nan re: Time Management, grab "Getting Things Done" from the library and read the first few chapters. in reply to amanda_nan #
@melissa_shae I think we should do this RT @charitywater Still on a hunt for #september birthdays. is that you? http://borninseptember.org #
I just changed my Twitter bio for the first time in over a year – subtle changes, but I'm a little different now. Still a narcissist, though #
@Remysbaby hahaha, I think that might have to be one of my new blog taglines. in reply to Remysbaby #
I think this could be my new catchphrase, on my more confident days: RT @Remysbaby @krisis Narcissist? Or just that good? #
@zaneology I'm hoping to! Thanks for the well wishes. What does your day hold in store? in reply to zaneology #
@seesawshuffle Me w/caffeine isn't pretty. In my barista days if I drank espresso I'd get too buzzed to be able to operate the touch screen. in reply to seesawshuffle #
@PhillyAdKids You're followed by folks whose taste I trust, plus you're in Philly doing next-gen advertising! Look forward to your tweets ;) #
@zaneology Eek! Sounds distracting. I tried video editing earlier this yr, but need a higher end cam than Flip for audio-syncing purposes.. in reply to zaneology #
Is it weird that I was compelled to interrupt a man having his lunch to say his Wanamaker's bag made my day? #
Need to get in the zone for a big meeting – blasting @mozellamusic on headphones while I get centered. #
@fadophilly May be guilty as charged… but, the Wanamaker's logo! How often do you see that, anymore? in reply to fadophilly #
@mozellamusic Next time you're on the East Coast I have to find a way to get you into Philly! Just did house show for another artist we love in reply to mozellamusic #
@drawonthewalls Ahh, I failed you! Some perennial favs you might not know are Mozella, Mieka Pauley, & Dresden Dolls -all uniquely charming in reply to drawonthewalls #
Working on our a plan to promote a company's external SM presence to an internal audience. Anyone out there been through this recently? #
@drawonthewalls Well, the other two aren't like that at all :) in reply to drawonthewalls #
@drawonthewalls Did you pick up @amandapalmer's RadioHead covers EP on bandcamp? in reply to drawonthewalls #
@ajohnsru Not at all! I still love the parts on my voice exercise tape when my instructor told me I was sounding great ;) in reply to ajohnsru #
@triciallen haven't talked to you much lately – what's up in your world? in reply to triciallen #
@schmidtultra LIKE. Two might have been my lifetime quota, but I'm happy to live (and leap) vicariously through you ;) in reply to schmidtultra #
@TeresaBasich Now that I'm a customer I've got to get on a webinar or call that you're on! I would die! in reply to TeresaBasich #
Pretty heavy workout @filmstarband rehearsal. Flubbed a few pre-chorus changes, but otherwise ready to rock our ny state gig tomorrow. #
Heath and Golden Oreo Blizzard. The best thing on Earth this week. (@ Dairy Queen) http://4sq.com/cqWFJQ #
Up and puttering around the house, getting read for our road trip to West Paltz, NY for my first gig with @filmstarband #
@marykateruf catching up on some september issues on the drive; need one w good men's fashion; vf is all lame dark suits in reply to marykateruf #
Seem to have developed a white-hot-poker-through-the-lungs sort of muscle pain in my lower back. Pain scale of 6-7 when trying to inhale. #
Oh, Cricket. I will 1 day believe your advertising claims when I can connect to the internet for a single second anywhere in the state of NY #
Back pain has settled into a comfortable 4 on the pain scale; I think it's from the standing up straight while playing a heavier instrument. #
(As opposed to typically leaned slightly forward over a relatively light acoustic guitar.) #
@johhnny5 @anniemal If there wasn't something to attribute it to i'd be much more worried, but it is so very clearly related to bass playing in reply to johhnny5 #
@THEkrismohfanz I could SERIOUSLY use a visit to a chiro. I used to go regularly, but haven't in yrs. Have to check to see how it's covered. in reply to THEkrismohfanz #
In other news, 1st gig w/ @filmstarband was hot & mega-fun, but I'm clearly not a bassist (even though I have a good time impersonating one) #
@mymelisma thanks! It was a pretty low key gig, and a lot of fun. How about you? Did you debut the songs you were learning w/ your husband? in reply to mymelisma #
@SarahRobinson the heath chips they have there are serious business – massive hunks, not the tiny ones you get for baking in reply to SarahRobinson #
@zaneology no, I have to look into them! I love the ease of flip for rehearsal recording, but the video wasn't ideal for editing purposes. in reply to zaneology #
At the point we're on our 3rd trip to Home Depot to pick up free blue paint swatches, doesn't it make sense to just take EVERY blue swatch? #
(Apparently not, if you're my wife. Luckily, I am here too.) #

