Mason's Digressions

Spent a fun afternoon today down at the unbeatable KFJC radio station, playing cassettes and singles (and a few CDs and CDRs) from my collection of Japanese underground music. Thanks to Dan for allowing me to take over for a few hours, attempting to play almost entirely bands that nobody has ever heard of. But I did have to start with "Amerika" by YBO2 from the Alienation album, as that one holds a special place for me as an early wake-up call that there was some seriously amazing music to be found in Japan, a couple of years before I made it over there. (I'll remind folks here that I am working to keep my Japanese music blog active, now at http://ongakublog.wordpress.com)

And after the radio show we went and got some fantastic Indian food. Now that I think about it I'm not sure why we didn't go get Japanese food for dinner, but since it was delicious we must have made the right choice.

No, I don't know what the title means. But I hate trying to put subject lines/titles on entries here. There is no subject, it's just another post, that's all.

In any case, as morbidloren wrote yesterday, we had our 22nd anniversary dinner on Sunday, which was, of course, wonderful. A nice meal and better company, as always. It's been an interesting year so far, with a lot of activity for both of us. A new job for me, a new agent for her, some new releases for me and hopefully a couple of books for her! If only Lenore had gotten into the school of our dreams for this fall, we might not have anything to complain about (though we'd find something, I'm sure).

In music news, the Sloow Tapes label from Belgium will be releasing a cassette with a couple of live Numinous Eye shows, sometime later this year; and a label in China is interested in releasing a CD plus perhaps a re-issue of an old collaboration of mine. I have to say, if that might lead to doing a tour of some sort in China, I'd be thrilled. I'm finally finishing up the edits on a cool recording from over a year ago when Dubmarronics were in town, and I'll be finding a home for it.

Live-wise, Suishou no Fune come into SF on Monday for a couple of shows. Monday night at Bottom of the Hill they'll play with Oxbow and Mi Ami; then Tuesday night at 21 Grand in Oakland with Oaxacan and an improv trio. Then on June 18 I'll be playing at the Hemlock Tavern with Makoto Kawabata from Acid Mothers Temple and a coupla other bands. I'm doing a Numinous Eye set with Frank Grau on drums, and Kawabata will join us for a portion of the set.

The Japan tour planning is looking amazing (see http://www.charnel.com/numinouseye for the dates), including shows with KK Null, Tatsuya Yoshida, Up-Tight, Yamamoto Seiichi, Suishou no Fune, Miminokoto, Oshiri Penpenz, and lots more. The only hitch right now is that plane tickets are about twice their usual price, apparently because Tokyo is in-between SF and China, and I failed to check my schedule against the damn Olympics. Anyone out there a travel agent with tricks up your sleeve? Didn't think so. We'll see what happens. Mike Shoun, my frequent drummer with Numinous Eye, is hoping to go but at that price I don't know if either of us can afford it! Fingers crossed...

It's been a funny, busy time recently. Lots of old acquaintances reappearing all at once, for no discernable reason, writers and musicians from 20 years ago. Odd.

Meanwhile, we played quite a fun show the other night opening for Acid Mothers Temple (and Mammatus), who were as always stellar, down to Kawabata breaking his guitar into pieces at the end of the night -- and then signing the neck for a fan as a souvenir. Mike and I played a good half-hour opening set, especially considering he's been on tour with the Oh Sees constantly and we only had a chance to jam once before this show. Never really a problem, though. The recording came out pretty well, so I'll likely post it on the web site sometime soon like usual.

I'm trying to get more mixing and editing done, while also finding a home for a couple of already-completed albums. Right now I finished mixing a jam session from last year with Dubmarronics when they were in town: the three of them on guitar, toys, and heavily-effected drums; me on guitar; Stoo on bass; and Gabriel on vocal treatments. Abstract, flowing, fun stuff.

Definitely finding it hard to make time for the recording and editing, though. But I am also in the midst of organizing another tour to Japan this August -- it's coming together very quickly. It'll be a special one for many reasons, including several shows with Yamamoto Seiichi (including one with Tatsuya Yoshida) as well as Suishou no Fune.

Quite a lot has happened since my last post actually, but it's all been a bit distracting so I've been lax at posting. As usual, I guess. In any case, it's hard to beat the excitement of the LP release, of course. Many new Numinous Eye works are in progress, including a new CDR, "It's Coming Down," which will be available fairly soon now. Drummer Mike is hard at work hand-printing the sleeves with a gorgeous linoblock print; the CDRs are burned; so it's pretty much done. Stay tuned. There are a couple of other albums done and looking for homes, and hopefully it won't be too long before I can announce some concrete plans.

