Oh Man, It Was Easier In The Old Days b/w The Usual Collection Of Whiners

There's a rather lively (and lengthy) discussion going on over at the PPMB about how easy it is or isn't these days for bands to make a living from their music.

The first few pages consist of the usual bitching and arguing over the morality of illegally downloading music, and unless that subject particularly interests you, you can safely skip past them and start here. But it's when the topic shifts to "illegal downloading is killing the music industry" (how many of you are old enough to remember when it was "home taping"?) that things get interesting.

We regularly hear from bands (and labels as well) that it's next to impossible to make a living from music these days, unlike the putative golden era of the mid to late 90s, when, apparently, a band needed only to move to Berkeley, play Gilman a couple times, get signed to Lookout, and start raking in the loot.

Oddly enough, during my early years at Lookout I had to listen to much the same kind of naysaying: "Nobody ever makes money from punk rock;" "We'll always be playing basements and garages;" "Five years from now nobody will even remember our dumb little band;" "Real musicians have day jobs." (Okay, that last was a particularly annoying bumper sticker, but the sentiment, specious and dishonest as it might be, always lurked just beneath the surface of musicians' self-deprecation.

What made these discussions truly odd, given the hindsight of history, is that many of the musicians I was having them with have since become millionaires (multimillionaires, even) from playing that silly punk rock music that nobody would ever want to hear, and their dumb little bands are not only forgotten, but are the stuff of legend and have gone on - in the case of Operation Ivy, for example - continue to sell far more records now, almost 20 years after breaking up, than in their heyday.

Young people who came of age in (or were born in) the 90s seem to labor under the impression that a massive, accepting audience for pop punk or punk rock was part of the natural order of things in those days, and have the hardest time grasping that in the mid to late 80s, when the whole Gilman/Lookout/East Bay nexus was taking shape, things looked far grimmer for DIY musicians than they possibly could today. That vast network of touring venues and independent distros that seemed to make everything easy in the 90s didn't magically appear out of nowhere; it grew up organically from the painstaking (and often painful) efforts people made in the 80s, at a time when it genuinely did appear as though punk rock remained relevant to only a dwindling handful of diehards. The idea that a newly formed band who might have a single 7" out could hop in a van and make a coast to coast tour seemed wildly ludicrous when Operation Ivy rolled out of Berkeley in 1988; today hundreds if not thousands of bands follow in their well-worn footsteps.

Of course there's the other side of the equation: where are the young bands of today who compare in quality to Op Ivy, Green Day or Screeching Weasel, to name a few? Do they even exist? Tough question, because with so many more bands around today, it's harder for any one band to stand out. Also, with today's bands trying so hard to ape the stylings of their forbears, it's less likely that they're going to come up with something new and distinctive than in the days when there were hardly any bands around worth copying.

What's my take on this? The same as it was in 1987: despite all obstacles, despite constantly changing conditions, a band with something to say, the skill to say it, and the tenacity and perseverance to keep saying it will find its audience sooner or later, and bands that would rather feel sorry for themselves will always find excuses for giving up on their dreams. I suspect it's always been that way, and I have no reason to think it's likely to change now.

Fest 2008

Another year, another Fest, my voice is shot and my muscles are aching all over. What a weekend. What a life. Yes, I could have done more, talked to more people, seen more bands, helped out more, but hey, I think all things considered, I did my Fest best. There were times – moments, anyway – when exhaustion threatened to overcome exhilaration, and times when I caught myself wishing for the smaller, simpler Fests of yesteryear – 2006 and 2007 seem like ancient history now – but by the time Saturday night spilled over into Sunday morning and several hundred of us had been decanted into the steamy midsummer Baltimore night, where we milled about and began our series of dazed, happy and wistfully exuberant goodbyes, there was no doubt about it: the Fest had worked its inexorable magic again.

Some had carped – and I had quietly thought, though keeping those thoughts to myself – that this year’s lineup of bands was not quite as strong as last year’s, but the absence of an undisputed superstar like Ben Weasel – who for reasons known only to himself declined to play this year’s Fest – seemed to have caused people to overlook just how many insanely great bands were playing. And also to overlook the fact that while the Fest is about the music, it’s also not so much about the music as it is about the fellowship and camaraderie of people from all over this country and half a dozen others whose cooperation and inspiration has created - out of very thin air indeed – an event that has grown into the high holy days of the punk rock universe.

