Testing...

The Climax Denial test pressings arrived this week and the record sounds great. The test was approved yesterday and the vinyl should arrive in about a week, or so. Basically, on schedule.

Isidro and I recorded today, and while it was meant to be material for The Fortieth Day, there was certainly a strong A Vague Disquiet element to what we did. This whole thing has been a bit bi-polar from the start - not that you would get that from the final results - but it is pretty exciting and challenging to figure out, nonetheless.

We also reviewed the lyrics for the BLOODYMINDED "Within The Walls" CD, which are really coming along nicely. Six songs are basically written now, and that might do it for the songs that have "straightforward" lyrics.

Isidro had scored some free tickets to see Jesu on Thursday, so we went to the show at Metro. While I have not exactly been in love with this band, the music made much more sense to me in a live setting, where it was bigger sounding... loud, thick, and distorted - and it enveloped you and crushed you more so than listening to any of their CDs at home has done to me, thus far.

Our April tour itinerary has been updated here, along with a growing electronic trail of bad behavior...However, that message board will be cloding in about a week, so please check the new itinerary here.

Upcoming shows...

In between bouts of report writing, I am also sorting out a bunch of upcoming shows. Here is a quick look at the schedule:

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Friday March 30
Noise Crush + The Fortieth Day
The Flowershop
Chicago, IL
With: Mike Miles, Jon Satrom, and Swift

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Saturday March 31
BLOODYMINDED
The Flowershop
Chicago, IL
With: Carlos Giffoni, Prurient, and Burning Star Core

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Friday April 6
Mark Solotroff solo
"viral:CULTURE"
Columbia College
Chicago, IL
With: Aaron Dilloway and Dave Fischoff

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TERMINAL PHASE LUNA TOUR 2007
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BLOODYMINDED (Chicago, IL)
Charlie Draheim (Detroit, MI)
Climax Denial (Milwaukee, WI)
Silvum (Champaign, IL)
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Monday April 16
Elastic Arts Foundation
2830 N. Milwaukee Ave (2nd Floor)
Chicago, IL 60618
773.772.3616
http://www.elasticrevolution.com/
With: TBA
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Tuesday April 17
Cafe Bourbon Street
2216 Summit St.
Columbus, OH 43201
614.268.9377
http://www.myspace.com/cafebourbonstreet
With: Envenomist
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Wednesday April 18
The Frowny Bear
208 Forest Park Road
Lexington, KY 40503
http://www.myspace.com/thefrownybear
With: Cadaver In Drag + Caves
$5.00 Suggested Donation
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Thursday April 19
Eyedrum
290 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. SE, Suite 8
Atlanta, GA 30312
404.522.0655
www.eyedrum.org/
With: Withered
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Friday April 20 + Saturday April 21
No Future Fest
http://www.freewebs.com/nofuturefest
Nightlight
405 1/2 West Rosemary Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919.933.5550
http://www.nightlightclub.com/
(BLOODYMINDED, Charlie Draheim,
Climax Denial, and Silvum all
play on Saturday)
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Sunday April 22
The Bank
2013 Frederick Ave.
Baltimore, MD 21223
With: Leslie Keffer, Macronympha,
Villa Valley, Haunted Castle,
Glamorous Pat, Door + DJ Dog Dick
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Monday April 23
TBA
Philadelphia, PA
With: Air Conditioning, Leslie Keffer
+ Macronympha
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Tuesday April 24
Embassy
7209 St. Clair Ave.
Cleveland, OH 44103
With: Tusco Terror + Ralph Hausmann
and Bee Mask collaboration
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Saturday April 28
Mark Solotroff
Solo + collaboration with Bruce Lamont (of Yakuza)
Hotti Biscotti
Chicago, IL
With: TBA

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Monday April 30
Mark Solotroff solo
Location TBA
Chicago, IL
With: Winters In Osaka

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Saturday May 19
Mark Solotroff solo or collaboration
Location TBA
Chicago, IL

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Friday May 25
BLOODYMINDED
Location TBA
Chicago, IL
With: Birds Of Delay and Emeralds

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Note:
BLOODYMINDED will no longer be playing on
Saturday May 26 with Gerritt/Sixes/Deathroes
at Nihilist

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Mail Order - Status

I completed two post office runs, yesterday and today, so all mail-order business is up-to-date.

