:: Music As Social Agitation Records::

:: Sunday, August 22, 2004 ::

the slim creeping beautiful. winni, minni. we played on an island, latsch island, in the mississippi. i think that river is trying to seduce me. kansas city, me and jeff's drive to to tulsa, winona. i am pretty sure i was conceived in saint louis, delivered at swedish. we are listening to clamdust trying to attach ourselves to something familiar as we follow the river back to 90. the mississippi, though a state as well, is not the arkansas. this i keep repeating to myself. it got creepy. it started friendly, familiar. i felt really comfortable on stage, on the island. i am not referring to the performance thing either, just very physically comfortable regardless. i felt like letting go and, because of it, played a very sloppy, gelatinous set. it felt good, though. i played bow, blue purple, the leash, olive, eulogy. joe, jaime and then mike byrd. then tim and labrynt. the kids were very friendly post-show. lab sold a few cd's, i gave a few away and we made 20 bucks in donations. we got several offers for a place to crash and several for post-show hanging out. we decided to go to this cafe called "the acoustic cafe." it was a nice cafe, quaint and friendly. good size, alright food. it was there that the calm within became apparent. this is the way i was feeling a few weeks ago in bellingham, saturated with a foreign divinity. one idea about this feeling (which comes in pulses, flashes, waves) is that it is a premonition of the permanent soak that is after-death. a blip of iridescence/incandescence to our color, our sliver of the color spectrum. it is a light, warm possession. regardless, it didn't feel creepy until tonight. we went to a green party gathering. alex took us there. there were speakers, some music, drinks. polly, the coordinator, was happy to hear our story and wanted us to share it with the group. i asked her if i could play a song instead. we wound up each playing a song, probably taking up too much of their time. i stumblingly told of MASA and the reason for our trip and how beautiful their city was (i guess people flock here from distances in the fall cause there are soooo many green trees turning red orange brown) and how beautiful their togetherness was. it came out rough, as did olive but i felt compelled to share it. afterwards dwayne, who happened to be the county commissioner, offered us a place to stay, 16 bucks and wished us well. we gave him cd's of ours. joe got this brilliant idea to squat, or at least visit the auditorium of this junior high was being renovated. so we went. the door that was usually open, was locked. we found another way in. it was dark, bare and that echo was there, the imprint of a silenced location that was used to heavy people traffic. apparently, there was something else there. the pictures we took as we fled had what appeared to be "orbs," round spots on the picture that weren't there otherwise. supposed psycho-kinetic energy. we fled because there was a loud bang from a distance down the hallway. we heard it twice. we fled fast. tim snapped some shots as we fled laughing. after that, winona wasn't the same. i felt a calm, quiet around me, labby felt something in her back. we went to jamey's to hang out and say goodbye. he wasn't home but we hung out in his very nice, quaint apartment for a bit. he had two nice cats, wood floors, high ceilings and plenty of plants. we left shortly after, found jamey at a bar on the corner. lab, who had stayed in the van came in and said she was ready to go NOW. we pulled jamey out to say goodbye and as we packed up, him and a few friends started a drunken clap circle with indian chanting. if things hadn't been getting weird, it would have been simply funny, but present circumstance made it kind of dark and foreboding. i left feeling that our new friends were not on my side as they had appeared. a sick colony tie-casting there spellings on us. i am getting tired. i want to write a musical autobiography. as in, a recounting and fleshing out of my entire life through the exclusive personification of the songs, albums and musical acts that aurally periodicated my existence. as in, all the characters in your life story are the artists and bands you listened to. your relationships, your reactions and interactions with their music... admiration is a lazy, patronizing distance. inspiration is a personalized tribute, an empathetic activating response to another. fuck admiration.
1am, Sunday August 22nd, 2004.
-mattfu

***
travel log stardate 020042108
goldstar the incessant spilling tour [horshit]
When I lived in Chicago there was a magazine being made and distributed in pure DIY fashion called Lumpen. When the makers of this zine would make their deliveries they would do it in pure John Cleese style: jogging raising their knees high and chanting something while wearing white plastic paint coveralls. The ritual of the deliveries in my neighborhood became as dear as head butts by Wesly Willis as a strange wicker park phenomenon. Well, these kids have opened an art gallery and this is where we performed. www.lumpen.com I ran into Miss Florida Butter, my old downstairs neighbor who performed a story with hand drawn illustrations. I always wondered what happened to her. Unbeknownst, I ended up performing with her. There have been so many strange synchronistic moments like this on our adventures it is uncanny. I love that we drove all the way to Chicago to play with two northwest artists.

Today we played in a park along the mississippi river. There were clovers in the grass, tall beautiful trees and eagles soaring above them.

Crashing the green party party with a gillian welch cover afterward was a nice treat. Just one short and sweet song.
-labbypants

***

10:21 a.m. sunday

we're driving from the rest stop we stayed at about 25 miles from madison. we drove there after an odd night in winona. it didn't start out as odd as it eventually got, but i have pictures to prove that there are ghosts in an old school there that joe took us to. whenever i think of the school, i think of that part in the sixth sense where the kid that sees ghosts sees those three people hanged. everyone was spooked after that. we went to jamey's, a guy that played the show with us outside on the banks of the mississippi, and we sat in his living room with his cats as he was across the street listening to a band cover bruce hornsby.

we met some really great people there, and some endless nw connections, as alex, our guide for most of the evening, showed us around. we showed up at the winona county's green party "party," where each one of us played a song and the county commissioner (we've come to the consensus that we have no idea what he does, but matt seems to think he's like a delegate or something) gave us all the cash in his wallet and wished us well. nice people in winona. the green party was interesting, it was nice to see activity and people involved and active.

but the green party was before we went to rascal's and jamey's and the last thing we experienced from the winona scene was an impromptu native american drum circle chant as we packed the car to get the hell out of there. i wasn't as creeped out as the rest of my crew, but the contact creepiness was more than enough. we left at about 130.

matt just pulled a completely illegal u-turn whilst listening to al green soulify the car with his soulful souliness. my back and neck hurts from sleeping in this van. touring isn't all fun and games, boys and girls. i'm looking forward to free pizza today, hopefully. next stop glass nickel pizzeria. i need to brush my fucking teeth.

a few things i keep forgetting to mention. matt's designated quote of the tour, which happened way back in minni, minn:
me (singing): "i seen fire and i seen rain..."
matt: "this isn't james taylor, this is ben harper."
labrynt: "you can tell it's james taylor because beneeeeeeeeeeeeee."
-tim

:: brs 2:12 AM [+] ::
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Comments:

I live in winona and have heard many stories that travellers through winona have experienced.
One is the feeling of a very odd energy flowing through the place, especially down town (where the school is) and on the island.
Every roll of film I have taken in winoa (including one in perfect light) have resulting with one photo displaying 'prbs' of some sort like you described.

# posted by  Anonymous : 2:15 AM

 

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