By the way, here’s some stuff I’ve actually been up to recently, that’s also up on bandcamp. A.J. Herring of Velma And The Happy Campers has a series of free download EPs, by various artists, called Voices Green And Purple. The concept is each EP has to be no more than three minutes in total length, but with no fewer than three tracks. Here’s mine, and I have a second on the way:

And be sure and check out the Voices Green And Purple bandcamp site. There’s stuff by The Cryogenic Strawberries and Thunder Bunny, among others.

And here’s a streamable preview of the new Fetal Pig album:

This thing gets released middle of next month sometime on digital and an edition of 300 150-gram LPs. It’s the first recording I’ve played on ever to be released in a format other than home-dubbed cassettes or computer-dubbed CD-Rs, so it’s a landmark for me. Very excited!

Also, here’s an SK-5 noise piece I made on the occasion of the 40th birthday of Jason Warden, he of Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch. It’s going to be coming out on a 10-minute 5-way split cassette with Igloo Martian and some other people I don’t know of which there will be only 10 copies. I will have 2 of them. I can be persuaded to sell or give away one or both to suitably interested parties. You can also download this .wav file if you like it.

Jason Turns 40 by centipedefarmer

Last Saturday night April 2nd, if you’re a Des Moines music fan who wasn’t at either Gross Domestic Product, or the English Beat show at 504 Club, or seeing the classic Guided By Voices lineup at Mission Creek Festival in Iowa City, or at whatever Residents show Matthew Dake of You Are Home said he was going to, chances are you were either at home or where I was, the Jucifer show at Vaudeville Mews. Apparently that’s a few of you because it was a decent crowd.

The first thing people always think/say about Jucifer is their volume level. They bring along an epic wall of speakers for Mrs. Jucifer’s guitar, show up hours in advance of the show to set them all up and test them out, and they sit there taking up half the stage while all the opening bands play. It’s pretty impressive and I don’t envy their job lugging that gear around and setting it up night after night, but it’s easy to end up thinking that that’s pretty much all there is to them. But the experience is a draw in itself.

Longshadowmen, in the Isaac + drummer duo lineup, opened the show, Isaac bringing his Leslie and an Ampeg 8×10 bass rig to play his guitar through. Apparently he adjusts the presentation to suit what he’s booked with. This setup gave his blues riffs a sound of rusty machinery. Sad Fucks were pretty meh for me, except that something about what they seemed to be going for reminded me of the Eggnogs. But they could stand to cut loose and variate things a bit more. Their multi-color-mohawked bassist graciously lent me his bass when I broke a string on mine during Fetal Pig’s set and couldn’t get a new one installed quick enough. It was his backup though, because he had also broken a string during their set. Coincidence. After our set came Midnight Ghost Train, touring with Jucifer, who brought the southern-fried riff-crunch. I wonder if anyone at, say, The Obelisk or Meteorcity has yet turned on to these guys, they were pretty great.

I think the acoustics of the Mews favored Jucifer better than the last/first time I saw them, when The Cactus Rats opened for them at The Reverb (old location in downtown in Cedar Falls) a bunch of years ago. It was loud but not as painfully so as before, so I was actually able to make out the guitar riffs clearly enough to get that what they’re doing is actually rather musical. Being able to let one long chord ring out for several seconds and then nail the next one dead-on without even looking at each other is quite a skill too. Given that I had fully expected to be in a grouchy mood by this time, they actually cheered me up a bit and were engaging enough for me to stick around for their whole set.

Week before last had some fun goings-on in it too. Tuesday the 22nd Dan and I did a two-piece acoustic-ish version of Why Make Clocks in between Longshadowmen — this time as acoustic guitar through the house system, Longshadowlady’s ghostly backup vocals, and some dramatic/spastic guest drumming from the drummer of Spirits Of The Red City (supposedly known as a free-jazz guy from Chicago) — and the headliner Spirits Of The Red City. Next to nobody showed up so we had an intimate evening of playing music for each other. There is little “city” about Spirits Of The Red City, they come off like some plains cult based out of a remote old farmhouse, standing or seated all near each other, wearing antique clothes, talking amongst themselves, playing spooky ghost-folk, inviting the audience such as there was to sit on the stage with them. For their first number, a musical setting of this weird old nursery rhyme, they also included a puppet show, which they set up from an old suitcase with a scrolling backdrop, using marionettes made from animal skulls. These crummy blackberry phone photos probably don’t do it justice, but it was very nicely done. They turned out to be a quite friendly crew, I get the impression Isaac is old friends with them.

