In my internet travels I bumped into this fun website, announcing the formation of a cycling dixieland band. Go check it out for more details.

———-

Join the world’s first biking dixieland band!

I’m putting together a dixieland band on wheels! All I’ve got so far is myself and my ridiculous idea – so I’m looking for some solid musicians who are also keen cyclists.

We won’t play while riding, but we should be able to carry all of our kit on bikes so we can participate in group rides, parades, and community events. This will be easier for some than others, but I will be riding my Christiania cargo trike, with plenty of room for an amp and some other unwieldy equipment.

I anticipate that most of our summer performances will be at outdoor events relating to cycling in some way, but as we progress musically, we may also take on gigs without the bikes. I’d like to start rehearsing in February so we’re ready to go this Spring.

I’ve got trombone covered, but here are the other players I need:

* Trumpet
* Clarinet/tenor sax
* Guitar/banjo
* Bass/tuba
* Piano
* Drums

More here

This looks interesting, free music at least.

———–

Friday, November 20 at the Eliconia House, (32 Mansfield St, Allston) 7pm-ish

The Eliconia house is throwing an open mic/benefit…party! Our goal is to raise some money so we can buy important (and kinda expensive) bicycle tools. Then we can have open hours for folks to come by and use the tools to fix their own bike, and more importantly LEARN how to fix their own bike. Eventually we will host workshops and other informative bike-related activities! Bikes are fun, good for you, and good for the earth! So, come and support the project… bring some donations (money, bike tools, GOOD bike parts)

If you wish to perform (which would be rad!), please show up on the earlier side, closer to 7, so we can organize the musical acts.
Bicycle-themed performances are encouraged

As usual, no bad vibes, illegal drugs, or oppressive behavior. We thank you and love you very much.

peace,
-D.Scan

–
Dave Scandurra
www.myspace.com/excitedpeople
www.myspace.com/changethroughmusic

Like music? Like bikes? Like the blues? Check this email I just got.

———–

Bike to the Sea’s Bicycle Blues – this Sat, Nov 14

Bicycle Blues! a fantastic night featuring “Melanie and the Blue Shots”, all to benefit the Northern Strand Community Trail which will pass through Everett, Malden, Revere, Saugus, and Lynn. A great band for a great cause. This is a rare Boston area appearance for this beloved central Mass band.

Whether you like to dance or listen to good blues, come support this all-purpose trail. Sat. Nov. 14, 8-11pm at First Parish in Malden, 2 Elm St., three blocks west of the Malden Center T. $15. Free parking in the Beebe School lot. Cash bar and snacks. Go to http://www.biketothesea.com Annual meeting will be held at 7.

This trail will be a wonderful addition to the area. Imagine a trail for walking and biking, for all ages, and free for all. And the band is fantastic! Melanie grew up in this area and she is coming back with her band especially to help the trail.

In 1989, my friend who sat next to me in 10th grade English class went to see the Pixies. The next day she kept muttering to herself that she still had buzzing in her ears. She said she’d been standing on some speakers, and clearly didn’t wear earplugs. That was as close as I got to seeing the Pixies, but I’ve tried to make up for it by seeing bands that Kim Deal or Frank Black/Black Francis are in. Grand Duchy came through Boston in July and I wasn’t super impressed. Mind you, I was also probably drunk. But last night I had the pleasure of attending another Breeders show, and it was fun.

I bought the first Breeders record when I was a sophomore in college and was immediately taken with their version of “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” At the time, I had a bit of a thing for what I might call “cathartic” music, which consisted largely of Henry Rollins and Nine Inch Nails (I’m glad I didn’t go much farther down that path! I’ve sold off all those CDs now.), and that Breeders song hit the spot. I probably played it over and over again, to the horror of my upstairs neighbor, who frequently came downstairs to ask me for volume reductions.

I bought “The Last Splash” the next year on cassette while I was studying in Paris. I specifically remember sitting and listening to it for the first time on one of those classic Paris benches one morning in the 7th arrondissement, while waiting to do a tour of the Rodin Museum with my class on Paris architecture. I was feeling pretty content with my ability to negotiate living in France that particular morning. Until a substitute for our regular teacher showed up to give the talk, and not a single other student came that day – it was right before spring break. So instead I got a personalized tour from an awkward fellow who I recall stood way too close to me and had bad breath. It was excruciating. In retrospect, I believe that I wasn’t very confident about my command of the French language, though my comprehension was always okay, so I wonder if asked a single question of him. As an adult English speaker, I ask people lots of questions, but as a barely-out-of-her-teens student with a shaky grasp on French, I bet I made almost no spontaneous conversation with other people, ever.