All those sessions at the gym had paid off, I found myself thinking more than once, especially in the waning hours of Saturday’s 14-hour marathon. If I hadn’t been in shape, there’s no way I would have still been dancing like a dervish and singing like a possessed banshee hours – some would say years, or decades - after any sensible person would have taken to his recliner and/or bed. By the time I’d watched a succession of exhausted and sweaty musicians pile off stage and into the cool of the dressing rooms, I caught myself mentally asking them, “What are you looking so tired for? You only had to play one set.”

People kept asking me which bands I was most looking forward to and I kept answering evasively because my experience from Fests past is that the most amazing experiences are often the ones that no one was expecting. But there was no denying – especially since I’d written it in the Fest zine compiled by Jenna and Adam Alive – that I had a very intense personal investment – an emotional rather than a financial one, I hasten to add – in at least two bands whose very appearance on the Fest stage was the realization of a long-cherished dream.

The first was the Zatopeks, who I’ve known since their first days back in London and who I’ve been singing the praises of ever since. While I’ve long thought they’re one of the best bands around these days, they haven’t – yet, anyway – achieved the kind of commercial success that would make transatlantic gigs a viable proposition financially. Yet there were, 3000 miles from, getting a rapturous reception from a crowd that already knew their songs well enough to lustily sing along. I can only imagine what that must have felt like from their point of view, but based on my own experience as a touring musician – when meeting someone two cities away from our own who’d actually heard of us was usually cause for great joy – I think I’ve got some idea.

Then there was Sweet Baby. My band played with them once or twice back in 1986 when they were first starting out; the last time I saw them – or that they played a show at all – was in 1989. “We never considered it before now, singer Dallas Denery told me, “because no one had ever asked us.” It took some convincing, in fact, to persuade him and guitarist/vocalist Matt that in 2008 there’d be more than a handful of people who’d even heard of them, let alone wanted to see them play.

By the time they’d made it through a couple songs, however, when the realization had sunk in that the crowd – some of whom weren’t even born when Sweet Baby last graced a stage – not only knew the songs, but was also prepared to outsing the band if given half a chance, a enormous smile spread across Dallas’s face and he and Matt – joined by old school East Bay luminaries Richie Bucher on bass and Aaron Cometbus on drums – proceeded to give the performance of a lifetime to an audience that could have been, as Matt later surmised, “bigger than the combined total of every audience we ever played to.”

It wouldn’t have been the Fest, of course, without the Steinways, who played just before the Zatopeks, and as much as I was looking forward to them, I’ll admit to being a little fearful about how they’d handle the biggest stage I’d ever seen them on.

No need to fear. Grath, I suspect because he knew he was being filmed for a DVD, swore up a storm, before, after and during pretty much every song (“Try and edit that,” he challenged the sound engineer at one point”), but unless you’re squeamish about that sort of thing, there was nothing not to love about a Steinways set that featured a generous sprinkling of new songs and wound up with an impassioned renderings of “the classics” that had the New York crew in particular beaming like proud mamas and papas over their hometown heroes.

“Best Steinways show yet,” I opined, only to be rather forcefully told, “No, that was last week, when you were out of town.” Well, whatever. I love this band. And another band I love, but who weren’t even on the bill until some last minute string-pulling, is the Max Levine Ensemble, who staged a lightning-quick guerrilla raid on the back bar, aka The Third Stage, thrilling the 100 or so in-the-know Festers who managed to cram in there with one of the most dazzling performances of the day, and were gone again to their next gig before most people even knew they’d been there. By all accounts, they’ll be back for next year’s Fest in a more prominent position on the bill.

Can’t forget the Copyrights, who were undoubtedly one of Friday’s highlights, as were their sister (brother?) band, Dear Landlord, and the Dopamines. I last saw each of these bands in a basement in Indianapolis (“And we’ll be back in the basement next week,” promised the Copyrights’ Adam Fletcher), but they all looked totally at home on the big stage, and to actually hear the music and the vocals through a first class PA left me saying whoa, so this is what it’s meant to sound like.

There were too many, way too many other highlights to mention them all here, and of course a couple dozen that I didn’t get to see it all because of schedule conflicts. Can’t forget the Leftovers and the Guts, of course, nor Short Attention, who at 1 in the afternoon managed to pack the Second Stage to far, far beyond its putative capacity. I got there about five minutes – i.e., about a dozen songs – too late and could barely force my way in the door. But a special tribute needs to go out to the Queers. There’s been plenty of criticism – some of it from me – that their shows had become too samey-samey, catering mainly to the bonehead crew to whom punk rock will always be frozen in the testosterone-fueled, beat-the-hell-out-of-each-other era, and predicting that Joe Queer would never have the balls or the sense to put together a set list that showcased his real talents as a pop punk singer and songwriter.

But the critics – again myself included – were wrong. Augmented by guest appearances from the spectacularly gifted Joel Reader of MTX/Plus Ones/Avengers/Pansy Division fame and longtime if occasional collaborator Lisa Marr (cub/Buck/Lisa Marr Experience), the Queers finally delivered the goods for which their fans have been devoutly praying for lo these many years. Thanks to the idiot/thug contingent, I’d pretty much given up trying to watch the Queers from anywhere near the stage, this was an entirely different crowd, one almost entirely devoted to dancing and singing at the top of its lungs. I’m pretty sure, in fact, that this is where my voice finally reached its limits; my usual dulcet tones have been replaced by a raspy croak ever since.

So the Queers – contrary to quite a few expectations – turned out to be a perfect headliner/Fest closer after all. And as the house lights went up and the realization that it was all over for another year began to sink in, my exhaustion began to be overcome by a much stronger emotion that I can only describe as, well, gratitude. Gratitude that after all these years I can still get so excited over the music and the people associated with it, gratitude that I still have the physical and emotional capacity to throw myself into it with the unbridled enthusiasm of an unabashed adolescent.

I haven’t had a drink in nearly seven years, but I suspect I looked like a drunken lunatic to some people, especially in the milling-about aftermath of the Fest, as I sprinted through the crowd saying goodbyes, breaking into spontaneous dances to no music at all, and screaming like, well, like a person having the time of his life.

And extra-special thanks have to go out to Mark Enoch, Chris Thacker, Pat and Reggie Termite for all their work in creating the Fest and turning it into what it’s become, to Adam and Jenna Alive for putting together the official Fest zine, to Matt Lame for being, despite the attempt by some people to hang the title on me, the real Mr. Fest, and to all the bands and all the people: for three all too brief and shining days, we were friends and we were equals. The Fest is over, long live the Fest. See you in 2009!

Sunday Bloody Sunday

My trepidations about incipient senility notwithstanding, Sunday saw me put in a solid 12 hours of rocking and rolling, first at Day Two of the aforementioned Carlapalooza, latterly at the Lost And Found Saloon over in Greenpoint.

I didn't see all the bands at the Cake Shop, but of those I did see, my two favorites were, well, my perennial two favorites, the Leftovers and the Steinways. I know you may suspect me of being a one-man hype machine for these two bands, but I don't hesitate to mention when either of them is on less than top form, and have done so at times this past year.

However, this Sunday was not one of those times. Just off a several-week US tour (and having been kept up past 4 am by man-about-town Frank Unlovable), the Leftovers tore into their set at a whole new level of power and professionalism (the good kind of professionalism; i.e., their instruments were in tune, they didn't waste time in between songs, every song was tightly honed and fit into the set like jewels in a flawless Swiss watch). It's almost frightening to see music played at that level in - with all respect to the Cake Shop - what resembles little more than a basement practice space. I imagine it must have been a bit like this to see the Beatles in their Cavern Club days or the Rolling Stones at Richmond's Crawdaddy Club.