Also filed in Tweet Digest | | Comments (0)

10 years, by the numbers

Thursday, August 26, 2010

As of today, the 10th anniversary of Crushing Krisis, I’ve blogged…

3,652 days
3,724 posts and 28 pages
988,154 total words
263 average words per post
271 average words per day

641 posts with the world “guitar”
261 posts with the word “awesome”
181 posts mentioning Madonna
121 posts linking to rabi

3 months with posts every single day

107 unique original songs posted (holy shit, that’s a lot … 10 albums worth!)

And, in those ten years of my life…

262 original songs written
105 of 120 months in relationships
17 states visited or traveled-through
11 guitars owned
11 different job titles

One pair of favorite boots, purchased circa 1997. Resoled twice.

10 non-profit fundraiser concerts
9 roommates
7 primary residences
7 plays produced
4 twenty-four hour fundraisers
4 appearances at the Tin Angel
3 iPods
2 skydives
1 favorite pair of boots

Also filed in bloggish, thoughts | | Comments (0)

10 posts from Year 10 for my 10th anniversary

Thursday, August 26, 2010

In a few short hours it will be the tenth anniversary of my first post on Crushing Krisis.

As you might expect, I have a lot to say about that. Before I do, I wanted to share ten of my favorite posts from this past year. (Actually, it’s 13 posts, but the pairs are pairs for a reason – not out of indecisiveness).
Continue reading ›

Also filed in Year 10, arcati crisis, blamedrewscancer, demos, elise, under my skin | | Comments (1)

What I Tweeted, 2010-08-22 Edition

Sunday, August 22, 2010

My tweets of the last week:

Also filed in Tweet Digest | | Comments (0)

10 days, 3 bands, 1 brain

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

It is 10 days until Crushing Krisis’s 10th birthday and I am having an editorial calendar failure. And a brain failure.

Really it’s kind of an overarching not being able to do anything except nap and read comic books failure, which as failures go is not such a bad one. It’s way better than the “so overstressed I can feel the ulcers growing” brand of failure I was experiencing two weeks ago.

Actually, I think the napping and the comic books had a lot to do with escaping that particular pit of despair. Napping, comic books, little purple pills, and not drinking a gallon of lemonade every single day.

Meanwhile, in news related to the brain failure, I have discovered that being in three separate musical acts each with their own set of unique arrangements is the functional limit of my brain capacity. The wherewithal to recall all of those songs seems to have jettisoned my ability to return phone calls or schedule home repairs.

I am now off book on seventeen bass arrangements for Filmstar. As long as someone yells out what key we’re in at the start of the song I am fine, except for the one song that only makes sense if I pretend we are playing a David Bowie song. Like, if we begin and I’m like, “Oh, it’s a Filmstar song,” then I am a hot mess and play about two correct notes. But, if I instead say, “This is the secret, unreleased B-Side to ‘Suffragette City,’” then I’m fine.

Meanwhile, as Arcati Crisis Gina and I are working on two new songs, which – per our modus operandi – are completely different in every possible way from anything we’ve done before. One is an acoustic dance song from me equally influenced by Gaga and Heart, which I just previewed on our Facebook page.

(The other is a Gina tune which could be referred to as “Message In a Bottle from an American Girl in Russia,” but is actually called the much more succinct “American Mikaela.” It’s chorus hook is so destructively catchy that I have successfully lobbied to sing it three times as much as Gina originally planned.)

