Every day between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Cory Alan and Mr. Furious are posting to the MFR [blog], publishing year-end thoughts and post that slipped out of the regular rotation. Mr. Furious Records – Giving You Music.

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Hear Cory Alan and echoes in concert tonight at the Zoo Bar in Lincoln, NE, 9:30 pm – $5?
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Seeing friends, meeting D-Rockets, and hearing The Return are all equally valid reasons for a trip to Lincoln, NE.

The Return are masterful onstage, ripping through their punk-tinged pop songs but stretching out the reggae jams and improvisitory building/releasing between studio cuts. I would dance, I would listen, my jaw would hit the floor, and time didn’t mean a thing.

Danger Danger Silent Stranger is a record you don’t have to trust me on; you can listen to the whole thing at dangerdanger.com. Then you will probably love it. The songs have in common: killer melodies (straight for the jugular), island-level rhythmic push (thanks Mike & everybody), and a clean, punchy mix that shows off The Return’s off-the-charts musicality. They diverge in influence (from reggae to punk, ska, The Police, and Cream) and subject matter (love, war, apartment living, pandas). It is beautiful, and the band wants you to hear it for free – !!!111

Enough Return for me? Of course not – as the band swung back towards sunny CA, they visited Leavenworth KS (a full hour of suburbia from Raytown… grr); Nick and I tripped to the GroundWorks, a youth-oriented “coffeehouse” (read; an empty room with a stage, some XBoxes, and weird fruity energy drinks). About twelve kids were there for the opening band, two high school kids with acoustic guitars doing obscene punk covers – quite charming. Derek was fragging kids left and right in Halo2; I sat down next to him and we talked before The Return hit the stage.

The band played well and included two new songs, one of which was a reggae jam written days earlier on tour in Iowa. The other was really intense technically, with about a thousand different parts, yet it rocked bodies. Seeing The Return a second time made me say to myself, “I better find a different way to be awesome, because I’ll never be that good at guitar / jam like that / write those songs.”

It’s strange how really good bands make me want to simultaneously quit music and make more + better. Frustration and inspiration at once. On the other hand, I saw Psychadelic Furs open for Death Cab for Cutie a couple weeks ago; they were so bad, I couldn’t help but think “I’m already this good!”

Every day between Christmas and New Year’s Day, Cory Alan and Mr. Furious are posting to the MFR [blog], publishing year-end thoughts and items that slipped out of the regular rotation. Mr. Furious Records – Giving You Music.

One holiday tradition at my house is to make pecan tassies. These brilliant bites of pastry are like tiny pecan pies; the nuts, filling, and crust formed in mini-muffin tins. Simple. There is only one tricky bit to making them; shaping the crust.

After the dough is made, it is rolled into balls which are put in the mini-muffin tins and chilled on the back porch (we live in Nebraska). Then, to create the crust shape, you press your thumb into the center of the dough ball, and begin forming the dough to the outside of the tin, making a tiny pie crust. There are two dangers; spreading the dough too thin, and working the dough too much.

The heat of your hands affects the dough, making it hard (impossible, really) to shape. If you work the dough for too long, your tassie-crust quickly becomes thin or gets holes. You can’t patch it up; the dough is already too far gone to work in that way. The tassie-crust-shaping is truly do-or-die. An effective shaper is one who moves both decisively (doesn’t work the dough too much) and sensitively (doesn’t spread it too thin).

Mixing a song is the same for me. I have a tendency to want to over-work the song, tweaking every track’s EQ and reverb, making tiny adjustments to the mastering settings, pushing the technical aspects of the mix until I’ve lost all track of the song’s story. Like the tassie crust, my hands cause temperature-related damage that is not reversible; all you can do is start over.

Obsessive listeners will know this happened with the Fireflies sessions I did with The Shaft. Rob and I recorded together in summer 2002, and I mixed that record over and over and over. The result was thin; not a pleasant pastry. This fall, when I noticed that those mixes were still up on Rob’s MySpace, I took an afternoon off and remixed half (the punk half) of Fireflies. I was decisive (didn’t over-work) and sensitive (didn’t over-cut); the result was a big, warm, energetic sound.

Over time, I’m getting better at knowing when to quit. I think the mixing/mastering work on Be A Ska Rat will show that; you’ll have to let me know if it tastes sweet. Lesson learned, Pecan Tassie. I salute your wisdom and deliciousness.