We only have one show planned right now, in April opening for good old Acid Mothers Temple here in SF at Bottom of the Hill. Always a good time.

Another tour in Japan will happen sometime this year, either around June or in the fall. Plans will begin to solidify soon. We hope to not only play shows but also do some recording in Tokyo this time around, bringing in various friends to add to the Numinous Eye sound, which will be great fun.

I've been laid out with one flu/cold after another the last couple of weeks. I've coughed my lungs up all around the house. It's great, really.

The other great news, though, is that I have a new job, in San Francisco again. No more commuting, either helping kill the earth by car exhaust or spending hours waiting for multiple segments by mass transit. Hooray. It'll be pretty busy, but also a huge improvement over what my previous company turned into.

I'm happy to announce that the new Numinous Eye release, the unimaginatively-titled "Studio/Live" from the Little Mafia label, has arrived! I know that some of the distributors have it already, but I finally received a nice heavy box that had the UPS guy wondering why this relatively small box was so heavy. When Loren informed him that it was albums, he asked "Like old records?" Yes, indeedy.

Side A was recorded back at the end of 2005 in Tokyo. I played a show with drummer Koji Shimura (Acid Mothers Temple, Mainliner, Miminokoto, etc) at a little bar called Chikyuya. When we finished, the bar owner introduced me to bassist Higo Hiroshi, who played in the legendary band Friction, and asked if we could play together. I said sure, that would be great sometime. She looked confused for a moment, and then clarified, "How about now?" So Hiroshi borrowed a bass from the opening band, and with Shimura we played a ~20 minute encore jam that is now side A of this LP. Side B's story is simpler, it's studio recordings from 2005 with ex-SubArachnoid Space drummer Chris Van Huffle.

See the newly-spiffied site at http://www.charnel.com/numinouseye and view the beautiful cover below. It was originally going to be screen-printed but I guess the guy who was going to do it flaked. Instead, we used the same artwork on non-glossy stock and it looks neatly old-fashioned. Just like a record album. Oh, and these are limited to 490 copies, on orange vinyl. Pretty pretty.

So, since morbidloren is going to spend November doing NaNoWriMo I need to keep busy too. I thought about writing another novel, but I feel bad about the two I have that need to be edited and finished up. So I considered subverting the purpose of NaNoWriMo and finishing one of those. But really that's not what I need to finish up right now. So I'm going to call November NaAlMiMo even though it's not nearly as clever and pronounceable: National Album Mixing Month. Yes, I'm going to finish mixing all of the albums that I have in progress. That includes two Numinous Eye albums; one collaboration with Dubmarronics and friends; and one collaboration between Numinous Eye and Suishou no Fune. If I finish those, then I have at least one other collaboration that needs artwork and packaging to do as a CDR release, and perhaps one other solo guitar album. So we'll see if I can accomplish that and maybe even get another Numinous Eye release underway in the recording stages.

We also have a show coming up: Mammatus, Up-Tight, Numinous Eye at the Cafe du Nord in San Francisco on Nov 20! Yes, Japan's amazing Up-Tight are coming back over, and this will be their only west coast show. Deep, dark Velvets-esque psych-drone punctuated by phenomenal outbursts of incredible fuzz guitar. Not to be missed. Mammatus are likewise imposing: Santa Cruz's masters of prog-heavy-rock-psych-something, great stuff.

And lastly, on Nov 10 sometime around 3pm I will be playing guest DJ on KFJC radio. If you're at all into old experimental/noise/stuff, check it out and maybe think about recording it. Several hours' worth of old cassettes from the 80s will be played, including (I think) SPK, Test Dept, Vivenza, Master/Slave Relationship, Smersh, Odium, Ramleh, Club Moral, and much more. Many great rarities that need to be dusted off and played again.

I'm reading Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood, by Michael Walker. Very enjoyable, at least for those of us who like to read about music scenes and characters from the past. In this case, it's about the late 60s-early 70s LA neighborhood, which was home to pretty much every hitmaker of the time, from the Byrds to Crosby, Stills & Nash, Joni Mitchell, Mama Cass, Frank Zappa, and far more. Filled with fun stories.