Thanks to everyone who has been in touch already, in regards to the April BLOODYMINDED tour.

Last night, Isidro and I went to see Mark Burgess - formerly of The Chameleons - play with his new band, Bird. It was a really great show. He dos not disappoint, live. The opening band, Rescue Mission, were really solid, to. They have a strong Blacklist, Interpol, The Chameleons, The Sound, etc., thing going on. They did a cover of "View From A Hill" and Mark jumped on stage to sing with them, and rather surprisingly, they followed with a cover of "Winning" by The Sound, which was great to hear played live. It is a major influence on, and element of, most of my solo live shows.

Pierpaolo Zoppo was kind enough to send me a copy of the lavish new Broken Flag box set on Vinyl On Demand, which I am just digging into. This is a pretty astounding vinyl collection.

I also received the excellent new Sutcliffe Jugend CD - "This Is The Truth" - from Dominick at Hospital Recordings. Vicious!

April Tour Dates

Initial details for the April BLOODYMINDED tour have been posted in this thread. Updates and additional details will be posted as they become available.

New show added for The Fortieth Day

From: http://www.buskerchicago.com/

Media.Obscura :: Thuamatropes

Friday, March 30, 2007 8:00 PM

Media|Time.artz are being constantly remixed and reframed as devices of institutional critiques, expressive modes of individual|personal hystories, and investigations of plasticity and medium malleability. MEDIA OBSCURA aims at locating a pinhole to allow for these conversations to flood into focus through lens-less instances of art|media making. In making an obvious reference to the tool that inspired cinema|photography, MEDIA OBSCURA will gravitate away from those origins, and create a point of entry purposefully made to diffuse the upside-down to the point of proper obscurity. The event will consists of live|realTime performances, and single channel screenings that will hopefully disrupt expectations of clarity that an otherwise proper camera obscura would give.

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Media.Obscura :: Thaumatropes
BUSKER
2159 West 21st Place
03.30.07 8PM
FREE & Open

Screenings and Performances by:

Mike Miles
jon.satrom
Swift
Noise Crush + The Fortieth Day

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BUSKER presents a night of screenings and performances by local chicago artists in its first instance of it's new curatorial platform Media.Obscura compiled by Nicholas O'Brien. In attempting to create a duologue between NewMedia/Time.art/Web.art/Live A|V/video installation and their critical implications (or cultural influences), O'Brien creates a space where issues involving "source" become considered when thinking about how to engage with work of this sort. In appropriating the terminology on "arcane" technology, the project hopes to invoke discussions/conversations that reflect ideas of media archeology as hytorical references that might contribute to the works formulation. The infrastructure of Media arts and technology has obviously evolved since the days of the Camera Obscura, however O'Brien suggests that the fundamental processes involved in [New]Media making are actually not as disparate as suggested by the idea of "progress." The artist used the camera obscura as a technology of both recording and observing the world and using those to create art. The Media.Obscura essentially does the same, however the lens that contemporary artists use is one that has becomes purposefully fractured and allows for a multi-logue to occur.

The Thuamatrope was a toy that played with persistence of vision by having a card spin on a piece of string when pulled. In this vein, BUSKER will host a night where the string and the card have been substituted for other Media, but where artists Mike Miles, jon.satrom, Swift (aka Alex Inglizian and Alex Faulk), and Noise Crush (aka Lisa Slodki) + The Fortieth Day (aka Isidro Reyes and Mark Solotroff) might be able to rekindle the optical illusions the thuamatrope gave us.

Xavier's Cold Shower

Xavier Laradji was recently interviewed on the French radio show, Douche Froide. The playlist from that show can be found here.