I finished my new EP, Be A Ska Rat, this morning (24th, though I’m posting after midnight). That is the news. I got to play it for Mary in the car on the way to church, she is the only one to hear it yet. We will release it in very early January, when I am back from Nebraska. Merry Christmas.

Cory and I will be doing some mad blogging – six posts in six days, starting the day after Christmas until New Year’s Eve. While the ladies at Pitchfork have closed up shop for the year, we’ll be sweating over our keyboards to give you something to read while you use the internet as a break from your crazy family.

We know you love them though. And us. We love you back.

-h

Part of our site statistics package for mrfuriousrecords.com tells me what pages users came from when clicking links to MFR. This [blog], our MySpace page, and the link at kcspucc.org are always represented.

Lately, some new folks have been coming over from the pages linked below. It’s kind of cool to feel a little buzz, and know that new listeners are hearing MFR. Check it out; just like all of Pitchfork‘s darlings, we’re getting big in Europe!

http://www.fokus-energie-systeme.de/aue/seiten/news.html

http://www.starfrosch.ch/starfrosch/module-Pagesetter-viewpub-tid-7-pid-1462.html

http://blog.livedoor.jp/egal/ – check the post on Dec. 13.

http://chiffre.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_chiffre_archive.html

http://www.freihafen.net/index.php or http://www.freihafen.net/2005/11/26/mr-furious-records/

http://ronsens.de/machtdose/netlabels/

The full disclosure that many of you already know is that the men of More Than Yesterday are friends of mine. If you and I have ever talked about the band, you may also have realized that I hold them to a higher standard than other musicians, because of their album You Make Your Own Self Fall. It is a brilliant, flawless piece of catchy, emotional hardcore that dropped into me with more weight than anything else during a musically formative time for me. What I’m trying to tell you is that I’m well-equipped to write about MTY’s new record, and also the hue and saturation of the lens I view it through.

(Ups to the guys for streaming the whole record from morethanyesterday.com.

Fourth track “Somebody Saved” is far and away the best tune MTY has produced since You Make Your Own Self Fall. The chorus explodes out into the open air, guitar soaring while the bass simultaneously drops away, and Russ makes simple words and accessible emotions sound fresh and deep. It’s viscereal, vital music; at their best, MTY are entirely capable of taking listeners to these heights.

“Take A Breath” plays back and forth with minor/major frames. It also has a new, vaguely sexy quality that surprised me; maybe it’s been lurking under the surface in others’ ears, but not in mine until now. “It’s alright to watch you walk away this time” – one of the best lines on the album, saying the opposite of what is expected from hardcore; peace & acceptance rather than angst.

“As I Am” and “Breakdown” are the two tracks repeated from More Than Yesterday’s last disc (as Blacklight Sunshine), A Thousand Miles of Hope and Sorrow. Both are solid but not spectacular; “Breakdown” includes one that eclipses the original version. “Not Enough” is a sort of aggressive tone poem, with a repititious guitar figure and lyrics that forgo obvious verse/chorus structure and dynamics.

“So Beautiful” is hobbled by lyrics that are a hodgepodge of plain, tired hardcore phrases. “Should I blame it on my friends?” contains an obvious answer to its own question; that it is even asked aloud is lazy. Of course not; write a better line, it’s clear that Russ knows better! “Hard To Fight It”, “Savior”, and “The Last Time” have the same sticking point; good music, utilitarian melody, 10th grade poetry.

(Except for the bridge of “The Last Time,” which is killer – when I hear “And by my hand, I swear, there will never be a last time…” I’m gripped by the sheer audacity, love, and futility of those words.)

The album is almost entirely faithful to the band’s live show, with very few overdubs. Except for the closer, “Bodies,” and it hurts to say that the song suffers for it. The demo was only guitar/voice for the first three minutes, and after that had the same airborne quality as “Somebody Saved” (appropriate – the beauty of its vision caused me to reconsider the idea of heaven, which I had abandoned; I have, since hearing the demo, gained new theological langauge and understanding that 1) makes the concept consonant with the scientific parts of my worldview, 2) refutes the theology of the song, and 3) has only increased its meaning to me!).

BLS/MTY has always been at their strongest when their intensity/frustration is heard as part of a process, a working-through towards personal and relational wholeness (at least, less brokenness than at the start). And their strongest music is some of the most important to me, ever.

