4/27/04

Top Twelve Preoccupations of the Moment:
1. Electrelane
2. 50 -foot wave e.p., particularly songs 2, 3 & 6
3. live rock music
4. playing the aforementioned live rock music, esp. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY
5. Mr. & Mrs. Dawursk of Chicago IL
6. micro-analysis of Misfits lyrics
7. Mission of Burma "on/off/on" (again)
8. the Soundgarden (an excellent real-life independent record store here in Baltimore - even though they didn't have Os Mutantes when I went in there looking for it today)
9. people and their dogs in the park
10. the Mark Steiner Show on WYPR
11. Atom Egoyan's film "Exotica"
12. "Shattered Glass" DVD featuring the 60 minutes interview w. Stephen Glass

4.9.04
Just back from 10 delightful days in Athens GA, mixing songs for the upcoming Dropsonic record with David Barbe and Dan Dixon from the band. David's studio, Chase Park Transduction, is great - I think it's got one of the best, most "trustworthy" control rooms I've ever experienced. And his recording of Dropsonic is so good, and the songs and performances are so strong, it was nothing but a blast (made even better of course by the presence of Dr. Robert - travelling with my dog is even cooler than I thought it would be). I have often thought of Athens as just a so-so place to play shows, because there are so many bands there that everyone's a little jaded & people don't really come out or let themselves get into it that much when they do ... but overall, what a great place to go hang out. Or to live for that matter. Anyway kudos to David and Dan, and to the mysterious man behind the curtain, Dallas Austin, who produced the record and who is putting it out on his new label ... but who I never actually met! And honorable mention to the Hot Corner cafe for being dog-friendly and serving up the daily Red Eye.
Thanks to my time in Athens: I will definitely be buying at least one AT 4047 in the near future. And a square kick drum beater. And I will definitely work a little harder on channelling Glyn Johns next time I mic a drum kit.
So ... driving home yesterday (about an 11-hour trip), I listened to a fair amount of Condoleeza Rice's testimony to the 9/11 commission on C-Span Radio, and it occurs to me that they are now saying that they did know a spectacular domestic terror attack was coming - they actually knew it as they took office - and of course they give a lot of reasons for why they missed the exact nature of the threat etc etc, but does anyone remember right after 9/11, when they were saying that they had had NO idea anything like this was coming? I seem to remember a lot of throwing up of hands and claims to have been taken totally by surprise. But now everyone talks about the "summer of threat," and all these pre-9/11 memoranda about a domestic terror attack, as if it was all common knowledge. I guess what I'm asking is, how can we see this and not realize that these people are lying in our faces and that they do it pretty much as a matter of policy? This election can't come fast enough for me. We have got to get them OUT. Some of these jokers have made a career of abusing the public trust since the Nixon era; it seems like a good enough run to me. Why not retire and let someone else take a crack at it?

current favorite things:
1. Mark Eitzel's voice
2. everything about Big Heavy Stuff
3. the Forms
4. Little Labs In-Between Phase box
5. Sandy Creek Park
6. a little bit of Maker's Mark in a mug with lots of ice, consumed slowly and repeatedly
7. India Rasoi, which I think is the best Indian restaurant in Baltimore
8. Disc 1 of Physical Graffitti
9. Ampeg Geminis
10. coming home