That Friday Fetal Pig played an early all-ages show with The Great Sabatini and Omens. Both were great. We got asked to play last, which is usually a bad sign, but not so much this time, as people stuck around. Omens is local, includes Luke Rauch of Druids on guitar, and has a little more hardcore vibe in them than does Druids but no less sludgy detunedness. The Great Sabatini were another loud stoner-doom band with no bass guitars — actually their bassist couldn’t make it, so the guitarist with the super long hair and whimsical wax-curled mustache filled in some low end with an octave pedal. They were probably one of the nicest friendliest bands I’ve ever been on a bill with, but that matters less to you as the music fan than that they rocked hard, putting up an amiable fun approach to big cosmic gloomy doom riffs.

I went back out the next night because the bill had two bands on it I love. When I’d heard locals Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch had a show coming up I was like “yeah I want to go,” and then when I later heard Pharmacy Spirits (from Lincoln) were on the bill too, it became more of a “HELL YEAH I want to go!” Opening band Kong Vs. Kong was kind of a cheezy punk rock cover band that I think I heard was basically the guys from Horseshoe Spatulas. I mean, who opens their set with “Search And Destroy?” You’d better be a Grade-A Badass to try and pull that off. Their playing was tight, but what they were doing seemed out of place. I think Betty Buzzkill already kinda does it better, or at least more believably.

Rhonda were set to go on second but someone tried to talk them into going on last. I am just so sick of this happening. Forgive me if I sound bitter, but it’s been done to me dozens of times. Basically what happens is either the headliner(s) are feeling lazy and want to finish early so they can go party or something, or there’s a particular band that they’re irrationally scared will clear the place out (if there were a “local band most likely to clear a room” title, admittedly Rhonda would be a strong candidate, and proudly so), or I don’t know what, but for some reason they have the soundman or somebody approach some little-known, ill-respected or challenging band on the bill and ask them to “headline,” which sounds to an inexperienced musician like you’re getting a kind of promotion from “opener” status, but by which they really mean, play to an empty room at 1 in the fucking morning. Maybe this happens because somebody overbooks the show in the first place. No 10PM show should have 5 acts on it and I personally think 4 is pushing it and 3 is the sweet spot; if I were booking I would require a pretty compelling reason to add a 4th act to any show. Bookers need to focus on putting together a quality show for the music fans instead of on trying to be a nice guy doing favors for every friend-of-a-friend in a band that emails asking if they can jump on some particular bill (usually one that happens to have a particularly tasty headliner). It’s also confusing for the people that come out for the show too, when the order of bands gets shuffled around at the last minute. Fucking booking guys should try being in bands and see how they like that shit getting pulled on them when they go play out of town. Rant over.

Thankfully Jason and crew stood their ground and went on second like originally intended. They could stand to work on the speed of their set-up, but we’ll just leave that there. First time I saw them I liked them because they made such an unholy racket. Then they surprised me by coming out with a record with a heavy presence of 70s electronics vibe on it, and at the release show they pulled in a tight succinct set of short guitar-noise-pop numbers. This time they were in a cosmic shoegaze mode like a mashup of My Bloody Valentine with Hawkwind. Logan, on sound, seemed to have difficulty dealing with Jason’s wall of distortion. The loud noise jams over hypnotic repeating chord progressions meandered into trying-your-patience lengths until the house lights were brought up on them, much to Jason’s delight. And, as it turns out, the room didn’t clear out after all.

I love Pharmacy Spirits’ Teen Challenge album, which they now had vinyl copies of for sale. Under better monetary circumstances I’d have likely bought one. Their lineup was down to a three-piece this show, and I’m not sure Jim Reilly is accustomed to doing the lead guitar parts, as he seemed to have an excessive predilection for just randomly flailing at his guitar making noise instead of the great melodies they usually have. They went at it with reckless energy to spare, which went over gangbusters with most of the crowd, but for me seemed needlessly sloppy and tossed-off, and as such a little bit disappointing.

