Yeah, i have been in absentia here for a bit, I have spent a good chunk of the last several months building this place Miyagi. It’s a hair salon that I opened with the Missus, it’s also home to my new offices, that is once I can get in an actual internet connection. In between that been dealing with the never ending pilot, that is ready to be dropped off next week (well keeping my fingers crossed on that one).
Lot’s going on, but not a ton I feel like I can share, I know I am selfish bastard keeping my drama to myself, but sometimes thats how it goes.
One note about the dead video above- I am in no way shape or form a Dead head, In my Rifle Sport days I described them as the music of the enemy, the poster children of the former counter culture Hippies who became the dread 80’s republican sell outs- but kept the soundtrack. As I have gotten older I have learned to see bands shouldn’t be blamed for their fans. In any case this suits my mood at this moment more then just about anything.
Well and this one too, i bought this record when it came out, what can I say the video kinda got me, But I kept it hidden in my collection- not nearly punk rock enough, and not ironic enough either to merit being in my collection. Maybe being forty is an age where you can accept all the little secret truths, because good bad and indifferent ; thats who you are.
Ok, so some of you may have noticed my sort of staggering lack of writing here as of late. There is good reason for that. for the last six months or so my day job has taken up a huge amount of time. Something it hadn’t for a while, they need some problems fixed, which sort of took over my life. Its the great thing about hiring a compulsive problem solver, is that they don’t rest till the problem is solved- alas some problems are above my mere mortal skills. In the beginning of this month I found myself laid off.
As bad news as that is , I am thinking of it as a gift. A gift of escape, a get out outta jail guilt free card if you will. Knowing me I would have stayed always trying to fix what is ultimately unfix-able. I spent a lot more time dealing with corporate politics then being creative. Its very easy to get lost in the deal and by my own admission I am one of those guys who can get lost in it.
So I find myself with the glorious question :whats next? and to that i really haven’t a clue. There are a few other details that I may have forget to mention:
1. The missus and I are opening a hair salon called Miyagi, hopefully our doors will be open Mid-July, its in NE Mpls (411 E Hennepin right next to the Terminal Bar). The other ginchy thing about this is it will also provide me with a decent office to work out of, no disrespect to my spider filled basement.
There are a few pictures on my Flickr account if you want to see them. Its a pretty cool space and some great folks have been involved. Its been our secret project since last September I even went to Aveda business college to learn the specifics of their lanuage. The oddest part of this is hat I helped build a salon before during the Hair Police days, so this is a very odd Dejà vu, minus old friend and Focus 21 hairspray.
2. I have been working on a tv show for the past year, called “Conversation” It’s very cool, and all things willing the pilot episode will be done soon. I think I know where its going to live but my mouth is shut till we see an air date. You will forgive me if I am a litle sparse on details on this one. Timing , state secrets and all that.
3. I also produced a massive remix for te Vibro Champs, and am mid way through my first solo music project in ages “The Holy Roman Empire”- it’s sort of anti-music, experimental but hopefully not to self indulgent. That will see at least a Myspace page fairly soon.
So its not like I don’t have anything going on, in fact I seem to be busier then ever. My future plans do involve a lot more writing, for this space and others, but for the moment I have to float a little where the river takes me. Of course the problem is I have no idea where its headed, and while apparently it has some rapids, I am pretty sure I can still stay afloat. I know this, I want to make art , and thats something I really haven’t felt for a while.
So there you have it. No stunning self revelations- at least none for public eyes, just me. For years my sense of self identity was based upon where I worked or what i did I don’t need to be Chris of blank anymore, lets face it that all started with Jesus of Nazareth and that really didn’t end so well for him. So Its just me Chris, and it really is all cool.
Sort of like this video from Black Kids, which couldn’t fit my mood any better.(thanks J for sending it along)
I almost never talk about my work in this space but recently I did a record for the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble a very cool band from Boston lead by Birdsongs of the Mesozoic Sax player Ken Field. They are a New Orleans style brass band with contemporary twists. Think the Meters but with a Liberal Arts education. The record is just out now on the ultra cool Cunieform label, you can buy it at Amazon.
It was an a weird record to work on mostly because it was finished when I got it, then my partner Brian Jacoby and I tore it open, recut and remixed it. The idea was to make a Noir type movie soundtrack out of it. Similar but more extreme to what I did on the Stan Ridgway record Anatomy
I wrote Linear notes that described the story that I put together for it. They didn’t run them, keep it even more mysterious. But just in case you would like to read them here they are. check out the record if you get a chance, I think it’s pretty good- but then I might be biased.
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Have you ever known something truly beautiful, I mean so beautiful, that it made you realize your own ugliness, made you aware of every bruise and scar on your pockmarked soul, that’s what Liza Jane did to me.
I tell myself it wasn’t about the money. But that’s no more true then that fancy preachers talk about the good book, unless he’s talking about the book of French postcards that he keeps under his pillow.
They always try and sell you Jesus, everywhere you look on the street, they are selling salvation but they’re paying for it in whiskey and cheap virtue, it’s a town of thieves and hookers, cons, carnies, pick pockets, killers, and crooked cops. With a prophet on every corner, next to a guy who would kill you for the right price. Then there is me, and I am probably the worst of the lot.
