Domestic Terrorism

Simple Living Revue #1

Shaun and I are hosting the first of our new bi-monthly musical & spoken word artist showcase next Friday at the Phoenix Cafe.

No rest for the weird.

event: Simple Living Revue: solo music / spoken word variety show

it must be Ha-llo-ween

For most of my adult life I haven’t dug on Halloween much, largely because my dad’s funeral was on Halloween when I was 18 and I always get kinda down and feel unlucky around this time of year. But in recent years I’ve been jumping on the Halloween bandwagon and have embraced the wonderous weirdness and anything-goesness of the most hellacious of holidays. This was my 3rd year in a row being involved with Halloween-themed musical performances, and this year I performed three Halloween shows, in addition to three other regular-ass performances over the last 13 days, playing five different sets, totaling around 50 songs.

The Walking Beat at PJ’s Lager House w/ Steel Cranes, All The Wild Children
Wednesday 10.16.13

All The Wild Children are one of my favorite local bands, and they played a kick ass new song that went “I Will Destroy You.” We played first and everyone was in the other room watching the Tigers.

The Walking Beat as “Bob Dylan & The Band” at PJ’s Lager House Halloween Bash
Friday 10.18.13

This whole night was awesomely fun and we kinda killed it.

set:
Odds And Ends
Nothing Was Delivered
This Wheel’s On Fire
Quinn The Eskimo
I Shall Be Released
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere

The Counter Elites as “The Ramones” at the Phoenix Cafe Hallow Art IV
Saturday 10.19.13

Shaun and I had a ton of fun, and though we don’t have pictures our Ramones costumes, they were pretty fantastic. I tried to alternate between Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee-type stances and faces at appropriate times in the set (as I was embodying all of them at once). We were whipped by the time of the show as we had already played the set twice that day, and screwed up a few of ’em, but we had a blast and just about everyone who stuck around danced and sang along.

set:
Blitzkrieg Bop
Beat On The Brat
Judy Is A Punk
I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement
Loudmouth
Glad To See You Go
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Oh Oh I Love Her So
Pinhead
Cretin Hop
Rockaway Beach
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Teenage Lobotomy
Do You Wanna Dance?
Rock ‘n” Roll High School
I Wanna Be Sedated

The Walking Beat as “Bob Dylan & The Band” at The Crofoot Creepy Cheapy Halloween Bash VI
10.25.13
Robby Robertson (James Anthony) had some of his gear accidentally ganked from the kitchen off the Vernor’s Room right before we went on, so his tone was non-existant. Additionally the floor-stage steeped in gallons of sludge, blood and alcohol, with hundreds of bottles and cans and assorted Halloween accoutrements floating around only had enough power for one of my keyboards, so I unfortunately had to go Farfisa-less. Also I couldn’t hear the piano at all. I made up for it in falsettos.

Grounding issues at this show forced me to only play through one of my two amps, so the hugeness of the black-licorice-meat-bass was comparatively lackluster to what it usually is. I made up for it in obnoxious showmanship.

Additionally, last night in my performance art class with ML Liebler at Wayne State, I performed an audio-collage-theatrical-poetic thing called “The Poetry Of Neighbors”, and afterward hit up open mic night at the Phoenix to blow the dust off a few solo tunes, “If I Could I Would Annex Other Planets”, “Yours” and “Your Holy Ghost”.

Now I’m ready for a nap.

Dawn chapter 1: Appendix

Jon and the Loon From The Moon: “Your Holy Ghost”
at the Phoenix Cafe Hazel Park
August 17, 2013

The Carpe Vita Quadrumvirate has been unleashed unto the world. I’m very happy with how it turned out as my first quasi-ambitious solo effort. Now I just gotta figure out how to get it to more ears and eyes.

I spent the rest of my summer vacation wrapping up the debut full-length for The Counter Elites titled Are You A Counter-Elite?. We had a record-release weekend that was quite a blast. Two days later I went back to school, and I’ve been immersed in studies of Dada/surrealism and performance art and been having a great time reading, writing, relaxing, working, and playing shows occasionally.

The other day I began to feel a fire in my guts–an eagerness to continue the march toward my solo full-length Dawn Of Isis Against The Signified. I plan to release two more “Quad”-like preview-EPs along the way, and hope to start on “Chapter 2” shortly. It’ll be built around “Why Would She Want To Be With Me?” / “Fear Of Light” with two other instrumental tracks (yet untitled, but similar to “Tempus Fugit” / “Disce Pati”). I’m thinking of calling it the Why Would She Want To Be With Me? Quadripartition or something equally/ridiculously syllabic. I hope to complete it by the end of the year, along with the Songs From The Moon EP Blood For Power (which is about 85% complete).