Last year I went to see the Breeders at the Paradise, pronouncing that I would be satisfied if they played “Happiness is a Warm Gun” – and they did. Since they followed that up with “Cannonball,” and seemed to genuinely enjoy playing songs that people know and like, I can only assume that the Deal sisters are not sick to death of their hits. They know on which side their bread is buttered. On the other hand, Frank Black/Black Francis didn’t honor the Middle East Downstairs audience with a single Pixies song. Granted, the band wasn’t the Pixies, but still, his legacy is a large part of what brings people to see his new band with his new wife (who resembles a young Kim Deal rather a lot).

I had the same complaint when I went to see Wire last October in the same venue; they insisted on playing almost exclusively new stuff, which I had made an effort to buy and listen to, and bypassed their old classics. Just one “Fly in the Ointment,” I told my friend I attended the show with, and the fact that their sound was hideously sludgy might be forgiven. Nope! And one more – the Kills, who I saw recently at the Paradise, also refused to play the song that I think is the best on their newest record, “What New York Used To Be.” Come on, folks, know your strengths! Play to them!

Thanks, Kim and Kelley and band.

In the past week, I had the opportunity to see two bands that released amazing records in or around 1980, one of the most important years in my record collection (another is 1987).

On Wednesday it was Wire at the Middle East. Their first three records (“Pink Flag,” “Chairs Missing,” “154″) assemble a variety of different-sounding songs, with each subsequent record reaching in slightly different directions. I like them, but I don’t love them. But I felt I needed to go, being that they are an “influential” band and all. I also bought their last two records, one released this year (“Send,” “Object 47″) – and I can’t say I love them either. They’re both a bit less varied and unusual sounding, with the former sounding rather assaultive and the latter a bit like one single song. As for the show – I got there early, dutifully arriving at 9ish, and found there would be a DJ until 10:30 when the band went on. That meant I had at least a beer more than I needed while waiting.

At the Middle East, I always have a hard time seeing the band (being short of stature) unless I stand on the raised bit to the left side of the stage. However, the sound is poor in that spot, as you’re getting walloped by the speakers from only one side of the stage. I had the sense this evening that the sound was particularly sludgy, as I couldn’t make out lyrics or really tell the difference between the sound of one song and the next. It was just a wall of bass. At the end of the show, I moved to the middle of the floor to see if the sound was better there, and I can’t say that it was. Apparently the band played mostly new stuff, and I suppose that I wasn’t sufficiently prepared, as I recognized none of it. And, with a show ending around midnight, I was asleep on my feet. Which is not Wire’s fault. I had had an unusually busy day that day anyway.

Saturday saw the Feelies at the Roxy. I had spent part of the day trying to sell an extra ticket on Craigslist, and had a buyer in the form of an excitable 21-year-old and his friend. I felt like I had done a good job selling to them – they both stood front and center, right at the monitors, and the boy asked lead singer Glenn Mercer for his guitar pick at the end of the show, which I thought was adorably hero-worshipful for a young man who was young enough to have been Mercer’s son.

As for the show, the sound was much better (as is often the case at the Roxy) and since the band started around 8:30, I was awake and willing to wiggle my way down front. I gotta say, I love these shows where the majority of the audience is even older than myself, as I can be sure that I won’t be knocked down my any stage diving or crushed by moshing. Yes, I think I am old.

I am pleased to report that it was a really good show. They played loads from “Crazy Rhythms” and “Only Life,” two records that I quite admire, and even added in a few new songs. The band was rehearsed within an inch of their lives – they played better together after a hiatus of many years than many extant bands I’ve seen on regular tour.  My only sadness: they didn’t play my favorite of their songs, “Moscow Nights.” I don’t know what it is about these bands reuniting and playing in Boston and not playing my favorite songs; for example, when the Go-Betweens came on their “Friends of Rachel Worth” tour, they didn’t play “Cattle and Cane.” The Go-Betweens song sits definitively within my top ten favorite songs – “Moscow Nights” is close.

Getting home at 11pm, I appreciated the early night, thanks to the Roxy turning into a dance night after the old rockers go home. And I have been re-listening to the Feelies records and appreciating them even more. Some have been re-released, some not yet, so look for them! I just have copies of vinyl, transferred to CD and then moved to iPod, so the sound could probably be better.