There’s also the musical artist that is me, who I can sometimes forget about in all of the commotion between the other two and commuting to my actual, fully-paid, highly-beloved full time occupation. He’s rehearsing to support Mieka Pauley this weekend at our house concert shindig, where he is rumored to debut a brand new Madonna cover (and, when you rumor something to yourself, it’s pretty sad if it doesn’t come true, so I need to get on that).

Meanwhile, ten years minus ten days ago I was sitting in a dorm room with a broken collar bone, registered for a year of music courses totally outside of my major and wondering if I would have anywhere to live in a month.

Ten years. Wow. What were you doing ten years ago today?

Also filed in Filmstar, arcati crisis, bloggish, comics, rehearsal, thoughts | | Comments (4)

What I Tweeted, 2010-08-16 Edition

Sunday, August 15, 2010

My tweets of the last week:

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But I Regress, pt. 2

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Where were we? Oh, I was telling you about how with the responsibility of owning a home I have suddenly regressed to being a teenager.

Last time I detailed my overwhelming love for comic books, and how it was vanquished by the great expanse of the internet.

To this day I marvel at how mercenary I was about my decision. When it came down to $40 a month on comics or on internet access I phoned up the comic store and canceled my orders without a second thought.

How could I?

Comics were a world I could dive into and experience alone, but the internet was a world I could lose myself in along with millions of other people.

To put it in today’s terms, comics weren’t social.

I wanted them to be. I’d skulk at the comic shop … beg my mother to let me find a pen pal at the back of The Maxx. I would read the letters page in X-Men and imagine being able to talk all day with people as obsessed with the characters as I was.

The internet had all of that, available 24/7. Within days I was on a Dungeons & Dragons listserve and in a Final Fantasy fanfic club. After years of being a pretty insular only child, I found out I had things in common with people. Lots of things!

And, while building my first website became a top priority, so did Warcraft II.

I have never been much of a PC gamer, so was completely unfamiliar with the concept of real-time strategy war games. When my friend Lucas made me download the WCII demo over my 14.4k modem I was floored – it was like Risk crossed with Dungeons & Dragons, but with none of the plastic pieces or dice rolls.

(I was the kind of kid that, when bored, would set up elaborate six-person games of Risk between my GI Joes and play each side against each other for hours. Actually, I still do that a few times a year with my LOTR Risk, just sans the GI Joes.)

(My wife finds this fascinating)

All it took was one modem game of Warcraft II on the single demo map and I was hooked. I had an army of orcs to do my bidding, and friends to trade taunts with all night. And sea turtles!

I had no interest in quick, decisive battles. When we both bought the full game I’d make maps packed with endless gold mines so we could entrench and battle for hours on end.

Much as my comic obsession stayed mostly contained to X-Men, my RTS urge was isolated to Blizzard games. Even after buying my first guitar put the whammy on many of my other adolescent hobbies (say goodbye, fanfic!), I remained a devoted late-night WCII addict.

The addiction was made worse senior year when one of my friends slipped me their extra copy of Starcraft. It was Warcraft . . . in space!

I think that – and how it relates to my current predicament – is a story for next time.

The impetus for this whole tale is my recently-launched Guide to Collecting X-Men in TPBs, which is meant to aid former adolescent addicts such as myself in catching up on what they’ve missed.

Also filed in comics, games, high school | | Comments (0)

STICKY: Upcoming Shows & Events

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Hear the music behind the blog – download free albums from me, my duo Arcati Crisis, and my wife’s band Filmstar (I’m currently filling in on bass). Then, see me play live!

Fri. 9/3 – Mon. 9/6 @ Rotunda in Philly: Prudence, a play
See Gina of Arcati Crisis in a Fringe Fest play (i.e., no Peter and not a concert).

Sat. 9/11 @ 6pm in Collingswood: Arcati Crisis, 2nd Saturday
Supported by Sarah Czechowski. Free music on the street!

Thurs. 9/16 @ 8pm @ Tin Angel: Arcati Crisis
Co-bill with the incredible Dante Bucci!