Additionally the next Counter Elites record, a 20-song LP tentatively titled Pledge Of Aggrievance is close to being completely written, and we hope to track drums during the holiday break.

progedelic psych night

I’ll be performing this as a duet! My dear longtime compadre and Songs From The Moon and The Walking Beat co-conspirator Ryan Looney (aka Ratso, Loon From The Moon) will be joining me on the kit and shakers. We’re playing lots of quieter stuff that never ever gets performed live. We ran through the following tunes last night and will be devising a set from these:

Tempus Fugit
Goin’ On A Train
Why Would She Want To Be With Me?
Sailing Stones
Fear Of Light
Disce Pati
If I Could I Would Annex Other Planets
Memento Mori
Yours
Get Your Dues
Morning Sun
Are You Gonna Beat Around The Bush?
Your Holy Ghost

Something like that. But probably not all of them as we gotta fit our rock jams into 30 minutes so we’ll pick the cream of the crop next time we have duet practice.

Then the following weekend we’re doing a one-time power-trio rock set at Small’s. I’ll be playing guitar, hopefully through a Dual Showman / Marshall stack with Eddie on the 8×10 and Ryan on the detonators. That’ll be something like:

Carpe Vita
Ball Of Thread
Get To Know Mine
Watchin’ The Orioles
Brave Iranians
Third World America
We Are All Being Followed

These shows will be the first time we’ve played the Quadrumvirate (though we’re dividing it up between the two nights), and also will be the first time I play several of my solo numbers with a drummer. ¡Muy emocionante!

Dawn Chapter 1: “Carpe Vita Quadrumvirate”

WARNING: EXTREMELY GRAPHIC FOOTAGE / NOT SAFE FOR WORK, YOUNGLINGS, OR THE EASILY QUEASY

I lost track of the Dawn days many days ago. Basically I’ve been working on this every day since I last updated. I had originally planned to make a video for “Carpe Vita” alone but ended up with so much footage I decided to make one for the whole EP. As of now this is only available on Vimeo or YouTube but I’ll be releasing it on CD / mp3 at the next Simple Living Ferndale merch booth. Next I’m going to start on Chapter 2: “Why Would She Want To Be With Me?”/”Fear Of Light” and begin production on the Counter Elites full-length. Check them out in the coming weeks:

July 12 at the Old Miami w/ All The Wild Children, Cosmic Light Shapes, 3ft

August 2 at Small’s – The Amino Acids 7″ release party w/ Like Like The The The Death, Voyag3r

w/ a 2-night record-release blowout to come late summer.

four on the Fourth / Dawn: days 7&8

Of course life gets in the way of creativity, and music-making on no one’s terms tends to almost always take longer than expected. I’d hoped to have the Quadrumvirate out by tomorrow, the summer solstice, but it’s not quite there yet, though I feel plenty confident that I’ll be able to upload it on the Fourth of July, a holiday that holds great significance to my independent soul. It’ll be the 3rd year in a row I’ve celebrated Independence Day my own musical way – one by purchasing the electric piano I still play almost daily, and another by releasing an early version of The Lucky Suite. I like to coincide my releases with holidays and celestial events, and honestly doubt many folks are truly waiting for its release so I figure I’ll give the Quad time to live and breathe a little before letting it loose on the world.

But in the meantime I’ve stumbled through Dawn days seven and eight–though without intending to do so and without taking pictures or notes–mostly late-night home-recording and mixing sessions, layering as many keyboard tracks together as my laptop can handle when I should have been sleeping, but often inspiration strikes at the most inopportune time, and I almost always jump on it if the pull is strong enough. As of today, pts. 1 and 3, “Tempus Fugit” and “Disce Pati” are damn-close. Both are instrumental bass-riff driven orchestral-style multi-keyboard arrangements with drums. I think I’m going to start from scratch with pt 4, “Memento Mori”, but as I already recorded it once I feel I should be able to knock out all the parts in a day or two and line up the mix with the other parts and git ‘er done easy breezy.

when everyone you know seems unkind
when nothin’ seems to help you unwind
the seas are open – the waves are about to break

when everybody aspires to nigh
when no one no more attempts to fly
the future’s ours – there’s not a cloud in the sky

CARPE VITA!

time flies… seize life… learn to endure… remember your mortality…

Axis Mundi Night

The fine folks at the Axis Mundi Collective hold a showcase of sorts once a month at The Berkley Front and they have cordially invited me to perform this Thursday. Music will start around 10pm and I’ll be playing second. There will be cheap beers and loads of “good ass musical entertainment.” -Martin Van Buren

Facebook event: Axis Mundi Night at the Berkley Front

see you two days after yesterday

Nighttime Sky / Long Beaten Love

The Walking Beat released our debut 7″ on October 6 at the Old Miami. Super awesome thanks to Dark Red and The High Strung for playing the show, and everyone who checked it out. Pick up a record at any show or at Found Sound in Ferndale or download it for free: