old stuff

I've been going through old video and audio tapes that have been sitting in my closet for several years. In the words of my friend Leigh, I am "destuffing" my place. That means all the extraneous shit that takes up too much space gets sifted through, assessed, and either left alone, archived and tossed, or just plain tossed.

There are some old tracks I've got that I might post to a myspace profile. They're interesting. I can't really say they're all good; some of them are crap, but it would be cool to post as a retrospective.

After watching some old videos of myself from the college days, I made a significant discovery: I was a complete dick. Seriously, I don't know how anyone could stand being around me back then. I'd like to think I grew out of that.

foxy

___ just got back from walking the dogs, and reports that he and another pedestrian saw a fox running down our street. That's cool.

liquid tootsie rolls

A while back I bought a giant tub of tootsie rolls at Costco. This was my obsession for several weeks. Until I ran out. Two weekends ago, my friend Kevin and his wife gave us a giant bottle of chocolate flavored vodka. I bought a bottle of Baily's to go with the vodka and now these mixed chocolatey cocktails have replaced the tootsie rolls. I'm not sure which is worse for me, but dammit if they both don't taste like little bits of heaven.

blackness...

...in my heart. No, wait. On my head. Yeah, that's it.

It's been about 6 weeks since my hair suddenly went black. I wasn't quite sure how I'd feel about it, but tomorrow I'm going for a haircut, so most of the black will be chopped off. I'm trying to decide if I should dye it again. Maybe this time I'll do the black fingernail thing again, too.

Jon will be at the studio tonight for another rehearsal, gearing up for Saturday's little show. And tomorrow night. And Thursday. We're taking Friday off.

risky business

It's just me and the dogs this weekend, since the better half is in Baltimore visiting a college friend. That means I can lay around on the couch in my underwear eating an entire container of Trader Joe's chocolate pudding while watching 40 Days and 40 Nights, including commercials, on TBS. Cute movie, by the way, though I don't know why I get sucked into these movies on stations that run commercials. Commercials make me crazy. Earlier this evening, the civil warning sirens were going off because of funnel clouds in the area, and I actually took the dogs down into the basement for cover for about 10 minutes. I think they brought back up about 5 pounds of dust each off the basement floor.

When it was crazy windy, I was watching the giant tree in our neighbor's yard bend and thought, if that thing fell like it looks it might, it would crush our place first, then the top floor of the neighbor's place, and the other units in my building might get a branch through a window or something. It was a wee scary. Then again, I am a big puss-boy.

With all the storms, I was thinking I might just hang at the house, but it eventually calmed down, and I went to Trader Joe's for some weekend grub. I had the willpower to not buy a tub of ginger snaps, but not to pass up the pudding. Small steps, Ellie.

that's just sick

I've been feeling a little lightheady/semi-crappety for most of today, and I think now I've got a full-blown fever going. I feel like shite.

We've had a rehearsal or two since the last post. With Jon and I, it's interesting what pieces just fall together and what takes a lot of work to shape. Since 90% of our cd's are full-band stuff, the challenge was to translate it into the acoustic duo format. Some of it works better than others. The ones that don't, we tend to alter significantly so that it does. And some of this is hard because we've never played it live in any format, and we have to learn the song from scratch. Even the covers we choose surprise us in unexpected ways. I guess that's redundant, eh? Well, fuck off. I'm sick, dammit.

Sorry, that's bitch me talking. Oh, who am I kidding, is there any other me? Am I making any sense?

I stopped at Red Eyes this afternoon to check the place out before the show next week. I'm not sure what to think of it. It's in a newish building, and it's a little sparkly. It seems to take some of it's decor cues from Starbuck's, but I can't tell if it's meant to be ironic or not. I think I shall choose to think it ironic. Anyway, it's pretty small, and the layout is a little weird. The stage, nook where we'll play is about five feet across and six feet deep, and sits tucked away in a corner. Not sure how the Salute girls are going to get a keyboard and amps in there. At least Jon and I just have the guitars and one electronic gizmo, though even with that, I think we'll have to stand single file, rather than side by side. That means I'll have to look at the back of his head for the entire set. Maybe I'll tape a nice picture back there. The place is small enough that I'm not even sure we'd need mic's.

Remind me to change the colors on the main Nancys' site menu. I don't know what I was thinking. I wish I had an excuse like "I'd had a serious brain injury earlier in the day, and wasn't quite right.", but all I have is "I wasn't quite right."

We have a blog!

Hey look! We have a blog! You'd never know it by how often we update it.

