sparkrobot

I’m sorry Amazon, it’s over. It’s not me, it’s you. You don’t know me at all and you just don’t get me. An excerpt from a morning email:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,
We’ve noticed that customers who have expressed interest in Back in the USA by MC5 have also ordered From Conception: Live 1981 by Dokken. For this reason, you might like to know that Dokken’s From Conception: Live 1981 is now available. You can order your copy for just $14.99 ($3.99 off the list price) by following the link below.

Best of luck to you.

Wow. Game on.

Apple Unveils Higher Quality DRM-Free Music on the iTunes Store

Hey October… It’s March. Yeah, well, better late than never. I had forgotten about these photos I shot at Hell’s Kitchen back in October of 2006 when I found them again recently while digging through hard drives. The Turn Ons (Seattle) brought their own light show and dressed up as cats for Halloween… Go on, see the photos of The Turn Ons.

A couple weeks back I was at Bob’s Java Jive and some bands bands were playing, presumably because it was my birthday. Both Tacoma bands, Waves and Radiation (photos) and Sons of Ivan each played. Waves and Radiation taps the instrumental space rock vein, reminiscent of Duster, but let’s say eating a Mogwai sandwich. (Mmm. Evil fairy sandwich.) Sons of Ivan (photos) had a droney shoegazer 60s pop sound.

The show was also a benefit to keep the Jive alive and there was a raffle between sets with lots of donated goods. Tacoma rock stalwarts Girl Trouble donated a bunch of stuff to the mix. The apex being a signed Estrus 7″ box set that went home with a lucky gal. Good reason to be jealous.

Surprise, I brought a camera and some film. I’ve posted some photos to the gallery.

A few months ago, I posted here about Split Lip Rayfield’s Kirk Rundstrom and his battle with esophageal cancer. Unfortunately, he lost. A comment on the post this morning informed he has died this morning. The band had lots of friends and a dedicated following.

Adios Kirk.

Here’s a link to an article on Harp Magazine: Split Lip Rayfield Founder Kirk Rundstrom Passes Away.

I was up in Seattle last week and caught an indie pop rock show at the Comet Tavern on Capitol Hill. There were four bands on the bill, and if you actually read this blog, you know I never make anything on time. Ever. I missed the first band, Olympia’s The Mona Reels. I arrived just before Spanish for 100 set up to play. I hate to play favorites, but I was impressed. These guys were really well informed. Super cool sounds. Their music is available for download, check ’em out (photos).

The Sea Navy (photos) played next with a set of tunes from their recent record, “Oh These Troubled Times.” A final set with TW Walsh filling in on the drums was smart and poignant. There were a group of juiced up gals who couldn’t help but dance. I know…. At a rock show, it’s unheard of and unacceptable. Seriously. It made for a few awkward moments. In the end, who cares? It’s a rock show. If you feel it, go ahead and dance. Nothing wrong with that.

The last group featured Robb Benson (formerly of Dear John Letters) The Dept of Energy (photos) closed the show with a set of catchy pop tunes, though I spent much of the end of the evening lusting after a Leica I saw busted out near the end of the Sea Navy’s set. Gimme a break. It’s a disease and I can’t fucking help it okay? A couple previews of their record are available on the lately ubiquitous myspace.com.

Check out the photos.

Interesting. Steve Jobs – Thoughts on Music posted to the Apple website. An excerpt:

Some have argued that once a consumer purchases a body of music from one of the proprietary music stores, they are forever locked into only using music players from that one company. Or, if they buy a specific player, they are locked into buying music only from that company’s music store. Is this true? Let’s look at the data for iPods and the iTunes store – they are the industry’s most popular products and we have accurate data for them. Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM. The remaining 97% of the music is unprotected and playable on any player that can play the open formats. Its hard to believe that just 3% of the music on the average iPod is enough to lock users into buying only iPods in the future. And since 97% of the music on the average iPod was not purchased from the iTunes store, iPod users are clearly not locked into the iTunes store to acquire their music.