Also filed in Filmstar, Philly, arcati crisis, performance | | Comments (0)

Your guitar plays great songs!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

There’s a meme I keep seeing on Twitter to the effect of, “Telling a photographer their camera ‘takes good pictures’ is like telling a cook their oven bakes good cake.”

I will tell you, I got my back up a little about this. Sometimes your ability to do good work is truly limited by the quality of the tool of production.

I don’t know if a good cook could produce great work in my Sophomore year oven. Honestly, to this day I’m not conclusively sure the thing heated up past 200 degrees.

In my contrary angst I clicked through the meme to a delightful blog post from photographer Erin Farrell, who maybe was the patient zero of this wave of strident photogs? Erin put “takes good pictures” to the test – handing her pro camera to her amateur brother to shoot a friend’s daughter, and then shooting that same girl in the same location herself.

The results? You have to read her post to see, but the essence is that even her brother’s best shot with a heavy-hand of pro touch-up doesn’t compete with her middling shots directly out of camera.

Touché, Erin.

Then I thought about guitars. What if someone stopped me after a show and said, “your guitar plays great songs!”

I think that phrase is more illustrative of the photographer’s dilemma than the camera example, because the divisions are clearer. A guitar isn’t as smart as a camera – it has no automatic mode; it can’t focus on faces. As the songwriter, I’m the one who dreamed up the melody, wrote down the words, and decided on the arrangement and dynamics.

The guitar can’t do any of that for me. Like the photographer, it results from my skill and years of experience.

What the guitar did was give it tone. Depth. Credibility. If your favorite guitar player played your favorite song on a crappy guitar it would still be your favorite song, but it wouldn’t ring as true as their original. I am not a huge guitar snob, nor am I the best guitar player, but I categorically won’t play on other people’s guitars – my guitar is as much a part of my sound as my voice.

If an aspiring songwriter told me “your guitar plays great songs” (and they have, more or less, because I love to let other people play my guitar), I would thank them and tell them about Breedloves and why I like playing them. Because, even if my songs might be better than their song at the moment, the better tool is going to help level the playing field – and help them improve.

In short, the nicer guitar will play great songs.

That, in turn, made me think about cameras again. E is a degreed photographer, and I love her prosumer Pentax digital camera. In Paris she frequently let me shoot with it even though I also had a low-end “point and click” camera to shoot with.

Below are two photos of one of my favorite works of art, Cupid and Psyche, which lives in the Louvre. Both were taken by me with no coaching from E, though with different cameras on different days and with different light. Both are the best shot I took out of many with each of their respective camera, based on the limits thereof.

Which camera took the “great” picture? Click through for full size.

Bottom line? Some cameras take great pictures, and some guitars play great songs – but they need a certain alchemy from the taker and the player to do their magic.

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What I Tweeted, 2010-08-08 Edition

Sunday, August 8, 2010

My tweets of the last week:

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Filmstar and The Substitute People

Friday, August 6, 2010

I want to tell you about one of my fantasies.

(Don’t worry, it’s work safe.)

I fantasize about being a substitute person.

If you don’t know what that means, you clearly don’t watch Elizabethtown as much as E and I do. At one point, Kirsten Dunst’s Claire – a perennial second-place finisher in a life and love, muses:

60B!

You and I have a special talent, and I saw it immediately. We’re the substitute people. I’ve been the substitute person my whole life. … I like it that way. It’s a lot less pressure.

I’ve always had the fantasy of being the substitute person, but it took Claire to put words to it. Usually my fantasy goes like this:

A musician I really love – let’s say, Amanda Palmer – is in town, but they are touring without a certain band member – usually a guitarist or harmony singer. I’m at the concert, and when they start to play one of their big hits they stop and ask, “Does anyone know the [guitar/vocal/cowbell/whatever] part to this song? [I raise my hand.] You do? Come up here and try it.”

And then I get up and, of course, play the solo or sing the harmony to perfection, because I am obsessed with it. And then they ask me to sit in for another song. And another one. And then I hang out with them after the show and they fall in love with me.

Sort of like Courtney Cox in the “Dancing in the Dark” video.

I’m sure you have a similar fantasy, even if you aren’t a musician. Maybe it’s about stepping in with a sports team, or filling a hole on a big project in your office. It’s the opposite of the Actor’s Nightmare, where you’re stuck on stage with no idea what to do.

The allure of the fantasy is that we’re the substitute people. Just like a substitute teacher, no one is expecting us to do much more than fill a hole. Then, when we are amazing (or, at least, more amazing than adequate), they fall in love with us.

Having the substitute fantasy doesn’t mean you don’t like your life. I love being half of Arcati Crisis. But, every time I listen to E’s Filmstar demo record I catch myself thinking “I could walk right up and play all of those bass parts, if they needed me to.”

Well, two weeks ago life put my fantasy to the test when I wound up behind a microphone at a Filmstar rehearsal with a brand new bass hanging off my shoulder.

To make a long story short, Filmstar found themselves without a bassist, and I was called on my flippantly mentioned substitute-person fantasy of playing with the band.

I did know their songs pretty well – well enough to noodle along to their EP. Well enough to play bass on all fifteen of their songs? I didn’t necessary know every key, chord, and rhythm.

Oh, and there was the little detail of my not having played bass for seven years.

I decided that didn’t matter – I wanted to be their substitute person. E asked me to fill in on a Thursday. My new bass arrived on Friday. I arranged all the songs for myself on Sunday. I knew all fifteen of them for rehearsal on Wednesday.

We played every one.

This photo of me playing bass is nine years old, and this is as big as you're ever going to see it.

Was I awesome? No. Am I a bassist? Not by trade. But as a substitute person I was solid – I showed up able to fill the entirety of the hole in their lives, probably better than they anticipated I could.

I don’t know how long I’ll keep substituting with Filmstar, or if I’ll keep loving it. At some point a long-term substitute becomes your permanent solution, and surprising adequacy turns into lingering disappointment.

I’ve decided i don’t want to think it through that far. For the moment, I’m living my fantasy, and playing in an awesome rock band with my wife.

Sometimes we get we want in the most unexpected ways. What’s your substitute people fantasy? Have you ever got what you wanted?

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I just want to understand

Thursday, August 5, 2010

At the bottom of my basement stairs, I realized I was defeated. Or, at least, foiled in this particular instance.

The floor of our basement was covered with water two inches thick, and our water heater was hissing and spewing a fountain of water from its top.

I had an idea how to turn off the water. I had a plan to pump out the water. But I had no idea what was wrong with the water heater, or how to fix it.

Defeated.

If we wrote out a list of my fundamental character traits, one is that I have to understand how things work.

I don’t have to fix every problem myself. I can delegate and rely on help from other people. But, bottom line, I have to understand what the problem is, why it’s happening, and what’s being done so that it doesn’t happen again.

I’m discovering that this is going to be one of my major challenges as a homeowner. When something breaks or explodes or just mysteriously stops functioning, people expect you to step back, call a contractor, and repeat the serenity prayer under your breath.

Yeah, I just don’t roll like that.

If the primary three letters in my life are frequently OCD, the next trio are DIY. Do It Yourself. DIY is why I know how to do almost everything I know how to do.

When Blogger wouldn’t republish archive pages in 2000 I taught myself how to code PHP. When i wanted to record a studio album I minored in music. Last night I completed disassembled a backup drive with a blown power supply down to the last screw and installed it into another computer, rather than contemplate sending it away for repair.

All that said, I’m still a little intimidated by DIYing the house. It’s one thing to take apart a hundred dollar hard drive, and another to conduct demolition on a multi-hundred thousand dollar house.

So, when we bought the house it was a special challenge to find the right sorts of inspectors and contractors and insurers that could satisfy my need to understand.

We took our best shot. The Great Water Heater Explosion of 2010 tested both our vendor-selection and the limits of my understanding and my serenity.

Our Home Warranty company suddenly had clauses that were nowhere in our contract, and when I called to understand where they explain their coverage, their answer was basically “we don’t; no one has ever cared.”

They were dismissed.

Then we had a plumber quote twice as much as we thought it would be to replace the water heater, without really breaking down how he arrived at that number.

He never got a call back.

Basically, until I’m comfortable with in-home DIY, “understanding” has becoming my homeowner’s litmus test. If someone is afraid to make me understand – because they don’t want to be questioned, or they don’t want to empower me, or they want to charge me too much money – then they aren’t going to touch our house.

In the end we replaced the water heater for HALF of that initial quote in a single day.

Next challenge? The electrician whose lack of attention fried the aforementioned hard drive, to which his solution was to bill us another $1,200 for a dubiously defined solution he couldn’t help me to understand.

I understand that I can’t fix everything and I can’t know everything. But, at the very least, I can understand everything.

That’s all I ask.

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But I Regress, pt. 1

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

With the launch of my monster definitive guide to collecting X-Men comic books as graphic novels, I have officially become a fifteen year-old.

Allow me to explain. Or, to begin to, as I’m sure this is a multiple-post-spanning story (just as that website feature was a multiple-month spanning obsession to research).

A few months ago Philly-local social media mover/shaker/sandwich-connoisseur @MikeyIl threw a series of events for the Ford #FiestaMovement. One of them was an all-local art show, featuring work by my partner-in-fame Britt Miller, as well as Eddidit and others.

Being Britt’s unpaid intern / personal assistant / life coach and a faithful supporter of friends and local artists, I got my ass there – even though the event was smack in the middle of negotiating the price of our house with our Realtor over the phone.

(Literally. Drunk friends: “What are you doing?” Me, to phone: “Hold on a second.” Me, to friends: “Oh, I just got another few thousand dollars knocked off the price of our house.” Drunk friends: “Wowwww.”)

Where was that fateful art show held?

Brave New Worlds. A comic book shop.

Here at Crushing Krisis I haven’t ever fully explained my addiction to comic books, c. 11/1991 – 4/1996.

X-Men #24, one of my favorite comic covers.

It was a brief but tumultuous affair. Comic books combine my love of serial narrative with an OCD urge to make meticulous, alphabetical lists. They created a 10-year-old who would do anything to earn $40 a month to pick up every book bearing the image of Wonder Woman or an X-Man.

(Seriously, I’m surprised I wasn’t peddling coke for my neighbor. It’s a good thing my guitar habit didn’t get to drug-running levels of expense until after college, when I was salaried.)

For only collecting for four-and-a-half years, my comic collection is prodigious. Not only did I collect new issues weekly, but in the pre-spreadsheet days the adolescent OCD Godzilla in my soul – a mere tadpole, at the time – compiled lists of back issues by hand… lists twenty and thirty pages long, complete with estimated budgets and timelines for purchase. Every few months my father engaged my whim, and I checked off line after line.

I was hardcore. The guys at the comic store treated me like I was twice my age (now ironic) because I was so on top of my shit with my pull lists and my back issue pricing and my discussions of the Magneto’s morality and if the ends truly justified the means.

Then came the internet. AOL dial-up cost by the hour, and I was hooked on it within minutes of my first sign-in in January of 1996. Four months later my wallet issued an ultimatum: limit my internet usage, or jettison my comic addiction – now complicated by Marvel’s 90s’ decadence of holographic covers and limited series.

The real decider was probably a demo of Warcraft II, a living digital board of Risk I could play over and over again with my friends over my 14.4 baud modem.

I dropped the comics and never looked back.

Until last month.

(To be continued! In the meantime, if you’re a closet x-fan who wouldn’t know a pull list from their elbow, check out definitive guide to collecting X-Men comic books as graphic novels – the easiest (and cheapest) way to be an adult comic book fan.)

Also filed in Philly, Twitter, art, comics, ocd, stories | | Comments (2)

What I Tweeted, 2010-08-02 Edition

Sunday, August 1, 2010

My tweets of the last week:

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Blackouts

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Today I woke up at six.

Yesterday and the day before I woke up at six. On Saturday it was close to seven. Friday, six fifteen.

Do you sense a trend?

In our old house sleep was a black box.

I remember the conversation we had when we first moved in. Three bedrooms, and only the front and back ones were big enough to hold E’s queen-sized bed.

“Well, the front is bigger – more room around the bed, and for beaureaus and things. But it’s at the front of the house – streelights, cars passing, people talking, kids playing – it will all be in the bedroom with us.”