The Nancys are rehearsing for another acoustic show, with Salute Your Sweetheart, who we played with at the Heartland Cafe. It's at the Red Eye, and it should be very laid back. It's a small place, with a cozy atmoshphere.

The Heartland show was pretty cool. I was in high spirits and my hands weren't shaking like they normally do (it's the meds), but I found out later that Jon was pretty sick that night. I never would have know it by his performance, since he sounded just fine.

One new thing that kept happening that night was that my hands were sweating a little more than usual, and it made my fingers stick to the strings. I'm going to have to try out that Finger Ease string lubricating stuff. Any guitar players out there have experience with it? Pop me an email off the main Nancys site. I also finally figured out how to put the capo in the right place between frets so the guitar stays in tune. Of course, that wasn't until after the show (The Bird was pretty out of tune. Sorry!). I have to put in on an angle, so that the top part is actually on the fret above on the sixth string, and angles toward the lower fret so that it hits in the middle of the fret on the 1st string.

I've rediscoverd Zep's Physical Graffiti. It's been forever since I listed to that album, and on a whim decided to buy the cd. Holy crap on a crust, these guys were just brilliant. And I don't use that term lightly. Not enough can be said about John Paul Jones, either. He's the glue that held these crazy disparate personalities together musically, and I believe he goes largely unrecognized. Even by his own bandmates. After Page and Plant were doing all their stuff in the 80's and 90's, separately and then together, he never appeared with them. I remember seeing the three of them on some awards show recently where they had received awards. I forget which show, but after Plant babbled a bit, John Paul went up to the podium mic and said "I'd like to thank my friends for finally remembering my phone number." Behind him, Plant reacted with a look on his face that said "Whoa, I don't believe he just said that, and I really don't care." It was a sad moment.

ab on fire and ak new dude

I went with Kev to the Double Door on Saturday night to catch Adrian Belew's latest live stuff. Before that evening, I hadn't looked to see who was opening for him. Turns out that an old acquaintance of mine from the Champaign days, Graham Elvis, was the first opener. He did his same old Beatlesque pop stuff. Then came Andreas Kapsalis. This guy just blew me away. Solo acoustic instrumentals. He's got this amazing technique that you really do have to see to believe. Check out his site. There's a video up there.

Then came Adrian. With a brand new band, which I hadn't known about. And they were fucking amazing. Two kids. Literally. 19 year old drummer, and his sister, 20 years old, on bass. Eric and Julie Slick. Their mom is a writer and she give details about them on her blog. This band really is three of a perfect pair. The kids were razor sharp, and Adrian was on fire. I haven't seem him this pumped since catching him on the Mr. Music Head tour at Mabel's in Champaign. It turned out to be one great night.

adventures at the art institute

I was down at the Art Institute for about an hour this afternoon, killing time before I had to go pick up my media pass for GGVII. I spent some time downstairs in the photography room (like I do every time I visit) to check out Harry Callahan's stuff. He likes grass textures, like I do. After heading upstairs, I wandered into the Monet room.

"I like these over here. These are really good." said a middle-aged mom while walking away from Monet's "Stacks of Wheat" series and gesturing toward his "Water Lily Pond" across the room. As if everything else in the room sucked. She said it almost as if she were an art teacher condescending to her 8th grade students. These two were a strange pair. Mom and daughter, I'm guessing. Mom with dark, straight shoulder-length hair, grown daughter with (fake?) blonde hair. They were a study in opposites: Both had capri pants and string tank top, but the mom's pants were white and the daughter's black, and the mom's tank was black while the daughter's was white. The daughter didn't say anything, since she was mom's negative.

I walked out of the room watching as the mom held her camera phone up to another of the Monet's.

musicians are bitches

I can't go into detail, but I'm surprised at how vindictive and evil fellow musicians can be. Even the stupid ones who don't do their homework before titling stuff. It's almost like they think we're "the man" and must be rebelled against, in grand punk tradition, instead of fellow musicians who are in the same boat as they are. They are mistaken as to who "the man" is, and if they are so blind that they can't even see that obvioius fact, then punk is truly dead.

There's a campaign afoot against us that is juvenile, and I feel like I'm being penalized for doing things the right way.

Milwaukee fun

The Milwaukee performance has past. It was a nice time up there. We had the main stage, and I'm told it sounded great in front, even though they didn't have my pedal-triggered backing samples in the mains, which sort of makes me cranky, since I put a lot of fucking work into getting the coordination down. The samples are a new thing I'm trying, rather than playing with a prerecorded backing track. It gives us a little more control and flexibility, even though I have to work twice as hard onstage. But it's over and I have to let the fact that people couldn't hear them go. If nothing else, we looked fabulous up there! I'm going to try to get video from the show posted later this week or early next week.

