Cross-eyed Head-ache

Turning into a mouse at midnight. Redirecting around 12:20 to human form re-potentializer. Leaving for a short Saturday Looks Good To Me tour tomorrow. If you're anywhere in the area, please come out to one of the shows.

Feb 29- Alfred, NY- The Knight Club at Alfred University. FREE/ALL AGES.
March 1- Swarthmore, PA-The Olde Club. FREE/ALL AGES but only open to tri-college students.
March 2- Northampton, MA- The Iron Horse. ALL AGES.
March 3- NYC- The Knitting Factory w/ Spanish Prisoners. ALL AGES.

This is a song I made up tonight for everyone with a head full of gauze or sadness. A song in two parts, the first representing the perpetual winter that goes on forever, and the second representing the millisecond between intuition and understanding, when you can really do anything and never stop being surprised.

City Center "Glass Slippor"

Yikespace

In the process of booking a tour up from Texas, I started a myspace page. It was a necessary evil. Check it out, it's a place for friends. All pertinent info will appear on this blog as well, and I'll be doing my best to not lose my vision by spending all my time staring at computer screens.

I've been seeing so much good music lately. I started doing sound at the record store for their instore shows, and I was blown away by the Bon Iver show. The record is pretty sweet, too, but the show made so much more sense. Also saw Christy & Emily (killer!) and went from that directly to the Atlas Sound/White Rainbow/Valet show at what used to be North 6. Such a great night of blown out echo and post-time grunge! White Rainbow's set that night really ruled it though, a total stereo looperton-then- new age meltdown. Joyal.

New Set Of Eyes

Checked out Growing and Sian Alice Group the other night. S.A. Group had some pretty heavy early 4AD vibes, icy and remote. A really good live show, somehow they managed to get a repetitive, near-drone series of melodies going without ever beating the sound into the ground. I had actually fallen asleep in the venue before the music started, so hanging out for another hour to see Growing seemed like a task, but then they ruled the world by playing a 12 minute set! It was perfect. They've gotten a lot more rhythmic since I saw them in late 2004 at a show in Philly, and for a band that's composed only of two dudes with guitars, it's amazing how un-guitary they sound.

On Monday I played an amazing show at the Lutheran church down the street with Calvin Johnson & Karl Blau. A lot of old friends showed up unexpectedly, and a lot more of an audience showed up than I expected for a low-key President's Day. Thanks so much to everyone who made it out.

I'm working on a bunch of new material for a tape on Green Records & Tapes. Green is run by my friend Knox, one of the new breed in a long lineage of amazing, motivated and positive Michigan teenagers. I'm gonna try to finish it up by the end of the month so it'll be available in March. Here's one of the first songs for it, inspired by what 8 months of living in New York will do to your footwear.

City Center "White Shoes"

Beached

Just saw NOMO play at Zebulon. I thought all the new songs sounded like Nirvana or Parliament. Pretty awesome. Meowsers in trousers. My eventual owning of a cat might combat my endless feelings of deja-vu. Here is that afore-mentioned loser jam from last night.

City Center "Beached"

I Can Has Rmix?

No Age and Liars played down the street last night, but the line was literally around not one but two blocks, so I spent another Saturday night recording like a big fucking loser for the most part until I met Bones and Robbie for a two a.m. drink. The results of that initial loserdom was a new beachy jam I will post later tonight maybe.

In the meantime, I present you with the first City Center remix. Holy hell. It comes to us from Northsea, a one-man operation in Italy.


Northsea came up with this supremely fuzzy and melodic take on "Bray All Day", jacking the vocals only mix from my post a few weeks back and building the rest from the ground up. Pretty amazing. Check out the link to hear some of his other music, all of which rules. Thanks to Stefano so much for the time, interest and work. It inspired me to work on some remixes, which I imagine will go up here soon. Here is the joy:

Northsea "Bray All Day Remix"

In other news, falling into the category of things usually done by bands who exist outside of blogs alone, the 7" is getting pressed right now, and should hopefully come in time for SXSW tour. Many thanks are in order today to Michelle for her long-distance photoshop tutorial and Nick for hooking up the 7" covers. You both rule and I love you.

Tour=playing shows, another thing that's hard to do on the internet. The details are forthcoming but I'm stoked as fuck that City Center will be playing shows in Texas with the Blow, Karl Blau, Kimya Dawson, Atlas Sound and others, and I just said hell yes to a NY show with Deerhoof in April. This all feels a little too real, so I'm out for now. Enjoy the rmx and keep their heads ringin.

Feeling All The Time

Six more weeks of winter, which depending on who you are means either rain, snow, sadness or the same day lived over and over on an endless loop for all eternity or until you realize the terrible error of your ways.

Here is a small EP of new songs, two I made tonight after work and one I posted here a few weeks back but pulled the next day due to overzealous blog photo and word selection on my part. If you can't do something in at least a marginally mediocre way, it's time to rethink.

City Center
EP, February 2, 2008
1.Teens Ate Snow
2.Life Was A Problem
3.Bleed Blood
Total Running Time: 7min 35sec



Watched "You're Gonna Miss Me" last night, a documentary on Roky Erickson from the 13th Floor Elevators and serious Texan acid casualty. A really brilliant and terrificly depressing way to hang out on a Friday night. Those stories always have true love lurking all around them, in a constant state of almost there-ness. True love will find you in the end.