But as sensational as they were, the Leftovers didn't even take top honors on this Sunday. That distinction would have to go to the Steinways, who after a lull earlier this year while they developed new material, have re-entered the fray as - in my decidedly none too humble opinion - the best band in the USA today. Yes, I know the Ergs are far better musicians technically speaking - so are the Leftovers, for that matter - and certainly the Ergs have a bigger following, but as simple and unaffected as the Steinways are, there's something that ineffably sets them apart from and on a different plane from all other bands. Think Ramones in 1975 or Screeching Weasel in 1988: almost nobody grasped the full amazing-ness of those bands at the time, or foresaw the impact they were going to have on pop music and culture.

Am I predicting similar greatness for the Steinways? No, because they've already got similar greatness. Are they going to have a similar impact? Too soon to tell, but barring a breakup or one or more members developing a serious drug problem, there's no reason they shouldn't.

Sunday's show, which got underway when singer/guitarist Grath McGrath made a perfectly timed entry after spending much of the afternoon watching football back in Queens, turned out to be one of those magic moments when everybody simultaneously realized, "Hey, these guys aren't just our friends, they're also like this totally awesome band that I'd love even if I'd never met or heard of them before."

I'd seen something similar happen at the 2006 Baltimore Fest, but now there were new songs, new people, and a new level of ecstasy and excitement as virtually everyone sang along and all but threw themselves onto the stage to smother the Steinways in a great big puppy pile of mutual love and affection. Being in the slightly mopey mood that I described in the previous post, I was standing off to the side of the stage facing the crowd, and it looked exactly like one of those photos you see in books about some classic music scene from the past, be it CBGBs in the late 70s or DC in the early 80s, or Gilman Street later on in that decade. It made me feel pretty cool, too, that I knew about 90% of the people in that crowd. Not only are the Steinways a great band; they have the best fans, too.

A sensible person would have gone home after that, but remember who's talking here. Actually, I did go home, but only to grab my bike and ride over to Greenpoint, where the Modern Machines (yes, named after the song by SoCal's The Crowd) were playing along with three or four other bands (lineups and schedules at this rather louche drinking establishment are nearly always subject to great variation).

I'd already seen the MoMacs at the Cake Shop, but they'd mentioned that they'd be playing again that night with a band they highly recommended, who turned out to be the Thomas Function from Alabama, who with their slippery-slidey organ riffs reminded me of a kudzu-and-Spanish moss-encrusted Del Shannon if he'd had Ray Manzarek playing keyboards for him. The singer was so drunk he could barely stand up (at least that was the case when I talked to him afterward), but it was good jolly fun, even if by now it had gotten on toward one thirty in the morning. I thought surely that the party had to be over now, but yet another band, this one from über-punk Crown Heights, leisurely started setting up.

If I were them, I would have got up and started playing as quickly as possible, before what was left of the audience drifted away, but that's apparently not how things work at the Lost And Found. Just when their equipment seemed to be nearly ready, a couple band members nonchalantly wandered outside to smoke. I'd resolved to stay long enough to catch at least a couple of their songs, but this was getting ridiculous, so I hopped aboard my ragged bicycle and made my wobbly way home.

Bottomfest 2007 - God, I Love These Guys

What is a Bottomfest? And whatever it is, doesn't it sound vaguely unappealing? If not slightly salacious?

That's what I thought when I first heard of it, but as it turns out the "Bottom" in the fest came only from Dr. Drew Peabottom, Ph.D., who despite his passing resemblance to Harry Potter and his childlike obsession with obscure Queers vinyl, is not only a genuine scientist (who studies, you know, science), but also is turning 30 years old this month.

Which prompted his devoted consort Ms. Sarah Peabottom to organize a two-day fest in his honor in a remote corner of northeastern Pennsylvania where about a dozen pop-punk bands could wail away to their hearts' content and the usual fest-related tomfoolery could ensue, all without any risk of alienating the neighbors or incurring the wrath of the authorities.

The first night's event actually took place in not-so-nearby Wilkes-Barre, and I managed to miss most of it, but things kicked off again before noon on Saturday with solo performances by Rapid Randy (of the Backseat Virgins) and Pat Termite (Beatnik Termites) before the full-fledged bands took over. It's always seemed a bit weird to me to see bands whose natural environment seems to be dimly lit night clubs and bars playing on green grass in broad daylight, but by the time New Hampshire's Guts, Maine's Leftovers, and New York's Steinways finished tearing things up, things like stage lights and walls and ceilings seemed thoroughly superfluous.