I knew I was going to hell, turns out I was already there. When your damned already salvation seems at best unlikely, and at worst…a game to be played on suckers. You get a couple of bucks and a couple of Ya Ya’s. Its not going to change where you go, just the style you arrive in when you get there.
Brown eyes, brown skin and a little gold cross, innocence and purity- like cheese in a mouse trap, of course its always the rat gets his tail broken in that scene and nobody asks what happens to the cheese.
The wedding was supposed to fix it all-a tonic for my corrupted soul. Wedding white washes away all sin she said. I played it straight, for her, for her I would’ve done anything. Giving up the grift, still not hep to who was the rat and who was the cheese.
No walk across the threshold just a cold thud in the back of the head, and trunk of a 68 Buick as a bridal suite for one.
Somewhere beyond the rumble of the road and the sermon on the radio I can hear Liza, and her “Pa”. I know I am going to the river and this time its not a baptism . I think of her, the sun light glistening off her hair, that smile she’d get when she sang that stupid Doris Day song, she’d stroke my head and tell me “Whatever would be would be” and now whatever would be is driving off a bridge into the river at 60 miles an hour.
As the water starts to fill the trunk , I think of the baptizing day, she said I had saved her so it was only right for her to save me. I thought the con was over, that I had been born again. Instead just a long walk and a sudden stop. I think about the money, but mostly I think about her. Then I fight like hell to not die at the bottom of a dirty river.
I give one last hard kick against the trunk. Because even a drowning man has to fight, but this time it works-this time the trunk opens and the water rushes in. Drowning while I save myself, its not pretty but I make it to the shore.
The moneys gone and so is the girl. Its not the first time, it won’t be the last, sure its cliché but isn’t it always. The next time won’t be that different from the last, but the next time I am staying the hell away from New Orleans.
I have been somewhat unforgivably absent as of late, and for I apologize. What can I say other then I was too busy with life to write about it? It happens to the best of us so its positively expected when it come to the worst.
As it happens, oh dear and gentle reader, I found myself in sort of a day job jamboree. Part of what I do for living, the part that I can talk about publicly is I am a producer. Unlike a lot of producers I don’t function in one medium. Which makes me an oddball amongst the odd balls. I move freely from music to TV, to film, theater, and the odd corporate spectacle. Though as of late I tend to avoid theater, mostly because it is too fleeting- I have been enjoying art that is more permanent, and that provides an ongoing revenue stream.
You would think that I would take these valuable pixels to hype these various and sundry projects, but not so much. For the most part I have to many other topics to cover here. However in case your curious over the past year I have: produced a pilot for TV called Conversation-set to air in the fall, God and various and sundry executives willing, Produced a record for the Revolutionary Snake Ensemble (out in May on Cuneiform)(with Brian Jacoby), produced a record by the Vibro Champs (out in July on Sideshow records)(with Adam Krinski), Halfway through a Holy Roman Empire record (that’s just me), Did soundtracks for the St. Paul Winter Carnival, the Bakery on Grand, composed some Hair Show music. Finished the four-year odyssey that is M-80 the movie, and consulted on a dozen or so other projects. This is in between publishing a few things here and there, a day gig (@IPR) and opening a salon with my wife (which opens sometime this summer). The funny thing is I would think of this as one of my less active years.
In any case I say this not to boast about my skills as a day laborer, rather to set up the thing that didn’t happen. Part of producing is spending a lot of pre prep time on a project that might not happen. I spent part of the last year pitching, prepping, and planning a movie that died on the vine two weeks before the shoot date, that my friends are heart breaking.
The whoseits an whatsits are unimportant, sometimes things just fall apart, this cause of this one is nothing to do with artistry personality, or technology really if you wanted to blame something blame insurance. These things happen; really this just serves to justify my absence from regular contribution here. In the beginning I didn’t have time, as I franticly prepared for the biggest shoot of my life. The last week or so I have been too bummed to want to really communicate with anyone- the reality is this would have been the “big movie” guaranteed to get on cable, the one where I didn’t have to explain who the artists were and why this had value. Which is a valuable consideration coming from the land of cult favorites (read as good but unpopular). For all the kajillions of projects I have worked on, nothing has sold more then 25,000. Which in the indy realm is pretty good, but it’s not gold.
I know that wanting a gold record is petty and vein, but I don’t recall ever saying I wasn’t petty or vein. The reality is I want one, not to be showy, but because I think it would be neat. Its not that it changes your career, hell I have known a guy who had multiple gold records and worked the French fry machine at the MacDonald’s in Golden Valley. I know other guys with rooms full of them and it doesn’t make them happy; though truth be told I do think they rather enjoy the royalties.
The gold is nice, but its only a trinket- really, it is just a symbol, the fact that you were a part of a thing that effected a lot of peoples lives. That’s the cool part, the award that’s just a certificate of completion. Yet still, I want it. Every ball player wants a bigger crowd, and even when you get the biggest, is it enough? You have to play ball because you love the game, and whatever team your on is the greatest, all that said you still want to play in the World Series.
More then just my personal stabs at glory; I just wish the film were being made. It isn’t. So you take a deep breath, possibly get drunk for a night, and then you start over. Like Sonny and Cher said ”the Beat goes on”…