We wound up in the back. Smaller, cozier, and immune to all that street noise. Except, the backyard world of our home had its own noise – yapping dogs and yellow security lights, always on watch.

We adapted. I slept some nights with headphones, or earplugs. Our curtains were blackouts, thick and inpenetrable. Eventually E bought me a sunrise clock complete with chirping birds, so I could still wake up with some semblance of morning in my life – even in the black box.

People joked that I would be freaked out by the quiet at our new house. They weren’t wrong. Everything is silent at night (save for crickets), with everyone tucked into their discrete living rooms hundreds of feet from our door.

Sometimes I feel sheepish even playing guitar, before Elise reminds me that they could easily be doing that (or louder!) in their own homes. Such as is the silent expanse of our street.

Our bedroom is in the front of the house. No earplugs. Yes, blackout curtains, but not drawn carefully across every inch of every window from frame to frame. It’s just out of habit – to make sure no moonlight falls across my body as I drift to sleep.

The difference is the morning. Still quiet. Still no traffic. Yet in place of the sunrise clock I have … sunrise.

It turns out, I’m a morning person. For five years I had fooled myself, because my tiny electric sun was no replacement for an entire world of delicately spun light.

Tomorrow I will probably wake up at six.

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Monday Morning Remainders

Monday, July 26, 2010

A collection of some of the links that have captured my attention in the last few weeks:

Breaking yesterday, The Guardian reports an unprecedented leak of US military documents on the war in Afghanistan – 92,201 internal records from January 2004 and December 2009 exposing “hundreds of abuses.” You can see for yourself on WikiLeaks.org.

ReadWriteWeb goes behind the scenes of the recent viral Old Spice videos. You can force something to go viral but, as the article shows, you can certainly plan to make your content sticky (see also: Tipping Point).

This is actually from two months ago, but it continues to capture my attention: Caitlin Moran may have penned my new favorite piece of rock journalism, “Come Party with Lady Gaga,” in The Guardian.

(My old fav was a Courtney Love article in RS where she gives herself accupuncture, but my Google-Fu is failing me at the moment. Speaking of Ms. Love, ExploreMusic conducts a multi-part interview with a sharp-tongued Courtney, who sounds more coherent than she has in years.)

(Man, I guess I need to subscribe to The Guardian, eh?)

I delight in seeing @SmallBizLady Melinda Emerson speak – her mission in life is to make sure no small business ever fails again. I’ve never visited her blog before, but it dispenses great advice like How to Turn a Hobby Into a Small Business and 7 Questions Hobbyists Should Consider When Starting a Small Business. Something to consider if you’ve contemplated turning your fun into freelance.

Tynt is a small piece of script that helps you track who is copying and pasting text from your blog.

IP addresses are 340 days from running dry, because governing protocal IPv4′s four billion unique IPs are about to run dry. We’ll be rationing IPs unless the entire industry adopts IPv6, and that includes both ISPs and hardware/software manufacturers. A great quote about IPV4:

It seemed to be a reasonable attempt at providing enough addresses, bearing in mind that at that point personal computers didn’t really exist. The idea that mobile phones might want an IP address hadn’t occurred to anybody because mobile phones hadn’t been invented [and] the idea that airconditioners and refrigerators might want them was utterly ludicrous.

A disturbing collection of images from the BP spill zone – more photos like these need to find their way to the public to keep the outrage and support alive. (this and the IPv4 article via @valerieeev)

Audobon Magazine goes behind the scenes to explain how many nature photos are staged. (via @themartorana)

The elephant in the middle of the Glee club is a glance at the hidden copyright issues behind the fiction of Glee. The article goes a bit over-the-top – plenty of college acappella groups do mashups with few legal reprecussions. (via @Level3Media)

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What I Tweeted, 2010-07-26 Edition

Sunday, July 25, 2010

My tweets of the last week:

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What I Tweeted, 2010-07-19 Edition

Sunday, July 18, 2010

My tweets of the last week:

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get elevated

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

I wrote that last post on the El.