Some of the sets were sloppy and good-natured fun - especially the Guts' runthrough of a dozen or so punk classics in addition to their own songs. These guys are just so, so good, even missing vocals from Geoff, who had mysteriously mislaid his voice somewhere that weekend and could only croak along in the background. Others were more straight-ahead, like the Steinways, who debuted some of their best new songs yet. Who else? Project 27, Be My Doppelganger, Nancy, Dead Mechanical among others: a veritable treasure trove of pop punk circa 2007. Oh, and a "surprise" (Dr. Peabottom was one of the only people there who appeared to be genuinely surprised) appearance by the mysterious Jerkingtons, who first rocketed to prominence in 2005 with their merciless lyrical scourings of some of the PPMB's leading personalities (I hope I'm not being too vain in using that description, since I myself have been the subject of one of the Jerkingtons' verbal brickbats: "Larry Livermore Is 80 Years Old").

Unsurprisingly, given the participants, the locale and the nature of the occasion, there was a fair bit of drunkenness, though none so flamboyant and flagrant as that exhibited by Matt Lame, who seems to specialize in this sort of thing at fests of all sorts. Sporting a fishing hat of the style featured by Wilson on Home Improvement and wielding, among other implements of destruction, a purple air mattress, Matt wreaked several strands of havoc on festgoers for pretty much the entire 24 hours he was on the premises. Apparently he passed out at one point inside the tent that had been set up for him by less inebriated companions, but for reasons as yet unexplained, the tent proceeded to collapse and envelop him, as Chadd Derkins put it, "like a cocoon."

"It was awesome watching him struggle to find his way out of the collapsed tent this morning," observed Doctoracula, another attendee, "It was like he was being born." If, of course, being born entails being greeted with a cream pie to the face, which was Pete Repellent's payback for Matt's antics of the previous day.

Pete, who journeyed all the way from Chicago with his devoted partner Simple 81 (he actually refers to and addresses her as "Simple," and she occasionally even answers, though not infrequently with vulgarities or obscenities) also helped orchestrate one of the fest's other highlight when he dressed up in a yellow Peep costume (you didn't know there was such a thing? Neither did I) to confront Chadd Derkins over the latter's thoughtless boast that he could "probably" match the world record for Peep-eating (103 in half an hour). Chadd got through 30 before staggering out behind the garage to vomit; his orange (these were special Halloween pumpkin Peeps) puke pile proved to be a popular tourist spectacle for the rest of the weekend.

Someone, apparently relations to Ms. Peabottom, thought it would be a good idea to order 15 pizzas, which arrived sometime around 9pm, a few hours after dinner and just before a massive birthday cake was served. Then came the campfire singalong and marshmallow roast, though I suspect more marshmallows were thrown than roasted, especially once the aforementioned Mr. Lame arrived on the scene.

The singalong turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the day, not so much for its quality - it was a rare song where anyone could remember all of the words - but for its enthusiasm and the realization that the last couple decades of pop-punk songs had turned into - at least among this group - genuine classics. The group went through pretty much the entire Queers catalog, and large segments of Screeching Weasel, the Riverdales, Weston, MTX, and, of course, the Ramones. At one point there were competing singalongs, with the larger group carrying on with "Punk Rock Girls" while Oliver Poopsounds and I unaccountably tried to drown them out with our own version of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out." Oliver was rather drunk; I had no such excuse.

Chadd and Oliver also serenaded me with their own ribald renderings of several Potatomen classics, apparently in an attempt to persuade me to pick up the guitar and do a few tunes myself, but I wouldn't fall for it. I'd seen Matt Lame dodging enough marshmallows to not want to take his place as the principal object of the crowd's ire. Afterwards, of course, I regretted my reticence; it's not often in 2007 that I'm likely to encounter people - drunk or not - bellowing for Potatomen songs. Maybe next fest.