And no, I went to neither Gloucester cyclocross race. I decided that it would be more fun for me to ride my bike than to drive somewhere to watch other people ride their bikes. Sorry, local riders.

The Ginger Ninjas, who are traveling the world on bicycle, are going to be in Boston! And Tomorrow (Thursday) night they will be presenting a workshop about their bicycle powered Sound System and giving us a concert too! It will be going down from 7pm-12 at 32 Mansfield St, Allston. , so give David a call if you have any more questions at 774-994-0333. Check out the Ginger Ninjas’ Myspace for some videos and more about what they do. http://www.myspace.com/gingermyninja

Another “s”? Yes; it’s true. I am continuing on a quest that has occupied me for more than a year: listening to every song on my iPod in alphabetical order by song. I get distracted from time to time for a month or so. But I’m still in “s.”

Which letter has the most songs? No question, really. It’s the letter “I.”

And some other “s” songs:

And more:

This was today’s greatest hit while listening to my iPod out on my bike. Yes, I do listen to music when I’m riding. The horror, the horror. I can hear the cars, and I am far out from the city when I do it. And it makes me happy. So please lay off the scolding.

Watch this delightful video to learn all about the Large Hadron Collider, which will start performing experiments in the big ol’ particle accelerator in Switzerland/France tomorrow, its first day of service.

Okay, apparently the YouTube window broke my website, so just click here.

Love this tune

Carrie Brownstein, a member of Sleater-Kinney (one of my favorite bands of all time, now on ‘indefinite hiatus,’ whatever that means exactly), has a very nice blog over at NPR. Her current posting addresses The Replacements, one of my favorite bands of my youth, and apparently hers too. She puts it: “Paul Westerberg’s lyrics …. have an adult acuity sung in an adolescent idiom.” Yay for alliteration.

She kindly pulled out a few choice lyrics from some classic ‘Mats tunes, which brought me back to one of my endless internal debates: which Replacements song to include in my internally ranked top ten songs of all time?

“Within Your Reach,” a sweet, sad little song with an unfortunate canned drum and a dribbling off at the end? “Can’t Hardly Wait” or “I Will Dare,” both poppy and giddy? “Alex Chilton,” rock-ola? “Left of the Dial”? “Bastards of Young”? “Answering Machine”? Ah, so many.

Talk about giddy; I am still a silly fan. I observed in the comments section of Carrie’s piece that she misused an apostrophe in the possessive of the band’s name. She noted and changed it right away. Me! Carrie Brownstein! Same universe!

Now back to being 34 years old again – cranky, bitter, and anything but giddy.

2008 has come upon us and I never bothered to get around to creating my own “best of”s to add to the ubiquitous 2007 year-end lists. I thought at least I could assemble a list of my top five favorite songs. I can only come up with a few songs that I listened to obsessively during the year, so I guess they will do. Not all came out in 2007, of course.

Husker Du – Diane (from 1983!)
Kings of Leon – Knocked Up
LCD Soundsystem – Someone Great
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Down Boy (oh hell, their whole EP was great)
The Gossip – Standing in the Way of Control

I also liked:
Against Me! – Thrash Unreal
Cold War Kids – Hang Me Up to Dry

Hm, I guess I’m still rock ‘n roll after all.

I ride my bike with an iPod. I wear both headphones. But since the Apple headphones totally don’t fit in my ears (I guess I have defective ears), I bought the kind that hang from the top of my ears. This conflicts mightily with my glasses, and the whole thing kind of flaps in the wind anyway. So to all those folks who rail against listening to music while riding, I assure you that I can hear cars and wind and birds and cell phones and everything. I never use it in the city, and I turn it off at complex intersections. And without it I would go absolutely stark raving mad, which is really undesirable.

That’s right, the iPod is a necessary participant in long base rides. Especially for someone so obsessive about music as myself. I can mull over what year specific records were released, who produced them, when various bands changed members, how X band sounds surprisingly a lot like Y other band on certain songs, etc., etc. Ah, the anxiety of influence. That could keep me going for weeks. Does the new Fratellis record sound like the Clash on that track, or the Rolling Stones on the other one?

This week’s “plug” is for the new LCD Soundsystem record. Particularly track 4 and 5, “Someone Great” and “All My Friends.” The rest of the record is repeatably-techno-y enough, mixed with actual melody, to make long rides into happy rides. Especially when there is sun.

Which there isn’t today, so I may return to my “24″ marathon and see if I can’t finish season 5 while riding the trainer.

Yes, I’ve already endured those cute songs by the Postal Service as background music for some unusually upbeat and up-to-date ads for …. the U.S. Postal Service.