Look Out Loretta did a cowpunk kind of thing and did it quite well. My friend Ben M down in Dallas would really dig them. They’re worth keeping an eye on. The headliner (official as well as actual) who went on at 1AM, but to a house that was still rockin’ with rowdy music fans, was a fellow named St. Christopher, also from Lincoln, who I guess was going to some kind of punk-bluesman thing, standing up on stage by himself in a suit playing a hollowbody guitar through a Marshall, stomping on an amplified board and shouting tunelessly about getting drunk. Didn’t really turn me on much, maybe I was tired.

No shows coming up as of now. I’d really love to get out around Iowa and play some gigs, preferably clumped into little mini-tours to make it worthwhile, but I have inadequate transportation equipment to the purpose and am ill-situated to do anything about it. If perchance I can ride along in your van for a few days, get in touch. I’ve just recorded a bunch of stuff, both Distant Trains and Chuck Hoffman material. Meanwhile, we’re mixing the Fetal Pig record in a couple weeks and we have some really trick-looking Fetal Pig t-shirts available, designed by Nathan Thrailkill and printed by Nate Fetus, and every one we sell gets us a little closer to putting out the album.

Around this time last year when I saw Druids selling their excellent Pray For Water EP on cassette at the Gross Domestic Product festival, I still thought the touted “comeback” of the cassette format was just kind of a gimmick. And it is, I suppose. But there being no dominant physical format these days, it does seem like there is certain music that cassette just seems right for. And not only have I found myself digging up some obscure gems from my vast cassette collection lately, I’ve also found that I’m acquiring a startling amount of new music on cassette as well. Here are a few:

The aforementioned Druids- Pray For Water (Ea, Lord Of The Tapes). I think this can also be found on download and CD-R and I think I heard some whisperings about a vinyl version being in the works once. This Iowa doom metal duo sounds epic even on the short fast songs (three of the seven tracks are under two minutes, although one of them is the first of a two-part suite). The longest, “Noise Forest: Ablaze” turns out to be an instrumental built around a Rhodes keyboard or maybe a Wurlitzer, that alternates between post-rock sounding sections and louder heavy parts. I probably can’t do justice in words to how heavy and awesome these guys are and this tape leaves me wanting more every time. They’re playing at Vaudeville Mews the early show this Saturday with In The Face Of War and some other hardcore stuff; Omens, another band with Druids guitarist/vocalist Luke Rauch in it, plays there in the early show March 25 with The Great Sabatini as the headliner and Fetal Pig (which I play bass in, for any of you that are new here) opening. Both are all-ages and get rolling about 5pm.

Pony Time – Pony Time Can Drink 100 Wine Coolers (Dont Stop Believin’ Records). Here’s another two-piece band, but this one from Seattle and doing a kind of sunny-yet-skewed indie pop. My old friend and former Exit Drills / Page 5 Girl bandmate Stacy Peck plays the drums and another guy named Luke (Beetham) plays a chunky-twangy overdriven bass guitar and sings. The vocals have a high-pitched chorusing on them that adds to the weird factor and makes the lyrics hard to make out at times, but the tunes are infectious. Two Billy Childish covers close out the album, and I wouldn’t even have known they weren’t originals if I hadn’t checked the liner notes, because they fit right in to their style. Download code included with tape.

You Are Home – Glacier Grains and Cage (Workerbee Records). Released both at the same time, and I ordered them both at the same time, entries 01 and 03 in Matthew Dake’s noisy, experimental, instrumental solo project’s so-named “Electronic EP Series” (I guess 02 isn’t out yet?). It seems odd to release music this synthesizer-driven on cassette. With both you get intriguing assemblages of loopy mechanized bleepy-bloopy sounds. Reminds me a bit of the early Cabaret Voltaire stuff like what’s on 1974-76.

