the demise of the record store

while record stores have been disappearing the whole of my life (ragin records in fresno & visalia, no life in hollywood, rhino in westwood), the two that we are losing this week leave me especially sad.

ozone in portland,or was a regular tour stop back when it was across the street from powell's and since moving here, it's less-moddy offshoot on e. burnside was a common stop for new releases. i s'pose it wasn't terribly special, and we still have jackpot, but still...

sea level records, in echo park, on the other hand, was less like a record store and more like an extension of my house. a trip there was not unlike a trip to the livingroom. like the record store in the movies, this one, more than any other, was blood. i could walk behind the counter and flip through todd's endless piles of advances or help myself to a beer from the fridge. nites would often begin there and, often times, end there, too. fireworks from the roof, sweaty dance parties, the lotus parade, dodger games, bbqs, art shows, instores...oh man...the instores. the first time i ever saw dios was at sea level. we ate hot dogs. i burned my stache on a pipe when little wings played. radar bros. silversun pickups. pine marten. kaito. daaaang!

i played once. sat on an ice chest and was brought to tears the one and only time i played "the goodthings," a song i wrote for pikul after he died. so emo. roddy from imperial teen/faith no more was there. i was so embarrassed.

as recently as my last visit, a random afternoon not too far back, i ran into no less than five old friends in the course of half an hour. granted, one of them was cutting hair in her makeshift salon upstairs, but still, how cool is it you could get your hair cut upstairs???

the end was inevitable from the get-go. days after they signed the lease amoeba announced the opening of their hollywood store. and then came all that downloading. i s'pose five years is actually not a bad run. and now that i no longer live there i've had to find other ways to fight the lonliness from noon to nine. i'm so ecstatic that todd is going to get his life back, tho i guess i'm also fearful that he'll have no idea what to do with it now. that scene from shawshank redemption flashes thru my mind, but i think he'll fare better than that old man dangling from the rafters. sea level, the institution, however, is leaving us for good and i just wanted to take this space to say so long and thanks and i'm lucky to've had you.

r.i.p.

bright eyes

while in nyc i took the plunge and bought a digital camera, an elph. it is cute but i feel so bad not lugging my polaroid everywhere. the polaroid one-step that i prefer is near impossible to find as of just recently so i fear this may be the end of an era.

here's a digital photo of bright eyes watching themselves on david letterman the other nite, sans that nostalgic polaroid glow...

nyc book launch

i had planned to tell y'all about this event but as it turned out, it was "private." at the last minute i agreed to fill in for rusty santos who would have done a far better job than i at mesmorizing an audience full of folks who clearly had no interest in hearing live music. i was also way too overwhelmed by the launch/freeboozeallafternoon to act/think clearly. luckily, slim moon and what army? were there to sweep the place up. afterwards i was honored to share some words with one of my heroes, michel gondry. it was rather dreamy and made up for the yuckiness i felt after playing.

a quick search of the web turned up some pictures and a pretty sweet review from some total stranger.

it also turned up this short and sweet review from some other dudes blog:

"PictureBox continues to kick all kinds of ass when it comes to art and comics, this book being no exception. REAL FUN was one of a few books being featured at a Thursday night D.A.P. party on the lower east side. I didn't know anything about it but I'm glad I was able to score a copy (thanks, Dan!). Ashod Simonian, who seems to have played or toured with every great indie rock band of the 21st Century (from Okkervil River to Sleater-Kinney to Spoon), was kind enough to take his polaroid camera every step of the way and share with the rest of us."

i think the book is everywhere now. please find it. if you can't, please let me know. if you are in nyc, may i recommend mcnally/robinson in soho? of all the spots i visited, this may have been my favorite as my book was placed smack dab between a david lynch and raymond pettibone. also, the bookshop at ps1 in queens is like ten square feet of the most amazing books on the planet. both of those, as well as moma south and st.marks have autographed copies. i tried to write something different in each one and there are some real gems out there if you can find them.

also, i'm not much for crudtalking but spoonbill whatsitsbutt in williamsburg wanted me to only autograph the stickers on the shrinkwrap which i thought was pretty lame, especially since there was another dude there unwrapping his books and signing them rite in front of me! i walked out and, well, i s'pose i suggest you do the same if you ever find yourself there. why? cuz it's fun.