It was also Jon's birthday today, so that was cool. We had some friends with us and we hung out at the fest for a while.

Roger Kuhn was playing on another stage, and after we finished our set, one of the stagehands came up to me and said there's a guy at the gate wondering if he could borrow some guitar strings. It turned out to be Roger, who'd broken a string onstage, and then broke his last replacement string as well. I just let him borrow my guitar, rather than strings. We wandered over to the stage he was playing on and got the hear the rest of his set. He's got a big voice, which was well suited to a big stage and sound system.

For the last few songs he did, he dedicated them to me. All of them. So for four songs, he said, "I'd like to dedicate this song to Timmy..." before each one. It was super cute and made me blush. He was definitely having fun with it. Afterward, he gave me a copy of his cd, which was very sweet. I'll get a chance to listen to it tomorrow, because right now, I'm just vegging, with no music whatsoever.

I finally got to meet David, the guy who organized the whole thing. I was surprised, since he looked like he was no more than 22. He totally had his shit together. The whole thing was organized very well, from the band's perspective. I don't know what the other bands thought, but I thought he did a great job. And he's a cutie to boot.

Speaking of cuties, I had the first model in the studio yesterday morning to shoot the first images of my abstract physique series. He did a great job, and was a real sport. The first pose was him sitting on his knees naked, and he had to stay like that for, I guess it must have been around half an hour at least. He's a former football player, and I noticed him fidgeting a bit and I asked him if he had bad knees. Of course, having played football for 12 year, he had bad knees. I felt pretty bad, so I tried to finish up those shots as soon as I could. The rest of the shots he was able to sit down on a stool.

Anyway, I am very happy to have the first shots in the can, and I can't wait to build more in the series. I might start putting them up on my site right away, since I have at least four great ones of Tim (his name is also Tim), and probably one or two good ones of myself from the test shots I did. I might have one other model in later this week.

picasso

I start shooting a photo series tomorrow morning. I'll be using a technique I've been developing that plays with perspective like Picasso did with some of his sketches. I've been planning this for a while, and I'm exited to get it started. It's been tough finding models to sit for these photos, since there's no money involved. Oh, and they're nudes. I've had people respond to my craigslist ad, and i'd meet with them, and now many of them are waffling. Bummer.

I've been testing my setup using myself as a model, which is a giant pain in the ass. I think I've come up with something pretty cool. And a little creepy. Yay! All this will lead up to an eventual shoot where I'll be mimicing some of the actual Picasso sketches.

oh those sleepless nights

It's now about 5 hours past my normal bed time, and I am about as wide awake as I was at 5 pm yesterday. I guess I shouldn't drink Moroccan coffee at 9 pm.

Jon and I ran the set and then went down to Marrakech Expresso to see Roger Kuhn play. He's playing PrideFest this Sunday right after our set, but on a different stage, so we won't be able to catch each other's set. I'd never met him, except on myspace, and wanted to see what he was all about.

I saw 'Eraserhead' for the very first time this past week. Don't know why I never got around to watching it before now. I don't think this is the reaction David Lynch was intending, but my sympathies were all with the baby. When it got sick, I felt horrible for it. It was just an innocent little thing, and his parents were freaks. Sucks to be a mutant baby in a David Lynch film. Remind me to not be that when I grow up.

off my ass and into Milwaukee

Jeez it's been a long time since I've gotten off my keister and updated this thing. Sorry! Lots going on. The first of which is that we are playing in Milwaukee this Sunday at the Pride Fest. We go on at 11am on the Miller stage. Don't as me how we got the main stage, but I'm not looking that gift-horse, etc etc. We've been rehearsing like fiends, and I'm incorporating some samples triggered via the midi pedals for this show. Let's hope my coordination doesn't fail me!

Aside from the show, we're continuing our hunt for a bass player and drummer. Jon's decided to be our front man, and he's ditching the bass. If you know any rockin' drummers or bass players, pop us an email at panic at the nancys dot com.

We've had some t-shirts printed up and we'll be selling them at shows, and eventually (once I fix the shopping cart) online. I might put the cd's up for sale on our site again as well, but then again I might just let cdbaby handle all the physical sales. They've been doing a great job.

We did another open mic last week, and had a blast. That might become a monthly thing.

