Crynus

I will never not tear up a little during Linus' little Christmas monologue. Luckily I was home alone last night for crying in the chapel volume 25. Then again, I had a meatloaf in the oven with half a red onion in the mix, so I suppose I would have had a good excuse on standby.

I love Christmas a lot.

Inspiration, Perspiration, Jerkspiration, Quirkspiration, Bombs

Chatting with a PR acquaintance of some renown yesterday, I'm asked, "hey, what's the name mean?"

In the spirit of full disclosure, what you got to your left is a total kickass Hogan-era tag team whose name I shamelessly--or whatever the word for 2/3 of shamelessly is--pinched back in the day.

But anyhow, that question got me to thinking on the ways in which a band's a germ, a project, a collective, a force writ large or small. Without naming names, I feel like a *lot* of the local and national bands I've seen and heard over the last couple of years suffer from a crippling, myopic sense of the outlying world as a captive audience at a third-grade arts and crafts festival. It's really rare I'm struck by a band with its pilot light set on purpose; songs feel offhanded, players are stuck in a costumerie, shows feel like toothless, dumb-pumpkin Halloweens. Everyone's shooting for honorable mention: trying and winning's too effortful; second place feels too much like losing, so you end up with a roomful of folks enjoying their own decision to be in a band--at the great, great length of leisure. This isn't what Brian Wilson had in mind when he wondered how nice things would be; it's everything that's wrong with how easy things are on easy street.

All that said, I'm not saying we win, maybe not very often at all in fact. But in conception, in perception, under the great room light of hope, our ideas are meant as fucking bombs, fiery things that couldn't possibly surface in any other form. Whether we work or not, whether *they* work or not, well, that's not for me to say. But thinking on things, I'm pretty frigging happy with how hard we've been working what we want to work.

And more than that, I'm curious what things you all are listening to these days, what things are jumping like hell through your speakers and headphones, what's feeling absolutely undeniable to you all. Lemme know, and thanks for the indulgence.

Tip of the Cap

Maybe this is old news, maybe not, but anyhow...if you enjoy the MC5/Stooges family tree, you owe it to yourself to check out the new Sonic's Rendezvous Band box set. Despite some controversy, it's a pretty fantastic release. For my money, SRB were better than any of their contemporaries and scenemates by degrees.

Slalomly Sware

Office gadfly: "Make sure you vote tomorrow!!!!"

Like Jack Tor S once said, "go fuck yourself, asshole."