Oh Blake Schwarzenbach, where are you when I need you? Wait a minute, you’ve always been there! Where was I during the JTB era? Still singing Jawbreaker songs.
You go too far. In the atmosphere, you fall apart. More miles than my car’s got on it. That’s pretty far.
What’s best for everyone is bound to hurt somebody. Blood crushed from a clock. Your teeth make me weak and you’re keeping them from MEEEEEEEEEE
No, this is not the video my student made. It’s a cover of the song sung & mixed by some kid on the internet, but I appreciate his creative effort and prefer this video to LCD Soundsystem’s. My student did make a video with this song as the soundtrack, and he did a great job, but I don’t have permission to post it. So I’m posting this. I like the song.
Got a last-minute invite to Newport Folk Fest from my bff Ryry Montpoopy, so we spent Saturday listening to some amazing bands. Here’s a live track from Tegan and Sara. I got to watch from backstage. Which was pretty cool, to say the least.
I have no idea what I’m doing with my life a month from now, but this summer has been great!
Walking with a ghost – Tegan & Sara live at Newport Folk Fest by pazonada
Here’s the (edited) interview I did with Jesse of metaLAB @ Harvard, talking about Zeega, his new platform for interactive documentary production.
To compensate for the fact that the large filling in my upper right molar has actually turned into a morass of decay way too close to the nerve, now necessitating a root canal this week — and I may or may not still need a second, replacement root canal on the bottom left — I decided to go to New York City to see my favorite punk poet Blake Schwarzenbach in his new ensemble, Forgetters. I took my friend H. along, and boy was I glad I was wearing my leather motorcycle jacket because I fit right in with the crowd. Knitting Factory in Brooklyn was a chill venue, and the crowd was not too big (although some people were a little obnoxious, heckling the singers). I was a little shocked at the uncanny resemblance (in silhouette, at least) between the lead singer and Mr. Bobby Dylan a la 1968, but that was due to the slim-fitting clothes and the big curly hair.
As H. commented, “They seem to have lots of personality, all the band members. Which is refreshing, compared to the previous band.”
It’s true. Forgetters seem like nice guys and gals, people you’d love to just eat ribs with. The drummer sold me a homemade t-shirt and was, as we say in Boston, wicked nice. I was very, very excited to see this show, and doubly excited that summer decided to return for the 20 hours I was in New York. My only lamentation is that Reen and BB, my two pals and former roommates who introduced me to Jawbreaker in 1998 and subsequently played their music every morning to wake me up, could not join me at the show (due to newborn babies and/or long-term residencies in Prague). But a fond shout-out to them!
I shot a video of my favorite Forgetters song, Too small to fail, but it wasn’t so great so I just extracted the audio for y’all to hear. Sorry about the few muffled seconds in the middle; I put my camera down on a table because I wanted to jump up and down.
*Post title references a recent blog post by B. Schwarzenbach
Shot some accidentally awesome footage today in the North End. It ended up being a serendipitously perfect fit for one of my favorite Rogue Wave songs, so I put the two together. Voila.
For my workshop class, we have an assignment this week to “get lost” and document the experience. DD convinced me to drive around with him, blindfolded in the passenger’s seat, and call out directions while he drove until we got lost. It pretty much worked, and we ended up at Nut Island in Quincy.
Welcome to episode one of This Bostonian Life. I’ll warn you it’s a little boring to outsiders, as it’s more a mundane and vaguely sentimental commentary on our relationship than an objective documentary about the lost experience. But in case you’re interested, here it is…with some photos below.