But I was a bit surprised to hear the stellar late chorus from the New Pornographer’s “The Bleeding Heart Show” as the soundtrack for the University of Phoenix’s online coursework. That is a fucking amazing bit of a song. It’s rare that I can say that I prefer the second half of a song – usually one just likes the whole thing, right? With this song, I like the first bit, the middle bit, and the end bit, but I particularly like the end bit. Nice that that’s the part that the University of Phoenix bought.

How does being on this ad help the New Pornographers? Do they get new listeners? How can one find the source of the music in an ad, anyway?

Well, I wish the band the best, no matter what they advertise. I reserve the right to place limits on “whatever they advertise,” however, in the future, should they choose something less desirable.

1) Upon returning from my trip to the south, Boston’s temperatures in the low- to mid-30s actually seem quite balmy. I traded my winter cycling shoes for the warmer-season shoes and felt fine. I guess a couple of weeks of riding in eight to 10 degrees makes 30s feel a bit warm.

2) Leipheimer at Tour of California. Okay, so there was that thing about the neutralized finish that kept him in the lead. But let’s be reasonable. This is the second year of the race. They need a local hero. If Jens Voight had won the race, it woulda been awesome (who doesn’t love him?), but it wouldn’t have helped the cause of making a new American race into a bigger American race quite as much. Awesome to see Bettini working so hard (apparently) to win a stage in the rainbow jersey on American soil (keeping my eyes on that prodigy Gerald Ciolek). Also great to see two former/current racers from American teams winning a few stages: J.J Haedo with two, Ivan Dominguez with one. I’m keen to see how Haedo matches up against the Euro sprinters.

3) Tour of Georgia and [whatever the hell is] the U.S. Open Cycling Championships don’t have money lined up yet to assure that the races can take place. Bummer! Georgia was a fun race, is it just in jeopardy because of (snore) Lance’s retirement? Let’s not forget that in the inaugural year, this race was won by Chris Horner. Remember that he won the Tour of Langkawi? He’s kind of accomplished, after all. Somehow those details don’t stay long in memory.

4) Dotsie Bausch in the Geelong Women’s Tour in New Zealand. A lady from Kentucky beating former (and current?) world champions in a short time trial. Good for her. She would have been on the podium too, if not for a crash in the final stage. See, in NZ they don’t fix the results to cover all potential crashes.

5) Yes, it’s true that I am following the cycling press again. In fact, I am just now catching up on the pile of VeloNewses that had collected over the last year, lying unread until recently. Hey, isn’t it cool that Basso won the Giro? I’m only just now finding out that Landis won the Tour. Awesome! Don’t tell me how the season ends!

6) Records. Very keen on the new record by the Gossip. I saw them open for the Butchies, who in turn opened for Sleater-Kinney, years ago at the Middle East. That woman has an awesome 80s voice. And they have a remix album! How unexpected, considering their original sound. The Broken West, I liked the record but I don’t have a good analysis of exactly why just yet. Art Brut, funny stuff in the first half of the record. Love that British wit.

7) Cartoons for those who follow the international cycling scene here. Check it out. Anyone who goes out of their way to make fun of Salvatore Commesso makes me happy.

8 ) More rain and slop for Boston. Jolly. I might as well throw in the towel and start eating triple cheeseburgers for lunch every day.

I think that will be my new [imaginary] band name. I keep getting flat tires when I should be a half-hour from home, but due to wrestling with tire/tube/glass/weak hands, I have to ride the last bit in the pitch black. Nice!

Still, not a bad idea for a band name. I made a list once of all the bands I could think of with conjunctions in the title: Guided by Voices, Heavens to Betsey, Built to Spill, Shudder to Think, Apples in Stereo, etc. How about an “at”?

Of course, a name alone isn’t all that’s needed …

I like making up “best of” lists in my head all the time, so what better time to project that globally than the year end, when all the newspapers and magazines will be following suit?

I’ve been listening to an iPod a lot while riding my bike. That and whenever I drive, which isn’t a lot. So mostly I have been mulling music lists while I ride.

This is a sample effort at a year-end list of top favorite songs. They will not necessarily, and probably won’t, actually have been released this year.

In no particular order:

Ballboy – Ghosts of New Orleans
Joy Division – Disorder
The Knife – Neverland
New Order – Doubts Even Here
Delta 5 – Journey
The Flatmates – Shimmer

I reserve the right to expand and contract this list multiple times in the next two weeks.