One of my favorite things in the format is lo-fi cassette compilations. Several have found their way to me lately and I’ve heard some wonderful stuff on them. I’m beginning to think the lo-fi cassette compilation is really an indie/experimental analogue to the hip-hop mixtape.

One was included by Workerbee in the package when my order of the You Are Home tapes arrived, and seems to be an intriguing concept, the “split compilation” — one side from Workerbee and the other from Series Two Records. Series Two’s side is packed with lo-fi pop, folky and shoegazing sounds, while Workerbee’s covers those areas plus some experimental noises and some really great 60s-inspired trashy garage rock. Especially memorable tracks for me come from And Oh So Slowly He Turned, Electric Needle Room (the biographical “James Madison,” almost a lost Schoolhouse Rock song), Flannel, Mike Downey, Shannon and the Clams (awesome spooky-chick 60s rock!), Setting Sun, BAMBRA, Murzik, and The Skeptics.

Rot Box (Unread Records) was of interest for me because it has Samuel Locke-Ward, Ed Gray, and Simon Joyner on it — three midwest songwriters I like a lot and think people ought to know about. Each of them have especially excellent songs on here, and have released cassette albums on this same label as well (including Sam’s legendary Boombox By Bedside) — in fact, pretty much everybody on this comp has. I’d say Sam, Simon, and Ed have probably the best stuff on here, but I could be biased. Woods is on here too, I just don’t remember much about their song right now. Just from those names you probably know to expect lo-fi folk with some experimental twists. I also particularly remember and enjoy Caleb Fraid and Franklin Bruno’s songs. Unread has a pretty extensive catalog worth reading through, you’ll probably find some stuff you want.

I Think I Might Be Autistic (Chthonic Records) also features Sam and Ed (working with Coyote Blood both here and on Rot Box). Sam’s track here has really distorted vocals and while still pretty cool, melodically a slower cousin of “For One Cigarette,” it doesn’t shine quite as brightly for me as his Rot Box track “He’s An Evil Preacher” (possibly one of his best songs ever!). The mix of styles is broader on this than on Rot Box and maybe prevents the compilation from hanging together as a mix, but it has some killer moments. Erik Sahd’s “You Gotta Keep Tryin’” is a big favorite for me on this, a delightful electro-pop tune that gets me laughing and reminds me of Devo, Gary Numan, a little bit of Wire, and The Bassturd. Joe Brook’s “Righteous Man” is a gorgeous folk/country song that I think Why Make Clocks (which I also play bass in) should cover sometime. Gladhands’s “Refrigerator Mother” has “I think I might be autistic” as a line in the lyrics, it’s a feedback-drenched casio-rock number that sounds like it has the guy from Bush on lead vocals, I like it pretty well. Ben Trickey’s “Tangle” is another really nice folk/country tune, and there are some interesting noise pieces too. This label also just put out Sam’s split 7″ EP with Toby Goodshank (The Moldy Peaches) so you know they’re cool.

Different Paths (Greentape 57). No contact info in this one, but a Google search unearthed this. I just got this the other night when I was in Decorah to play at the Elks Lodge with Igloo Martian, Talking Computron, The Ring Toss Twins (aka Moldavite aka circuit-benders Pelzwik and Dinger — check out getlofi.com) and Seeded Plain. The only artist on this I’ve ever heard of before is Office Park, and their track is a droney one rather than a songy one so you don’t get to hear any of Ember’s beautiful voice, but it’s still pretty nifty. The rest is mostly boombox folk, some with banjo, and a couple loopy noise pieces thrown in.

Oh, by the way, that Decorah show was pretty cool. I felt weird being the act that was just playing a guitar and singing songs, and I think I played my stuff much cleaner in practice, but everyone else’s sets were really enjoyable. I did have the distinction of being the set that had people dancing. The same people started doing yoga positions or something during The Ring Toss Twins. I think their set was my favorite, kind of spooky rhythmic ambient electronic circuit-bending and casio sounds that would go over big on My Castle Of Quiet. It really got me thinking about getting my ghetto noise-rig from the early Passage Of Deformed Man Supermarket days back into play (call it a Flight Attendants comeback?). Plus they sell contact mics at their merch, which is brilliant. Talking Computron made chilly electronic sounds, Igloo Martian did a joyful performance art piece, and Seeded Plain opened with their amazing invented-instrument ambient improv (check Public Eyesore Records in the links section of the sidebar). I got one of Nick/Pelzwik’s contact mics and already used it once earlier today to sample a wooden chair and a cymbal stand with a cracked china crash on it into my SK-5. Good times. Here are some pictures:

Talking Computron

Ring Toss Twins' gear

Seeded Plain

And just because it was on my phone, here’s a bonus photo of Pink Villa at the art opening at Ritual Cafe that Why Make Clocks played at last weekend:

Saturday night January 1 at 9:30pm, come nurse the last of your hangover at Vaudeville Mews with Fetal Pig sandwiched between The New Bodies and Dresden Style. 21+ $5

It’s a rough-mix, unmastered, and I intentionally encoded it in a low-ish bitrate, but I thought it would be nice to give folks a little taste of this Fetal Pig record we’ve been working on. You’re welcome!

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Dan, Jeff, and I hit the studio again on Sunday to lay down vocals and a few extra guitar parts and miscellaneous noises. Of the 9 songs we started with, 8 are basically all tracked now, and the other (“Meaningless”) we might re-take, provided we come up with another new song to throw in to make it worth the while (“Concerns” being the most likely candidate, given how it shaped up at the last practice).

Speaking of Dan and Jeff, Going To Grandma’s will be playing at Carl’s Place in Des Moines on December 18 with North Of Grand, about 9:30ish. I believe there are plans for them to do some recording. Why Make Clocks looks likely to get back on track to continue working on some version of the “cursed” Tight Dissolve album (so known because of the multiple unsuccessful prior attempts by earlier lineups of the band to record it) come the new year.

Fetal Pig are soon to head out to Flat Black Studios in Iowa City to record songs both old and new. If all goes well, we will end up with a totally insane record with no definite plans on how it’s to be released

Why Make Clocks will once again be on the bill with Mark Mallman at Vaudeville Mews, Wednesday, November 10 at 7:30 pm. So is Black Ambient Manifesto.

Unable to put the time together to rehearse with a live drummer, and not wanting to do a guitar-songwriter-folkie set, I spent money on a software drum machine to run on my laptop, meaning Distant Trains is back! I’ll be opening Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch’s‘s release party for the Laos 12″ EP, also at Vaudeville Mews, 9:30 pm Saturday November 20. You should seriously consider picking up this RIADB record they’ll be flogging, not only because it’s got good music on it (look around elsewhere on this site for videos of a couple of its tracks), but also, it has gone through hell to get to you — first the pressing plant had plates come out bad and get broken, then the first batch of the records got mistakenly delivered to Jason Warden’s now-vacant former residence, left on the front porch, where they were absconded with by persons unknown — who apparently, upon opening the boxes and apprehending the contents, graciously returned them to where they had found them the following day. A really nifty band called Golden Veins will be in the middle slot, you should definitely check them out too, they’ve got folks from Beati Paoli involved.

Speaking of release parties, there’s one coming up for the hotly anticipated Samuel Locke Ward and the Boo-Hoos/Mumfords split 7″ at the Blue Moose Taphouse in Iowa City, 10pm on Friday, November 12, and probably not long before they get the record up for mail-order.

My work continues to be busy, so I haven’t been writing a lot here, but I do manage to find time to post various links of interest to the Centipede Farm Facebook page. I figured I should pop in here quick and talk about music things I’ve been to or done lately. Leah and I went to see The Black Keys at the Val Air with busted AC, the place was packed and probably 110 degrees. I looked like I’d been in some kind of sweat-filled dunk tank. They played wonderfully though. I’ve seen some bands tend to play their songs faster live than they sound on record; the Black Keys, at least that night, played things a little bit slower, which I think suited the atmosphere of the sweltering August night. It was pretty rock and roll.