For those of you not acquainted with Philadelphia, we have exactly two and a half brands of subway. One travels north to south. One travels east to west. One spends half its distance traveling from the center of the city to the west, and then emerges from the ground.

(I always laugh when people find the Philly subway system confusing. They’re named unambiguously and barely make a turn. Paris – now that’s confusing.)

The “El” is short for the Market Frankford Elevated Line, the east to west subway named thus because it runs along Market Street & Frankford Avenues and because after it exits the central part of its route in either direction it runs along elevated tracks. Creaky, red iron, elevated tracks that tower overhead, dripping rain that smacks as it hits your scalp.

Nothing in the world skeeves me out like the El. In fact, for several years at the old house I boycotted it entirely. However, it’s a reality of traveling to and from the new house.

The grime of it is paralyzing. The navy blue floor is encrusted with untold months of flotsam at every crack and corner. The blue seats are not plastic but a sponge-like blue fuzz that seems engineered to attract and retain dirt.

Then there are the people – the degenerate, tactless people. I have heard of and witnessed people doing things on the El that you would never witness elsewhere in public – let alone on public transit. Vandalism. Performance art. Investigations of personal hygiene. Sex acts.

The charming combination of environmental grossness and personal grossness is enhanced by the claustrophobic layout of each car. To a New Yorker – accustomed to their wide, hard-plastic benches and center-of-aisle poles – it probably seems like an amusement park ride.

A tiny, disgusting amusement park ride.

Whenever I ride a carefully tuck my limbs into my body like an Olympic diver, trying to avoid contact with something or something that will give me syphilis or leprosy.

Carefully tucked into myself, I pull out my laptop, and log in remotely to work for 29 blocks of elevation, before shutting down and doing my best to hold my breath and stay absolutely still for 10 blocks of subway.

The first thing I do every day in the office is wash my hands.

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man (just me, actually) vs. nature (mostly this one bird)

Monday, July 12, 2010

I have been waking up early almost every day at the new blue house.

Some of that awakening has been of my own volition. Other of it is due to an east-facing window.

However, largely the inspiration is avian in nature.

When we talked about owning a house in a speculative fashion, people would say the same sorts of things. “You’ll always have projects,” was a common response, and I’d never dispute it. Another common one was, “Oh, you’ll have a yard! There will be birds singing.”

No, really, people say that.

I would consistently respond, “Yes, I need to figure out how to poison them all.”

It’s not anything I have against birds, per se. I have a friend who disputes the very nature of birds. Like, “feathers, hollow bones – that shit is just unnatural.” She regards each sample of the class with guarded skepticism, as if it could be a carrier of bubonic plague or infectiously bad credit scores.

That’s not the nature of my problem. Birds are fine as a concept. I just don’t like things that make uninvited noise (other than, obviously, me). Birds fall into the same offensive category as small dogs, train tracks, and babies.

Which is an entirely other topic.

Birds know no reason. At least trains pass and babies are usually hungry or tired or want to chew on your remote control.

Why is the bird chirping? Like, this morning at 4am when the species of bird I refer to as “Digitalis Clockus” – which earned its name because its brief, repetitive, perfectly-pitched warble is louder than my digital clock, even when it is positioned across the street in a neighbor’s yard where it would be technically trespassing for me to poison it or beat it to death with a wok – began chirping, why was it chirping?

Why, gentle readers, must it not only begin to chirp, but chip that piercing, non-snoozeable-but-very-alarming chirp every morning between 4:07 am and 5:15 am? Why must its circuit carry it from our neighbors broad yard across the street to the towering dogwood beside my window?

I have encountered it once in close quarters, in the lower boughs of said tree. I assumed my avian foe would be approximately the size and shape of one of those totally over-the-top Hammacher Schlemmer alarm clocks that light up and vibrate and make bagels, but with wings.

Nay. It is a tiny, mottled, gray thing that I could probably fit whole in my mouth.

If I thought that it wanted to fly into my mouth I would put the poison right on my tongue, like a tiny, toxic hit of LSD, and wait patiently for my avian friend to swoop into my maw.

That would be better than waking up every day at an average time of five forty-one in the morning.

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