He later implies it’s up to the major labels to make the move. Checkmate.

I dropped in on a show Saturday at Bob’s Java Jive. Four bands played, I watched two: Paris Spleen (photos) and The Drug Purse (photos). Both Tacoma bands, Paris Spleen has a dance rock thing going on and The Drug Purse pulled a stony, jangly, psychedelic rock trick from a retro hat. I think I remember reading a while back there would be more regular shows at the Jive at Spew, but there’s no way to search. At any rate, here’s some rock photos.

Kirk Rundstrom, guitar player for the Wichita, Kansas alternative bluegrass band Split Lip Rayfield, was recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Though he endured four months of chemotherapy, the cancer spread and he was given only a few months to live. He decided best therapy would be to hit the road one last time, playing a round of shows before retiring to beat the cancer for good. They played the Tractor Tavern in Ballard on Friday, November 10th.

A couple of friends of mine, and fans of the band traveled up to Seattle from Tucson to catch the show. The Tractor was packed with fans and the band got a lot of support from Seattle. Also on hand were several family members whom I talked to briefly. I’d seen SLR once before in Tucson at the now defunct 7 Black Cats, probably 6-7 years ago. Their performance on Friday night was spirited as ever and it was good to see them giving it everything on regrettably, what may be their last tour.

Portland-via-Oklahoma’s “I can lick any son of a bitch in the house” opened the show played before SLR. I took photos of the whole show, but there was a red light shining on the stage the whole time. During ICLASOBITH, I didn’t use flash so I wouldn’t be annoying. My Nikon absolutely hates red light, and as a result, no photos of them. But I was actually encouraged to shoot photos during Split Lip Rayfield’s set, flash or not.

Here are some of the images taken at the show.

Best of luck Kirk. Hope you beat it.

Ventured up to Seattle last night to see the Little Steven’s Rolling Rock and Roll Show. On the bill were four bands, newcomers The Charms from Boston, garage rock pioneers The Chesterfield Kings, Seattle-via-Tucson’s Supersuckers and the New York Dolls. To be honest, the whole thing stunk of corporate advertising and bumptious, celebrity notoriety exploitation, but we had a get-in-free pass. What the hell, right?

The Charms were on when we arrived, but the line to get a drink was so long that I didn’t see a lick of their set. (Seriously, we were in line for 20 minutes. For beer. While a band was on. Ugh.) $13 later and two beers later, we made our way into the main room to find The Chesterfield Kings (instant audio and ridiculous, skip intro screen. You’ve been warned.) on stage doing their thing. This was the first time I’d seen them play, and they looked pretty tired. I’ll sum this up with one word: meh.

Countryfied, punkish and self-proclaimed “The greatest rock n’ roll band in the world”, The Supersuckers (instant audio warning) were up next. Say what you will of these guys. Are they breaking new ground? No. Are they gimmicky? Totally. Do I think they’re the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world. No. Do they care? Absolutely not. Will they leave at the end of the night having put on a entertaining show doing exactly what they love to do? Count on it. I’ve never left a Supersuckers show feeling slighted. Put a stamp on it and stick it in the mail. They deliver the rock.

There is ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO WORRY. I’m rolling my own eyes at that last line FOR YOU right now.

Protopunk glam rock veterans New York Dolls (photos) headlined the show. What can I say that hasn’t already been said? In one incarnation or another, these guys have been putting on this show since before I was born. El Corazon was super crowded and I didn’t really have the vantage to bust out the camera earlier in the show. When the Dolls hit, I decided to just stick it up there and see what happened. These photos were all taken from pretty far back in the crowd. The stage was pretty well lit, but there were a ton of asshats in front of me. These shots are all digital and held overhead. It would have been nice to get up closer and actually compose the shots, but I mentioned the whole asshats thing, right? Whatever happened, happened.

Again, here are the photos of the New York Dolls.