It wasn't all goofing around - well, yes, actually that's pretty much exactly what it was - but the whole weekend just left me positively glowing. It wasn't a massive fest on the scale of Baltimore; probably no more than 50 or 75 people were there at any given time. And although some of the best bands of our time were in attendance, it wasn't primarily a musical event. The crucial element was just a lot of good friends getting together and having the time of their lives, and while I'm sure your friends and their friends and everybody's friends are just as nice and just as fun, these are my friends, and they're the best, and right now I feel so lucky and privileged and blessed to know them all.

Hounds On The Hudson

My writer's block, aka procrastination, aka bone idle laziness continues. I can barely drag myself to the keyboard these days... Well, actually, that's not true; I'm plopped down in front of the computer as much as ever, but all I manage to do is vacantly flip from one website to another, occasionally mustering up enough energy to compile lists of all the things I need to write about and then filing them away until they are hopelessly obsolete.

I'm not sure what's brought on this flagrant mopery, but there you have it. I'm not even sure why I'm bothering to tell you about it, since there hasn't exactly been an upwelling of anguish from the internet when I've absented myself from blogging for a few days or more. Which I guess proves that I'm doing this more for myself than for an audience, though sometimes it's hard to tell which is which.

Certainly I'm no 327 Dave, who's just completed the self-posed challenge of writing blog entries on 327 consecutive days, each consisting of exactly 327 words (bear in mind that he's a professional philosopher, and if you ever wondered just what it is that sets philosophers apart from the less lettered masses of humankind, now you know). For one thing, I rather doubt I could muster the discipline to limit myself to 327 words (though if I used the same formula as Dave, i.e., based on his birthday, I'd have to crank out 1,028 words), and more to the point, my life is not sufficiently structured or consistent to do much of anything on a daily basis.

A sad commentary, some might say, and I'm often tempted to agree with them. Dave, of course, is gainfully employed and a family man to boot, both of which require a structure and consistency which have largely eluded me even during those occasional (and rare) years when I did have an actual job. Bear in mind that the only time I ever worked at one place for more than a year was when I was the boss, and even then I ended up firing myself. Several friends, knowing that I'm at least semi-looking for a job these days, have helpfully suggested that I put together a résumé (I've never had one, seriously, except when they made us write pretend ones in high school), but while I'd like to think of myself as a creative fellow, I doubt I'm creative enough to make a record like that look good.

So, no job and no responsibilities apart from coming up with an occasional blog entry, and now even that is becoming too burdensome? If this were the Old West and I were a horse, they would have taken me out and shot me long ago. But this being New York City in the no longer quite so early years of the 21st century, I got some pizza and went to a punk rock show.

Rotterdam's Apers were ostensibly the headliners, but technical difficulties prevented the boys from being at the top of their game. Even Kevin, their diminutive motormouth pothead frontman, seemed unusually subdued; normally he spends at least as much time talking (and hilariously so) as the band does playing. The Apers were still frighteningly tight and powerful - if they were an American band, they would have sold hundreds of thousands of records by now, but tonight the show was stolen by the Steinways, a last-minute replacement for New Hampshire's Guts.

It was a triumphant return to form for the Queens pop-punkers, whose last couple shows have been a bit desultory and lackluster. Elfin-eared Michelle Shirelle may be no virtuoso on the bass guitar (singer-guitarist Grath McGrath frequently had to coach her on how a particular song went, e.g., "This one's in the key of 6"), but she gets the job done, and deserves to be front and center if for no other reason than her delightful line of gibberish. And Grath, as I've said before and will no doubt say again, is a genius.

The Steinways, also consisted of Handsome Ace and internet celebrity Chris Grivet, are rumored to be backing Ben Weasel for at least part of Baltimore's Insubordination Fest later this week. Longtime readers of this blog will know that last year's fest was the most amazing cultural event thus far in the 21st century, and this year's threatens to massively surpass it. Normally you have to drag me kicking and screaming to get me out of New York City, but I'm eagerly packing my bags for Baltimore already.

After the show (New York's other faves, the Unlovables, and Florida's Hi-Life also played), I jumped into the Apers' van, piloted by roadie Sebby Zatopek, for the journey from the Knitting Factory up to the East Village. Thanks to Friday night traffic, it would have been faster to walk, but that would have meant missing out on the rapid-fire commentary of four Dutchmen on the current state of Nieuw Amsterdam. You thought Americans had an attitude and didn't hesitate to express it? They're shrinking violets by comparison.

Our destination was Manitoba's Bar on Avenue B. I've walked people there, I've hung out on the sidewalk in front, but I'd never been in the joint before, assuming it would be little more than elephant's graveyard for old punk rockers (and no, I don't think that necessarily means I'd feel right at home there, Mr. Smartypants). But as it turns out, it's a fairly pleasant place as bars go, crowded but still negotiable, and with a decent blend of ages and cultural affiliations.

About 10 or 15 of us were there, mostly habitués of the Pop Punk Message Bored, and while some busily occupied themselves with getting shit-faced, I had the privilege of hearing a baleful tale recounted by Chadd Derkins, who's an even bigger internet celebrity than Chris Grivet, if such a thing is possible. Chadd, it seems, regularly has to go out to New Jersey to house-sit his parents' apartment. I'd always thought that a bit strange, not understanding how much sitting a high-rise could possibly need.

As it turns out, the real job involves looking after his parents' dog, which has to be taken every morning to a doggie day care center called "Hounds On The Hudson." Affable guy that he is, Chadd takes this in this stride, but he admitted to being a little put out by the doggie report card that little Foo Foo or Fifi or whatever it's called, brings home each night.

"It's not so much the idea of the report card that gets to me," he said, "but for some reason I'm supposed to believe that it was actually written by the dog. I'll get this card that says, 'Today I had a very good day. I ran around a lot and played with Sasha and Fred (I'm assuming these are dogs, not people) and had a delicious bowl of kibbles.'"

Does it always say positive things, or does he get a bad report sometimes, I wanted to know? "Well, they put it diplomatically, yes, but sometimes it will say, 'I was really very lively today,' which I'm assuming means 'I was a holy terror.'"

Always intrigued by these slice-of-life tales from mysterious New Jersey, I asked Chadd if he thought his parents' rather intense relationship with their dog mirrored or was an attempt to replicate the relationship with Chadd himself. He was, after all, the last child to leave home, and not all that many years ago, either.

"Well, let me just tell you this," he said. "In the living room my parents have a frame with spaces for four photos. My parents have four kids. In the frame are pictures of my three sisters and..."

"Their dog?" I asked. It seemed the most obvious answer but apparently nothing is obvious in the Derkins family.

"No! It's a picture of Dr. House!"

"The guy from the TV show?"

"That's the one."

"Don't they have a picture of you?"

"They must have thousands of pictures of me. But in the frame is Dr. House. It's cut out from some magazine."

At this point I was left speechless, as I often am when attempting to plumb the depths of the ever-amazing Chadd Derkins and the world from which he emanated. Chadd and his band Short Attention will be in Baltimore this week too, so I suspect you haven't heard the last of him just yet.

A Damp And Chilly Night On The Town

Once again summer has gone away, replaced by a nagging rain and London/San Francisco-type temperatures, but rather than huddling in my apartment trying to keep warm by using the oven as a sort of fireplace, I was propelled out into the night in search of fellowship and culture.

Met up with friends in Chelsea in the early evening and as always happens when I visit that neighborhood, found myself marveling at how I once intended or at least hoped to live there. About six years ago, I was seriously considering leasing a studio apartment in the Chelsea Hotel for a year, which I figured would be sufficient time to create an unspecified work of art or literature that would be successful enough to justify the exorbitant amount of money I'd have blown on rent.

Never mind pointing out that even in 2001 my clichéd fantasy was already a decade or two out of date; I've since managed to figure that out on my own and frequently use it as evidence in the arguments with myself that flare up whenever I come up with another crackpot scheme to transform my life, which averages out to several times a day. At any rate, Chelsea the district as well as Chelsea the hotel have long since been beyond my means, unless of course I manage to produce that still unspecified yet highly profitable work of art.

But I had little time to linger in Chelsea's genteel precincts, as I was due in Brooklyn for a launch party at one of the city's best-loved comics shops, Rocketship. The book in question was Stuck In the Middle: 17 Comics From An Unpleasant Age, featuring work by among others, Ariel Schrag (who also edited it) and my fabulous Eisner-nominated niece, Gabrielle Bell.

Gabrielle's contribution was especially meaningful for me above and beyond the usual reasons of her being a brilliant artist and storyteller (okay, and being related to me), because it hearkened back to her childhood on Spy Rock/Iron Peak, where of course I also lived for many years. It was such a unique and bizarre environment that I've long suspected words or pictures alone could never adequately capture its essence, but by combining the two, Gabrielle brought memories - and not particularly pretty ones, either - to life with a vividness that had me shivering and breaking out in goose bumps while trying to maintain the appearance of being just another guy reading the book in the midst of the party because he was too cheap to buy it.

I stuck around longer than I'd planned because Ariel, Lauren Weinstein, and Gabrielle's really cool and funny friend Karen whose last name I can't remember did a slide show reading, i.e., selections from the comic were projected on the wall and they did the voices. It was top-notch entertainment, and I ended up staying until it was over, even though it meant being an hour late for my next stop. Oh, also ran into my old friend Josh Neuman of Heeb magazine, who said he'd been "dragged" there by his comics editor, but in the end seemed impressed by the work on show and quite happy to have been so shanghaied.

Then came a quick dash back to the city, where a whole slew of bands including the Steinways and For Science were holding forth in the Lit Lounge basement. It's a bit of dive, I guess, but by East Village standards, it's actually almost classy. The show was a sloppy, good-natured affair (translation: almost everybody was drunk) where the camaraderie overshadowed the music. Which was fine by me, the only annoying part being the way the club blasted recorded music in between the bands at a volume even higher than the bands themselves. P Smith, JoeIII and I were huddled in a corner having a semi-profound conversation, nearly oblivious to the band playing some 30 feet away, but the minute the band stopped, the canned music emanating from the speaker above our heads made further discussion impossible.

Sartorial highlight: big Chris Grivet, striding off stage after his set with the Steinways, his sleeves rolled up to make his t-shirt look like a muscle shirt, comes face to face with our little crowd, whereupon JoeIII, whose own musculature could be charitably described as sparse if not downright slight, rolled up his own sleeves to create an instant caricature. Suddenly, perhaps in a gesture of Jersey solidarity, P Smith had done the same, and while P possesses a more or less normal physique, the spectacle of this normally reserved gentleman (Clark Kent would look like a raving loony alongside the ever-demure Mr. Smith) voluntarily displaying that much usually unseen flesh was the stuff of which comedy gold is made. That was all it took to get the more amply proportioned Chadd Derkins into the act, and not content to simply stand there Costanza-like while all around him cracked up, he slithered and writhed into what ubiquitous photog Bob "Rusty" James later dubbed a "homoerotic batdance."

Rusty never stopped snapping the entire time, and no doubt photo sequences will be dogging the internet by now. I, feeling no desire to show off my upper arms (ironically, since I'm one of the few in the crowd who's been known to wear genuine "muscle" shirts), cowered behind someone so I wouldn't end up in any of the pictures, and I may have been successful. At least none have turned up yet. I haven't been feeling so photogenic lately, which is why, for all of you who persist in asking, there's no photo of me here or on my Myspace (which I never update and which contains no information, so don't bother looking).

The night ended, as it generally does when I remain in Manhattan past midnight, in an unseemly scrum of drunks, hustlers and hipsters on the Union Square L train platform, waiting to be ferried back to Brooklyn on the criminally inadequate and dangerously overcrowded late night service. You think the L train gets bad at commute hours? At least during the day there's a train every few minutes, so if one is too crowded, you can wait for the next one without making yourself too late. After midnight you're lucky if it comes every 20 minutes, while the crowds waiting to ride it are every bit as dense (sometimes in both senses of the word) as they are at normal rush hours. Whoever decides how often trains need to run on the L line obviously doesn't get out much at night.

Never mind, though; by holding my breath I was able to slither into a corner of the last car and by continuing to hold it, able to survive the journey home, a journey made considerably longer by people trying to cram themselves into uncrammable places at the next couple stops. A couple blocks walk in the ever-so-slight drizzle, and I was safely home, curled up in front of the warmth of my oven, and thence to bed. All in all, not too shabby a night's outgoings.