I saw the diva of mom-glam Leslie Hall, with her band Leslie And The Ly’s, bring their celebration of all things snazzy to a rainy Tuesday morning at the Iowa State Fair. Considering the weather and the early hour, they drew a respectable crowd and really pulled out all the stops when it came to silly props and between-song skits. Hanging quilts, a giant cat, and a tractor called Glitter Plow. Grace plays drums, the only live instrument they use in the show, as everything else is on a laptop other than vocals, and I can’t stress enough the level of skill it takes to be able to stay on beat with something prerecorded like that. Grace kicks ass. They’ll be at something called Inglert in Iowa City on September 16.

We did two Why Make Clocks shows this past weekend, and there were actually people at them. Saturday night’s show was at Vaudeville Mews with Noah’s Ark With A Spaceship, a great band we previously met and played with in Omaha where they’re from. They make a loud raucous guitar-noise-pop sound that I’d place in the lineage of Swervedriver. They’re on Slumber Party Records where they’re labelmates with Thunder Power and Outlaw Con Bandana among others. We got to hang out with them some before and after the show as well, and they are a fun bunch of cats. Some variation on what used to be called The Chatty Cathys opened, a group of young fellows making a Pavementy kind of racket, and they were quite enjoyable. In between was another very youthful outfit (14 to 16 years old, I believe), The Seed Of Something, which involves Dan’s wife Kim’s son Jasper and is also currently sharing drummer Will Tarbox with Why Make Clocks while they look for another. They’re really good and we’d like to see them keep at it, so if you know a kid around Des Moines who plays drums well and likes driving indie rock sounds, get in touch.

The following night both Why Make Clocks and The Seed Of Something played a double-birthday-party show at Des Moines Social Club along with The Atudes, Christopher The Conquered, and Poison Control Center. The birthdays in question were of our very own Dan, and of Pat from PCC, both of which were on Monday. Everyone put on a great show, though the sound in the Black Box Theater room of the DMSC was as usual a bit off. Friendly vibes abounded. PCC continue their “Never Ending Tour” tonight at The Slowdown in Omaha, and tomorrow night at The Lift in Dubuque , then a whole bunch of other places. I’d suggest checking the lengthy list of dates listed on their MySpace because chances are if you’re reading this, you’ll have an opportunity or two to see them in the next few months.

Finally, just last night, we did the second-ever show of the reunited Fetal Pig, opening up for the amazing Mahogany Frog from Winnipeg. MF first came to our attention when Why Make Clocks ended up playing with them at Big V’s in St. Paul. We liked them a lot and told them to get in touch if they ever thought of coming to play in Des Moines. They do mostly instrumental psychedelic prog-rock epics with lots of keyboards. It’s partly a recreation of prog circa ’72, but also very modern; I caught a lot about their set that I think fans of stuff like Battles would get into. Hell, anybody can get into stuff this good. While they were playing I kept thinking to myself they might be the best band in the universe.

Leah got me a bag of gummy centipedes!

Tonight: Ember Schrag, Pennyhawk, Ron Wax, and Nuclear Rodeo at Ames Progressive, 8pm.

So, yeah. Played a pretty decent first Distant Trains set to open up the show on a pretty typically sparsely-attended Wednesday night at the Mews. Went over better than I expected. Todd On Acid is definitely a character. S.E.R.F.’s set was a drunken, technically-plagued mess, but a cool sweeaty rock and roll mess, though I’m not sure they themselves appreciated it as such. Part of rock and roll is playing your songs right, but part of rock and roll is also getting a raucous party vibe going, and they definitely succeeded on the latter. Even when they’re off playing-wise, they’re still a really fun bunch of guys to have up on stage, and I think folks really enjoyed it.

The headliner and definite highlight was The Bassturd. I think he’s always had this show-business-parody angle to what he does, but a lot about his show has tightened up to the point of downright professional, his timing seamless, his array of lighting gadgets, a mix of christmas lights and various Spencer’s Gifts/truck-stop-souvenier material, has gotten impressive enough that he did his set with no stage lighting whatsoever, playing keyboard entirely by touch. Hits such as “Fucking U Down” (with amplified accordion, of course), “Dirty Dirty South,” and “Bling Ballz” were in the set along with Devo covers from his tribute CD The Important Sound Of Things Falling Apart. The audience was mostly established fans very familiar with his material, and he was successfully goaded into doing a bit of “David Geffen Is A Pedophile.” Dan was totally on and in his element, and it was a joy to see him play such a solid show and to hang out with him.

