3BK-6,7

Got behind a little bit in the game write-up dept. Last week we squared off against Los Tigres Del Norte, Bill's Monday team featuring Justin Griesy AND Big Nate. Big Nate wrote on his registration from that he would be missing everything except the final tournament, dropping him well below where he would've been drafted. Bill took a flier on him, and what do you know, turns out Nate could show up at everything. Pretty lame in the grand scheme, as now their team has two of the more dominant big dudes in the league. Ah, well.

We hung with them okay - they threw a ridiculous amount of zone at us largely b/c they only had 6 guys (conveniently enough, their top 6 draft picks), and the game effectively turned into a battle of who had more new players who were apt to make silly decisions / mistakes. Turns out that was we. We hung in just fine -

0-1,2;1,2,3-2;3-3;3-4;4-4;4-5;5-5;5-6;6,7,8-6;8-7,8;9-8;9-9;10-9;10-10;11-10;11-11;12-11;12-12...

You'll note that after we took half up 8-6, we promptly let them right back into it. These were two super moronic turns that set the tone for the rest of the evening. At 12-12, they brought a four man cup, and it was way more than our inexperienced team could handle.12-13,14,15, all she wrote. Nate and Griesy made a ton of plays, though I did, too; still, it was a pretty dumb, frustrating game and a solid reminder why it's annoying to play in middling leagues with zone - it consistently boils down to which team had more people show up that are going to make mistakes. That was most definitely us, as the bulk of our turns came from people throwing to e.g. Ashley on Big Nate matchups. Sheesh, I don't really like remembering that one. It left us at 3-3 and +7 on the season.

Beck has still been hurting a lot, and in that game could barely run; we played a lot of zone as a consequence since she and Lindsey were playing savage up until Ashley showed up for the second half. After the game, though, Beck made the executive decision to shut it down for a while, so she came and watched tonight's game instead.

Ah, tonight's game - we showed up about 7:10 to see howling winds and turn after turn after turn in the 6 o'clock games. We were matched up with Kevin Hatch's / Lisa Malo's team "Tickle Fight Club," a team notorious for zone-lust, so I was less than amped given the previous week's experience. But with such a strong upwind-downwind game going on, we made it a priority to just not make turns near the upwind goalline and effectively make a lot of ridiculous throws deep. Wahoo. This more or less gave me license to turn, and turn it I did, always with the idea that one 20% throw is more likely to be completed than fifteen 50-50 throws.

And the strategy worked - we got a bunch of short field turns and ran away with this one before it even got going. Something like this:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7-0;7-1,2,3;8-3;8-4;9-4;9-5;10-5;10-6;11-6;11-7;12-7;12-8;13,14-8;14-9;15-9

That run to start the game included two Callahan goals, one by Stefan and one by me. Fun times. We played okay and more or less stuck to the chuck it and play D scheme; I hope it wasn't boring for people, but it's tough with so many newbies on the field to play decently in a windy game (it did die down relative to the 6 o'clock games, but was still generally more than the bulk of people could handle). You'll notice that we got beat from the point of 7-0 on, which meant that the bulk of the second half was a dumb upwind downwind game and that we generally weren't playing well*.

* - I don't understand it, really. We have a couple of tall guys on our team, and we specifically told them about the huck and play D plan, and specifically told them about staying behind their guys when on and the opponent was going downwind. Our words had no impact; we ended up hucking to no one several times, and we got repeatedly beat deep. Unfathomable. Between this and the students this week, I am not sure if I can stomach any more complete inability to follow instructions over the next week.

So the Callies were cool, and my hucks were pretty on (though necessarily blady because of the wind and arcing it over / around the cup, and people did not make the plays that they could have). I caught a few scores, too - the big goal of the night was a BH from Al that he threw without seeing a poach D; the poacher stepped out and smacked it, killing all of the spin on the disc and sending it spiraling in a bizarre arhythmic mess earthward. I laid out and got my arms under it, football style (the disc was flipping end over end) in time to grasp the disc - cool layout goal, but it happened to be in a bare patch of sand-earth in the endzone. So my forearms / hands are skinned to bits. Beck did not approve, methinks. But yeah, it was WORTH IT.

Good game, and we definitely got some hot running and D in. Team still seems very shaky - too many dudes who are unsure of themselves with the disc. So it goes. It hasn't helped that Stefan's been dinged pretty much all season long. We're now 4-3, +13, and we've got two regular season games left against Keith's team FIGJAM and Steve's team Black Smoke Monster. Then it's playoffs, then it's back to all Sprawl all the time.

Speaking of the beast, we hit up practices again last night (though I had to miss). Sounds like things were choppy-as-expected in the first time back, but looks to be an exciting club season. I've won all five of the SLUG scrimmages I've played in (with, remember, a coin-flipping process to determine teams, so no rigging here) but will have to miss this weekend's in favor of a trip to SA / Austin and a GPGDS show. NICE. Anyways, back in the swing, and I'm sure tales will come tumbling down the pipeline from the Ultiverse soon. There are a bunch of tourneys coming up in April, not the least of which is Uoma Donna - I'm playing on a team featuring the one and only Genevieve "G" Maricle, in from DC, so that will be dope.

Oh yeah, and Kaysie / Lisa were nice enough to compliment me on my weight loss. I weighed 166 after a big sweaty workout at the gym on Monday, so I am officially down to my high school football playing weight. Hold on, wasn't I 190 as a Texas Football senior tight end? Um, yeah, I was also 6'2". Really what happened was I would lift weights and drink protein / chocolate shakes all summer long to get up to 180, they would embellish the stats in the program a bit, and then I would promptly lose 12 pounds at two-a-days to fall to the high 160's. I natch had to still block dudes who *actually* weighed 210 and what not, so that was awesome. Good times. Regardless, the point is that my diet / exercise regimen to take off some pounds to save the wear and tear on my knees has worked so far, and I am a svelte dude these days. ANd you can even see something resembling my abdominal muscles. WOAH! Still need to be careful - I'm a bit stunned than I made it through Houseguestapalooza intact - but there's another trip this weekend, and it's very easy to let it go, I'm well aware. I'm pretty good with this weight, though, so I don't need to be *quite* as stringent with desserts and such (and my food diary agrees, as a big chocolate milk shake made an appearance in the food diary the other night. YIKES!).

Speaking of, I'm going to the gym sooner than I can fathom, so I should get to bed. The 3BK train is still going well and is still fun, though I constantly worry I'm not being positive enough. I just wish we could stay on top of a game like the one tonight - people just get complacent / goofy so easily! Frustrating. But all good in teh end.

Seriously, seriously, bed now. I'm well aware I owe a lot more March accounts writings and a bunch of album reviews (though I did get one of those out today).

AR: 101

csdh - 101 (2000)

The Houston-based csdh released their debut (and only) album to rave reviews during the spring of my senior year at Rice. But as much acclaim as 101 got as an instant classic, an unbelievably before-its-time and eclectic acid house /folk / electronic noise mammoth of a concept album, it was the bizarre final csdh show ten years ago today that simultaneously put the band in the pantheon of experimental music and necessarily, as you'll read below, ended their career. Taking Neil Young's adage that it's "better to burn out than to fade away" to its logical conclusion, csdh's lightning flash of a career is unsurprisingly the subject of much controversy: could they have really accomplished something had they not been so intensely self-indulgent? Or do we give them far too much credit because they quit before they could eff it up? There is, however, no denying the ridiculous accomplishment contained in the minuscule catalog. If you're unfortunate enough to have never heard this achievement, then you best get thyself to a record store pronto. It's definitely not for everyone, but some people actively desert islands so other people can go to those islands and bring just one vinyl copy of this masterpiece with them. You'd be a fool not to give this one a chance.

My college, appropriately enough, ran the "Lovett Undergrounds," a weekly coffeehouse / open-mic session in the Lovett basement that catered to the lighter-drinking, hipper Rice crowd. I stopped by fairly regularly to check out any on-campus talent that might traipse through or just to lend support to nervous friends I knew would be taking the stage. That night in April '00, though, I basically went on a whim; I hadn't even heard that there was going to be a concert proper, though that became obvious when I stepped in the door. Back then, I was nowhere near as with it, hip or knowledgeable as I am now; I had no idea that the underground sensation csdh had booked the Lovett Undergrounds for a private, in-the-know show. They had released 101 four weeks before in the middle of Rice's Spring Break, and as clueless as I was, I had heard their single "'Splode!" blaring from parties all over campus. So while I didn't really grasp the critical sensation they were in underground circles, and I really had no idea of the importance of that night's show, I *had* at least heard of csdh. "'Splode!," though, was no indication for what I was in store that night.

It's worth noting that Lovett Underground's was typically an acoustic set affair, the type of thing where folks could bang out Dylan tunes or host Don McLean sing-alongs, and things would generally never creep above the you-could-study-through-it decibel level. It was obvious from the stacked-amp setup for the csdh set that the norms were going to be badly violated. It's also worth noting that the typical Undergrounds crowd was perhaps skinnier and more angsty / cynical than the average Rice crowd, but they weren't more than a standard deviation outside of the average. The crowd that night was black-clad and facially-pierced with bumpersticker-smothered backpacks. Lots of black or blue/pink hair, lots of chains and leather collars. But - and this is the weird but - they were not a moody, depressed proto-emo crowd of that stereotypical dress, nor were they angry punks. At least not that night. The dominant vibe was miles and miles of smiles. There was a palpable sense of blissed out happiness, and this was despite the fact that Morphine's Cure for Pain was blaring from the preshow PA. What I'm trying to convey is a seriously dissonant setting; the dress of NOFX with the free spirit of Phish lawn seats. I'll never quite get over that.

As you can imagine, having walked into my familiar basement expecting to hear someone messing up the lyrics to "Ripple" and instead getting all kinds of signs of an electronic assault of punk fare, I was ill at ease. And a little intimidated by the scene and the arsenal on stage. There was an acoustic guitar and a Fender Telecaster, sure, but both stage right and stage left were crammed with amps and synthesizers and drum machines. No drum kit, but a pair of upside down trash-barrels sat in its place. And a couple of vats with wires coiled around their diameters as if a literal experiment would be going on during the show. It wasn't a big stage, and one wondered where on earth the band would stand in the midst of all those wires. To add to the dissonance, the 21st century electronics were being splashed by flickering light. The Lovett Undergrounds were candle-lit and vaguely damp; there were short tables and loveseats/ couches throughout, and the volunteers were serving free cocoa to the alterna kids. After a few minutes of bewildered gawking, I forced myself to ask young black-spike-haired friend Naomi WTF was going on.

She filled me in with a few details in the most thrilled of voices (and before you get your "DRUGS!" accusations on, trust that there was nothing funny going on with over- or under-dilated pupils or anything like that. Trust that it was unbridled, kindergartner-for-the-Easter-Bunny style enthusiasm. Nice to behold), but I still wasn't quite sure what the deal was. Sure, she let me know about the huge concept album that was 101, how it was all she and her friends had been listening to since it had been released, and how the news of the band's "enacted live performance" of the entire concept album, start to finish ("FINISH!" she exclaimed) had effectively grabbed the attention of every underground kid across the state. Lovett was, I had noticed, quite crowded with unfamiliar faces. The single "'Splode!" was just the beginning, she said, I should hear the next track, and oh my god can you believe it and before I knew what was happening she was blathering "ENACTED!" over and over. This got old pretty quick, so I walked to the bar and got a free cocoa.

I'll just go ahead and account the album track by track and the show at the same time, as to do otherwise would give it all away. That night, the Morphine tunes cut off abruptly and, as if this had been arranged beforehand, the table sitters blew out their candles to leave a basement pitch dark save the faint fluorescence coming from the bar area so the baristas could see their orders.
A single overhead light came on to illuminate the middle of the stage, and a six foot six giant of a lead singer, with some kind of chicken-headed Halloween mask on, strolled into view. He picked up his acoustic and patiently affixed the rubber beak around a mic. He gave a hushed but quick "1,2,3,4" and the band (the other members had walked on in the dark, apparently) launched into "'Splode!"

The radio edit of "'Splode!" is an acoustic ditty of an earworm with an impossibly simple A-D riff. It's a classic bright, summer breeze of a catchy song, but is rounded out by enough bass to make it excessively danceable. Easily a four star song, the happy vibe against the bizarre story (see next paragraph) is forever, at least for the Rice population of 2000, associated with good times. The album version (and this show's opener) had all of this - the acoustic bring chungs, the bouncing, window rattling bass, and the catchiness - but also featured screaming, running, LOUD keyboard lines. AND the relatively simple backbeat of the radio take is changed to an 808 polyrhythm that threatens to give irregular heartbeats. Live shows always sound different from the studio, but given how accustomed I had become to the single, my brain was wrenched badly by this version. Oddly enough, with the seeming sonic chaos (and the surge of crowd energy around me), I heard the lyrics to "'Splode!" for the first time that night.

101, as mentioned, is a concept album, and it all starts with "'Splode!" It begins as a one-off stupidly crass joke - the main character of 101, an unnamed narrator, is stumbling into a hotel room for a one night stand at a hotel with an eager companion. The narrator has been telling the woman never to sleep in hotel beds, i.e. under the covers, because while hotels always claim to have washed their sheets, you can never be sure. "Top the 'spread / I'd sleep* instead" coos the singer, and it's unclear exactly how smooth these lines are supposed to be. What is clear is that the narrator has uttered them many times before; it's apparently a killer sort of mood-setter for unobvious reasons, and also a type of life-philosophy - do not trust what is apparent! The irony creeps in when the narrator flips on the tele while his companion is "freshening up" and makes an unsettling discovery. "TV Movie / Floods with UV" he moans, as apparently this is the only television set in the universe that emits ultraviolet light. The UV light illuminates the abject horror of filthiness that is the hotel bedspread, and it suddenly occurs to the narrator that the bedspread almost certainly is NEVER washed by the hotel staff. He decries this with a chorus that you would have had to have been dead not to have caught that spring: "Splode! Stains! The Mountain Top!," and the narrator is left crushed by the times he has spent atop bedspreads thinking he was insulated from the germs of others.

* - Some insist that this second line is "eat," but given the preceding conversation, this interpretation makes little sense.

It is amazing that such a ridiculous and overtly disgusting story could drive such an emotionally sublime album, but it absolutely works - it sets the narrator off on a crisis as this little line he apparently has been using for years has been rendered utterly false. In concert and on album, the three minutes of radio pop perfection (which, incidentally, cuts off at the narrators discovery, only uttering the chorus repeatedly in seemingly cheery-faced denial) spiral quickly into fifteen minutes of kitchen sink mayhem (it's unlabeled on the back cover of the album*). At the show, the lights came up on the lead chicken's bandmates as the mayhem kicked in; the three of them all wore plastic masks of that "have a nice day" '70s style, a mask that has caused some clever csdh fans to lovingly refer to the band as "Chicken and The Entertainments." The anonymity of the band, of course, recalls The Replacements.

* - The back cover notably only contains the words "Splode! ; Rocky." Given that "Splode!"'s boundaries are fairly clear, and that "Rocky" has to refer to the "Rocky Raccoon" cover that concludes the album, most assume that the entire middle of the album is known as ";" - this is assumed to be an allusion to Patti Smith's declaration that she "can put a semicolon wherever the fuck I want to; Jesus did," which is both historically and grammatically dubious. There are competing theories as to what the individual sections of ";" should be called; rumors continue to swirl that the ten year anniversary release will feature individualized tracks with names, but given what happened, one can hardly be sure that these tracks reflect the band's wishes.

I find myself nearly incapable of describing the sounds on this album, either that night or on CD. They are just unspeakably futuristic - there are hints of guitar here and there, when folk passages seemingly over take flow from underneath, but they are definitely the exception. The majority is synth driven dance music... sorta. I say that because the beat stays in a particular groove so fleetingly that there doesn't seem to be time to grab a step, but somehow, this is not a bad thing. Perhaps the best comment is unbridled creativity - anything you can imagine would be in a song is, in synthesized form, from the various beats to the slingshot melodies. ";" is, btw, undoubtedly the highlight of the album and perhaps by concert going life. I'm going to "chicken" out, ha, and say that you must hear it. It's forty-seven minutes of quick cut, ADD passion, so huge and moving that it's hard for me to hear it without getting teary. Trust that you must hear this.