I was amused by this graphic. It's me when I'm trying to print stuff on deadline:

open mic

We're going to be doing one or two songs at tomorrow night's open mic at Marrakesh Expresso. If anyone's around and want to hang for some mellowness, the show starts at 7:30 pm. Marrakesh Expresso is at 4747 N DAMEN.773-271-4541

soon live

I finally got the live video of "soon" posted to the main nancys site. Yay! Again, it will help if you have a computer that's not five years old (like mine), and that was fairly slow to begin with! And again, you'll need the FlashPlayer 8 plugin.

ALSO: We're officially on the bill for Milwaukee's PrideFest, on Sunday, June 11th at 11 am. Look for their site to be updated soon. So far, they only have Saturday's schedule posted.

instant live

I put up the Instant Burning video from last week's show. Sounds pretty cool. Though you might need a more recent computer than my poor little laptop. It can't quite play the file without skipping, so if you have something a little more powerful than my five year old 500mHz G3 iBook, you should be ok. I know nothing about Windows machines, so I have no idea what the Windows equivalent of my little iBook would be.

fleeting moment

The live show just came and went in a flash. Thanks to all who came out to see us! It was a grand experiment, and aside from some minor technical hooha, I think we pulled it off. I had a blast. I got word that it was one of the best-attended shows there. It felt great to see so many people. I'll have some video up in the next few days at thenancys.com.

laughing with you

Ok. Y'alls have to read this blog/interview about my client(s) kevINda. They've got one of my shots right up front in the interview for the DC comedy fest (and it looks fabulous, by the way), and the interview itself makes me laugh out loud.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that you might want to check out their own website kevINda.

bad blogger!

So the last few days have been a trial when trying to blog. Supposedly there've been updates going on in the Blogger.com world, and I haven't been able to post and or read this site until now.

So there's this show coming up, eh? Next Wednesday the 22nd you say? Marrakesh Expresso you say? Ehhhxcellent.

So Jon and I have been hammering out the kinks in the set, but things are going swimmingly. Check out The Nancys Website for particulars. I've changed the site with some new video/audio players, so you'll need to have the latest flash player (version 8.something).

So that's it.

So.

a quickie

Quickie update, that is. Jon and I are rehearsing up a storm for the show later this month. It will be a small but momentous occasion, if I can stick those two divergent terms together. Not sure if I'm going to tape it, but I most likely will. If I do have a camera there, I'll post bits shortly thereafter.

We've also got some big shows coming up this summer, but I'll announce them on the thenancys.com as they get nearer. Do you guys check thenancys.com every now and again? I sneak little changes from time to time, in between the major redesigns for each cd.

They're plans for a remix and a cool cover that will make it's debut in the next few months. That, and an expanded lineup, like we were thinking of doing last year, but decided against.

Before rehearsal Friday, we shot a new press photo which I think looks fan-fucking-tastic. I'll be putting that on the site later this week. That'll be part of one of those little website changes I mentioned.

odiferous rodents

We were driving around after seeing Good Night, and Good Luck this afternoon, and passed by the freaky-ass scientology storefront. This is the conversation that followed:

C: Let's go into the scientology store and pretend we're interested in signing up.

Me: I wonder if they can smell a rat.

C: Rats can always smell other rats.

My second career

So a few weeks ago I went to Macworld. I had a media pass to take some photos, but I was also supposed to write a story. It sorta freaked me out, since I'm not a writer. I didn't think anyone would pick it up, but I find out today that the Baltimore Sun has picked up the story.

I think that's pretty freakin cool. Of course, they didn't run any of the photos online. I don't know if they ran any in the print edition or not, but here are a couple of them:

Steve Jobs



Famed film editor Walter Murch


Still life of my hotel desk

prepping the show

Well, Trancy and I got together this week and started hashing out what we'll be playing for the upcoming show. We're doing it all electric in an acoustic environment, so we're coming up with some less-than-rawk versions of the tunes. We haven't played together as a unit for a while, and I'm surprised by how much we didn't suck this first time. When we get together next week is when we'll probably suck, but it will get better from there.

Both of us have been busy, what with the holidays and all. I just came back last Friday from a week shooting Macworld in San Francisco, and coincidentally, Trancy is going to San Fran tomorrow with John. They're staying in the same hotel I did, the Hotel Bijou (I stayed in the Junior room).

Album promotion continues at it's slow pace, but I think we're picking up steam. I've just entered some tunes for some songwriting competitions, and we'll see where that takes us.