Last night’s show came about as the birthday wish of Kim Hutchison, noted artist and wife of Why Make Clocks frontman Dan Hutchison, that he reunite two of his old bands, the goofball punk of Going To Grandma’s and the bloody-minded prog-punk of Fetal Pig, both featuring brother Jeff Hutchison, and the former also including Jeff’s Blutiger Fluss bandmate Jim Duede. Neither band came with their original bassplayers, however; yours truly did the job for Fetal Pig, opening the evening, easily among the most challenging sets of music I’ve learned and played in my life, and following a second set of no-nonsense rock and roll from Squidboy, Why Make Clocks drummer Will Tarbox took up the bass guitar for Going To Grandma’s, his first performance ever on the instrument. I’d expected GTG to be a fun band, what I hadn’t expected was that they would also be so good. Well written songs with lots of vocal interplay and sing-along choruses.

It’s been intense, playing new and old material for the first time. All humid weather and good times with good people. A lot of folks at last night’s gig seem to think we should play these tunes more often. I’m up for it.

I’m gonna do it kind like the solo gigs I been doing since ’08 or so, with drum machine and looper, but playing bass instead of guitar, and playing it loud and slow and sludgy the way Distant Trains rolls. I could maybe use a bandmate though, for future performances. Maybe someone who plays both drums and spaced-out synthesizers.

The show is at Vaudeville Mews here in Des Moines this Wednesday at about 9:30 pm. The Bassturd is the evening’s headlining attraction, and deservedly so; if you have not seen The Bassturd yet, you really should. The man is a songwriting keyboarding rapping improvising accordioning juggernaut of hilarity, absurdity, and awesome. A past collaborator of The Bassturd is also on the bill, Des Moines O.G. songwriter Todd On Acid, and newfangled local psychobilly outfit S.E.R.F.. I’m not quite sure what the order is other than of course The Bassturd goes on last.

I would have posted this bit of news much earlier but shit has been hectic in Centipede Land. I moved from a rented split-foyer in southeast Des Moines to a cheaper and lower-maintenance apartment in West Des Moines and started a new job as a combination Ruby On Rails programmer and server admin and possible development team lead. It’s the kind of job that forces me to learn a bunch of new shit to keep up, which is the kind of job I like. I went to 80/35, which I’ve already written about. I worked out an apartment-friendly headphone-based practice setup for bass + drum machine. I bought a Stylophone, and that kept me kind of busy for a while. I’m reading about four books at one time. In the process of moving, I unloaded a lot of random, bulky, oddball possessions that I didn’t really have much of a use for any more, but I’ve still got a lot to go. Feel free to make me an offer on a Yamaha CP-30 electronic piano or an epic collection of pencil sharpeners, including a ton of those die-cast metal ones that look like old cars and appliances and shit. The collection of Pascal programming books didn’t sell as well as I had hoped, most ended up in the recycle bin. My Atari 2600 and large collection of cartridges and accessories will be going to the International Video Game Hall Of Fame being started in Ottumwa, Iowa, in hopes that they do in fact appreciate the significance of Chase The Chuckwagon.

Anyway I didn’t start Centipede Farm to be a personal blog, in fact I very expressly started it not to be a personal blog, but you know, I’m sure that’s all interesting shit, and it ties in in some ways with my musical projects. Another rad thing I’ve got going on is the Fetal Pig reunion, which also involves a reunion of yet another classic ’90s Des Moines band, Going To Grandma’s. It will also be happening at the Vaudeville Mews, this Friday, along with another classic Des Moines rock band that needs no reunion because they never went away, Squidboy. Learning Fetal Pig songs, which are these crazy complex riff-fests that sound like a cross between The Minutemen and King Crimson, has been an awesome mind-bending experience and one that I hope will influence my writing for Distant Trains. There is talk that since we’re getting the songs down pretty tight we should go down to Luke’s and record an album.

See you Wednesday and Friday
(Now listening: Sleepy Sun – Fever)