And you should have heard it that night. I think it's really difficult to hear something for the first time in concert and that LOUD and have it just absolutely grab you. The few experimental noise sections, natch, were extended, but even the grating dissonance therein seemed magical that night. And you really should have seen the crowd - while ";" is largely instrumental, there are several whispered spoken word passages and some vocal melodies underneath the chaos; hearing these chanted en masse by the lyrics-memorized alterna-kid crowd was borderline religious. The entire basement of Lovett turned into a throbbing, pulsing, gyrating organic mass, and I seriously couldn't believe something so great could have come out of Houston.

The quipped lines in ";" do propel the narrative quite effectively; the narrator's worldview has become completely unwound, and I'll let you read / listen for the details, but it turns into a meta-commentary of grasping for art to craft meaning. The operation becomes blatantly self-referential in these moments, and that was the big punchline to this show - ";"'s final spoken word passage has the narrator forming a band and trying to work with them to convey the group's message, only their ability to properly convey the aesthetic reaction to having one's worldview disassembled proves incredibly frustrating. This leads to a series of love triangles within and around the band as their romantic notions interfere with their artistic ones, and tension is ripe as the band prepares to play a show... in a college basement... in Houston, Texas. In, yes, April 2000.

This is exactly why the crowd was so excited that night, why the indie kids had turned up in droves to see this up-and-coming band. They were playing the tumultuous show referenced within their album. An album which ends, incidentally, with a hyperviolent cover of The Beatles' "Rocky Raccoon" in which every electronic malady is brought to bear on what was originally a light, folksy tune. In album form it works incredibly if also disturbingly well - it's one of the rare songs that creates such an overwhelming visceral experience that, well, let's just say one should probably not operate heavy machinery within earshot. Also, though, in the album form, the band members tear one another apart - a blood-curling, bones-breaking climax is reached at approximately the 55:03 point of the disc. And on the album, the track cuts off - there is an additional 4:57 on the disc that are empty of any kind of noise.

And this is, natch, the second reason everyone was so excited - the band would play that last 4:57 in the show, revealing the closure to the narrative all these cool people had been letting dangle over their lives for the past three weeks. Ahhhh, it all becomes clear. ENACTED. FINISH. Yes. In retrospect, of course. At the time, I had no clue what was going on, just that a band that had been playing some of the best music I had ever heard in my life, electronica or no, was suddenly covering something resembling "Rocky Raccoon" and getting louder and louder and more and more aggressive. One of the smiley-faced men was miming actually "shooting off the legs of his rival," having brought out a toy shotgun from behind the keyboards on the appropriate line. It seemed like all theater, but when they reached what I later figured out was that 4:57 left mark, things got uncomfortable quick.

Lest you forget, all of this wackiness was played by a huge dude with a chicken head and three smiley-faced guys in suits. at 4:57, the lead singer plowed ahead, Telecaster riffing along, but the three Smiley faced men stopped their active playing (the drum loops were still going) and started a round of harmonic chants of "play the beer, play the beer." Or at least that's what it sounded like. With the lead still thrashing along on the signature Rocky Riff (although in this version heavily distorted) they slowly sauntered toward the lead singer and lifted him, guitar and all. His thrashing became uncontrollable, and notably, his playing - which had been blaring in either voice or guitar or even in acoustic strum all night - was abruptly cut off. With the guitar suddenly absent, the drums-only cacophony felt even louder, and when the "Entertainments" dunked the Chicken into the vat, there were sparks and crack and pops and the stage lights flashed. HORRENDOUS feedback filled the room while the Smiley's just stood there and the now upside down Chicken's feet thrashed from inside the vat. Eventually, one of the baristas shut the PA down by force, as the show had seemingly stopped - they were just allowing an ungodly shriek of electronic ghastliness fill the room, and that's all well and good for a little ten second artistic statement, but somewhere around the forty second mark it got to be way too much.