It inevitably makes me think of other scenes, more recent ones, that I know of, or may have encountered, or have known people from. And of course, it brings to mind the time during which we've been in San Francisco and the mini-scenes (none, alas, anywhere near as profitable as the Laurel Canyon scene in the book) which have come and gone. When we first moved here there was a very healthy experimental thing going on at 455 10th Street, later via Auricular Records, 7Hz, and so on. The noise scene probably peaked early on with the Kingdom of Noise festival featuring Masonna and Solmania (with Borbetomagus and Steelpole Bathtub at the Great American Music Hall!), but for a while there we had constant visitors like Keiji Haino, Hijokaidan, and C.C.C.C. Then there was the tribal undercurrent that came with the frequent time spent here by Crash Worship, at various weird small clubs here and there like our friend Chad's warehouse off 2nd Street. There were swirls of activity around Neurosis, Amber Asylum and friends. It felt like there was something special going on for a while after I started SubArachnoid Space, with shows every month at Bottom of the Hill (home away from home), Komotion, Kilowatt, Cocodrie, and other spots, mostly gone now. I guess the dot-com boom really did kill a lot of it, but I'm sure there was no one thing. A lot of bands did leave town, though, or just stopped playing. There's a lot more going on again now, so perhaps there's another scene gestating. We'll see.

Today was one of those days I'm happy to be here in San Francisco. I left work a bit early to get up to Aquarius Records, because Andee (one of the owners) had taken it upon himself to get Circle down to SF from Portland early so that they could play an in-store this evening. So at 6:00 the store was crammed full of people excited to see a chilled-out version of Circle's live show. And it certainly was worth it. The boys from Finland played a wonderful, fun set, concluding with a truly bizarre barbershop quartet ditty. And this after a mock battle and a beheading from Jussi's bass. Later tonight (actually the show probably just started as I type) they're playing another secret show on The Bus. And tomorrow night at Bottom of the Hill.

I talked to Jussi afterwards -- we hadn't seen each other in perhaps a couple of years! -- and he said they're pretty tired but he enjoyed the casual store show. Their tour's 20 shows in 20 days, and he's looking forward to getting back home and just chilling out, fishing, and reading for a week. Sounded good to me too. I wish.

So, I feel lucky to be here where such a cool band can have such a cool store put in the work to let them play for a small, enthusiastic audience of freaks. Bravo.

So, Suishou no Fune are on the east coast now with Mike, starting the remainder of their tour. Spent one day recording with Bardo Pond at MG's place, which apparently (and not surprisingly) was great. Tomorrow up to Boston, and then they head back down the coast before striking a westerly course. If you're between Boston and LA, check out http://www.myspace.com/suishounofune for dates and sounds, and don't miss them if they visit your town. They're incredibly nice people.

I had a chance to do a quick semi-rough mix of the recording session with Suishou no Fune while they were here, so I could send a copy east with Mike to give them. It's great stuff! I don't sound at all like I felt, which is to say perhaps a listener can't tell that I just wanted to lie down and pass out. So I need to edit and do some good mixes, and find a label for it. Like so many other things.

I'm waiting to get some blank digipacks in, and then I think I'll see about doing another couple of Charnel Music CDRs, including one with recordings from Numinous Eye's Japan tour and one with some collaborations I did when I was there in '05. Finally get that out there. It's interesting to do a limited edition CDR, and then make the album available online. So you can get The Farthest Thing on iTunes, Rhapsody (listen to it at http://www.rhapsody.com/numinouseye/thefarthestthing), and wherever else IODA gets it to. I'm pretty curious to see how far the online stuff can go, since it of course there are no pressing costs. I personally still like to have some physical manifestation to go with the music, but I don't begrudge anyone who just wants the audio files.

And thus...more mixing to do, soonish.

Time I suppose to begin reminding people in our area that Numinous Eye will be playing a show on Sept 10. We're opening for Acid Temple Guru, or something like that -- it's two of our pals from Acid Mothers Temple playing with Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru. Bottom of the Hill, with Phantom Family Halo playing in the middle, who are also pretty cool.

And in the meantime, I'm in another band. Sort of. My friend Frank, formerly of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Species Being, has put together Kerauno. It's an interesting project, for which he's hooking up with various other players to be the "A" Team and play when we can. But recognizing that we're all kinda busy, it's an open thing where, if one or more of us can't do a show/tour/whatever, we all agree that it's cool to drag someone else in to take our place whenever necessary. I like the free-form spirit. Plus it's a pretty different thing for me, very rhythmically tight and more structured than my usual deal. Gets me out of my box a bit, which is very nice. For now we're just working on recording an EP. Shows will follow.

And in other, more work-related news, let me stress that firing people really, really sucks.