All this plus Beatles cartoons, naked girls falling down stairs and other ghastly sights available now at Frenzy of the Visible.

You can bet your life I'll kiss and tell.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of me seeing Slayer play at a tiny Ukrainian wedding hall in Flint, Michigan. As the first time I had ever seen slam dancing and headbanging in real life, it was an important formative experience, not to mention one of the coolest dates I've ever gone on (hi Melanie!). Incredibly, video evidence of this gig exists on YouTube ... sound and picture quality is dodgy, so if you want a better idea of what I heard that night, I recommend downloading this brutal live bootleg of Slayer playing in Holland a couple months later.

Perhaps it's obvious, but we've got internet at home again. So I might answer emails quicker from now on. Or maybe I won't. I'm unpredictable.

Or am I? Check out these great movies that Hulu posted while I was unplugged for the past few months. Seriously, you haven't lived until you've seen a snowboarding-themed slasher film, totally worth 90 minutes of your day.

Third time's the charm ... HAPPY FRIDAY THE 13TH TO ONE AND ALL.



Lori and I are all moved into the South House and aside from needing a few bookshelves, a futon for visitors, a dresser and maybe a couple more lamps, we've got the place right side up. Words can't cover the relief I feel from finally landing somewhere ... another month in that dingy little apartment with all of our possessions in boxes and I would have lost my mind (again). Still waiting for landline service to start (I have some angry phone calls to make later) so we can set up internet at home, and our landlord has to replace an ailing clothes dryer that had become a fire hazard -- last night the two of us dragged a replacement up and down the basement stairs, learning too late that it wouldn't fit into the laundry room. Oh, and I guess we need curtains too, as our kitchen window displays us to the neighborhood like a big screen TV (sometimes strangers wave as they drive by). But I am not complaining, we're fitting into the new space with precision and I feel a world of weight lifting from my shoulders, I've let go of a lot of baggage that should have been left in Seattle (I'm keeping some of it in case I decide to visit again). For three months and change I've been in an uncomfortable limbo, unable to either begin anew or bid farewell to a significant slice of my life, but none of that even feels like an issue anymore. Did I ever really leave Michigan in the first place? It seems ridiculous to me now that I could have ...

The second step in adding a period to my sentence out West will be the End Times LP, which currently is experiencing production delays (like I said, I have some angry phone calls to make) that I hope can be rectified today (UPDATE -- I have been temporarily placated regarding the vinyl, but I am still wondering when the graphic designer will resurface). I suppose I can take solace in the fact that no one is waiting for this record, so I don't have to worry about missing any deadlines, but as my musical activities in the Dirty Mitten increase, I don't want to lose sight of completing this project properly. Next weekend I'm hitting the studio with Jeni Lee to play on a couple of her songs, and as we add percussion and steel to whatever it is we're doing together, we both glow ever brighter with confidence.

The Reigning Sound hits Detroit this coming Monday, and I'll be a big stupid girl if I don't go. Perhaps this preemptive public shaming will do the trick ... make the scene if you can, it's worth your while.

Lingering illness caused us to miss Roky Erickson, but we're all moved in to the new house and I'm spending my Monday nesting. Later this week, a job interview and the above public event.

THE POP TARTS, SUMMER 1994











"This isn't a joke!" -- Soren Davis

Thanks Henry. This is the transitional band I played in with Soren, Jim Diamond and Tim Ford for one glorious summer. El Smasho had just broken up (badly) and Diamond had just returned to Lansing from Austin, where everything had gone wrong, so we all healed together ... I learned a lot just by watching Jim play, and when the Pop Tarts were finished, Soren asked me to join The Apollo Nine, which is where I learned everything else I know by watching Aaron Vanderpool.

I had already met my future wife Lori by this point (at the first Pop Tarts gig a week or so before), but this is the show where I noticed her in the way a man notices a woman. She still had braces then, but she was essentially legal (19 years old) ... anyhow, we didn't get together for at least a year after this. Lori is the girl in the blue and white shirt on my side of the "stage."

We played many bigger and better shows than this (our house party appearances generated genuine teenage mayhem), but we're lucky this one got captured ... the grand opening for Gen X, an East Lansing comic book/video store, where I first encountered the Something Weird Video company and realized that everything I ever dreamed of as a child was possible.