It all seemed pretty idiotic to me, just in terms of brazen spectacle. So I left, figuring I had gotten my free money's worth for the evening (and more importantly, tired of having my fingers wedged in my ears). And I'm pretty glad that particular bit of "music" is nowhere to be found on the CD - again, I dig the experiments, but the line of "just irritating" seemed to have been crossed. But that wasn't all. The show was raved about, everyone having gotten their narrative closure in realizing that the band imploded. It was thought for a few days that the band was into performance art, and this was, effectively, all part of the shtick. They had pulled off some kind of superb, self-referential cycle of life/art, and would be sure to take their curtain call soon, announce their next tour, what have you.

But then the rumors - the Chicken had drowned! Well, probably not. But he had broken his arm. Or been deprived of oxygen long enough to make him incapable of playing his instrument anymore. He was in a coma. They had broken up over the love triangle. They had actualized their art and found further pursuit undesirable. Whatever the actual reason, new news never came. csdh vanished from the scene. Completely. They never played another show, never made another album. Their sound has vanished entirely, too, so it's not like you can traced the masked members through any other bands.

Being so far removed from the scene, it was a few months before I heard these sorts of details. I find all of the "actual violence" angles difficult to believe, though I guess one can never be sure. It is one of those definitively bizarre events, how a band could tear up our imaginations only to disappear as though they had never existed!

Still, what I see, in retrospect, is a very cool, well-executed artistic act. And more importantly, an incredible disc of music came out of it. I will never believe I got to see that performance; it was pure, dumb luck. But it ingrained this album and its utterly unique sound in me for good. Again, you need to have an open mind and be ready for a dose of insanity with the genius. But you should be able to do that anyways. :) Even having been there, I'll never know what happened that night. Maybe it was a relative of Andy Kaufman. But one thing I do know: I can't recommend this album enough, as there is nothing like csdh's 101.

Status: Dessert Island Recommended
Nyet's Fave: ";"

Exactly

After seeing this video, the Clarion Content is asking ourselves why we had not heard of Amy Steinberg before, no matter, we are only grateful to have heard of her now. Thanks to one of our local Chapel Hill readers for forwarding this our way.

Enjoy.

Another Reality Genius

Alicia Guastaferro (pictured above) another reality TV rocket scientist is suing ABC after being featured on the network's 'Wife Swap' two years ago. Now to be fair, the show was truly focused on her mother, the wife swapped. However, Alicia blames the show for a variety of problems in her life. One: she has supposedly gone from the honor roll, to being a special education student. Now besides ABC, another factor might be that her mother freely admitted on the program and subsequently demonstrated that she does her daughter's homework. Mrs. Guastaferro said, "She doesn't have time! I feel the way to Alicia's happiness is, give her everything she wants. Don't give her any rules. Why upset her?"

The episode of Wife Swap showed the Guastaferro's home life to be rather different. Alicia is described as the "princess of pageantry" and is given gifts every single day by her parents, who kept a Christmas tree up all year in the house. But it's ABC's fault?

The entertainment blog the Pop Eater reports, "[Her parents] Ralph and Karen Guastaferro plead guilty to felony money laundering charges stemming from a Canadian telemarketing scheme. Karen is also in hot water for not declaring wages at the family's glass-tinting business...she faces up to 16 months in jail, while he could spend up to 57 months behind bars."

So we'd guess that blaming someone else is about the only logical response left open to them.

This Is Only A Test

Is the future now? This is my first post from a handheld device. It's
not entirely ideal for my typical long-winded prose, but we'll take
what we can get. I can't imagine, though, trying to bang out a 10,000
word album review using only my thumbs. Anyways, it should be quite
clear that I have joined the ranks of the iPfam and procured myself an
iPhone. The acquisition of said box of time-suck was an ordeal in and
of itself, but I'll save that for a ten-fingred telling. In the
meantime, things are good in sunny azz, though monstrously busy for
the next few. I will carry on with the spring break account at some
point in the not too distant future. Until then, we'll see ya back on
the Ballad soon. Have a good one wherever you may be. Man, are my
thumbs tired.

Gravity

Every time I’m ready to leave
Always seem to be
Pullin’ in the wrong direction
Divin’ in with no protection
Man, you can’t keep steerin’ me wrong

(Pixie Lott - Gravity)

Smiles!

The Phish Summer Tour is not coming particularly close to my digs (Berkeley, CA, and Telluride, CO, are the two closest locations). In the meantime, though:

Yay!