But in terms of potential compared to realization, Graced By Silence is a dissapointment. I’ve copped to the fact that my standards are incredibly high. These artists are capable of such stunning work as You Make Your Own Self Fall, “Somebody Saved,” and the “Bodies” demo. Then to release a finished work that contains “Hard To Fight It,” I can’t help but feel that most of Graced By Silence lacks the depth and intentionality that could have made it great.

howie&scott‘s piece “At its Rising” is part of Mr. Furious Records’ XMAS compliation, released today at mrfuriousrecords.com.

This musical venture is “free jazz,” meaning there are virtually no rules. In free jazz, musicians take many liberties concerning harmony and tempo in the improvisation. Within this realm of music, the concept of “At its Rising” is to portray the setting of the Christmas star in an impressionistic way. Even though the improvisation lacks a specific form it does have two main sections. The beginning section represents the gift and sacrifice from God to the earth, as the latter portion depicts the newborn star as it gleams in the world.

The piece begins with the sounds of Earth. At 0:53, a descending melodic motion indicates God’s gift of presence from above; incarnation in the form of a baby. This passage includes all twelve tones of the tonal system, representing the universality of the gift. The absence of time (tempo) indicates the eternal qualities of this gift, and its Giver. From 1:29-45, a low note grounds the presence firmly in our world. Then, a star begins to glimmer; the ascending pattern of notes is coming-into-being, familiar in an unexpectedly new way. Time starts in the latter section (2:34) as a tempo/beat is set and the star finds its place in the world. The constant presence of the low note symbolizes the simplicity of the gift, as the harmonic content and shifts over it are used to describe the star shining, and the images of the Christmas story it shines its light on.

I walked into Rockhurst’s Rock Room (a room specifically designated for rock!) at 9:00 sharp, happy that I wouldn’t miss any of Jason’s songs. Gave him a hug and said hello, and the third thing out of his mouth was “Do you want to open up?”

Why not? Unpracticed, unprepared, with new equipment and a room full of new faces… it was a grand idea. I introduced myself and whipped through “I Don’t Even Know How Right This Sounds” and “J. Cougar Mellensong” from Be A Ska Rat (out next month!), then “Open Columns” and “America Votes 2032” from nickel. It was a bit rough, but the kids were nice about it. Counting two events at WCC last year and the MFR BL/R-OCK party, it was the fourth and largest echoes show ever. I mentioned the website and ended my gig as Jason’s “opening guy.”

After song and a half, Katy, Tim, and Jill arrived, and we listened and joked through Jason’s whole set from the front row. I have some short thoughts about it, but no narrative; I was pretty lost in the moment, which was intentional. With some music, if you simply open up to an experience, it will suck you in with its own strength. Pete Townshend calls it “getting out of your head.”

New and old songs sat well together side-by-side. Cuts from Driver is the DJ mixed with several requests from a friendly audience: “Big Sky,” “Captain,” the cowboy-fiddler drinking song whose title I can’t remember, “Those Were The Times.” Jason’s shows have great stage banter, delivered with a sheepish grin. He knows how to dance the edge between poignancy and comedy, and steps in a way that enhances both. Snatches of cover songs made their way into his originals: we heard pieces of Paula Abdul, OutKast, and Britney.

Many [blog] readers already know Jason, but next time he’s in your town, you might take some friends to the show.

And if your town is close to KC, I might see you there. Come early for a little echoes. -h

“If you just missed that, it was fucking awesome”

said Felix to the kids playing pool after emcee Muad’Dib and drummer Peter Leggitt traded solos, about four songs into Heiruspecs’ set Wednesday night. He could have said it about the whole show.

It started long before St. Paul’s sons took the stage, with Felix and I sitting at the bar watching The Simpsons (I was a little early). Mellow offstage, Heiruspecs’ primary voice is a bouncy stage presence, like a 8-year-old, giddy at the sound of a beat.

A Tiger Dancing is one of my absolute favorite Twin Cities records; forget it, just one of my favorite albums. I never caught the band all last year though. They tour, and my goings-out never matched their local shows. So I couldn’t pass the opportunity to see them here. Providence.

I can’t explain how tight and loose Heiruspecs is live; the band is stellar, Felix and Muad’Dib can freestyle like mad (tight, tight) but the songs and arrangements are improvised on the spot (loose). These cats read each other’s minds. I was lost in it.

The icing is that both A Tiger Dancing and Small Steps sound even better now that I have a vastly deeper sense of who these guys are.

Here are a couple of links, one of which I will kill when the test is complete.

The first is to a newspaper interview about my other job;
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/business/13260074.htm

The other is a test of copy & paste code for the upcoming MR|signal;

(test failed; Blogger doesn’t allow JavaScript. Will try elsewhere)