La Vie En Robe

Hello, New York!

After a crazy weekend at a friend's wedding in the Hamptons, I have finally landed in New York City to begin Phase One of my book promotion duties for Big Hair and Plastic Grass, which (and I can't believe I'm actually typing this) comes out tomorrow. NYC is grey and gorgeous, and once again giving me both a shot of adrenaline and a feeling of inner calm — kind of like, "Welcome home, kid; now let's ROCK."

Indeed, I was greeted last night by a nice notice for BH&PG in the NY Post's Summer Beach Book Preview section, a glass of Allegash Victoria at the Blind Tiger, and a coupla slices of the Nonna Maria pie from Bleeker Street Pizza. And with nothing much on my plate, promo-wise, until tomorrow (when I'll be appearing on The Daily Line and then guest DJing during Evan "The Funk" Davies' show on WFMU), I'm thinking this might be a good day to wander Manhattan, take pictures, and maybe buy some shoes. Life is good.

Gettin' Rizzy With It

Back during the teenage summers I spent in NYC, I would often kill time (or grab some air-conditioning) during my architectural and historical strolls around Manhattan by stopping in at the Rizzoli store in midtown, where I would idly pore through one gorgeous, lavishly illustrated book on ancient Greece or Egypt after another.

Flash forward decades later, and — in a rather poetic turn of events — I've been invited to read from my not-so-lavishly illustrated book, Big Hair & Plastic Grass, at Rizzoli's midtown Manhattan store. You can click the invitation above for details, but I'll also spell 'em out here: The reading and signing takes place Thursday, May 27, from 5:30 to 7:00 pm at Rizzoli, which is located at 31 W. 57th Street (between 5th and 6th Aves). You are all invited to attend, and to pass this info on to anyone else who might pick up on what I'm layin' down.

This will certainly be a somewhat more sedate and dignified affair than the celebratory blow-out we're doing the night before at the Bell House in Brooklyn (to which you are all, of course, also invited), but come on out anyway and help me liven up the august joint. After all, I hear they're gonna be serving Cracker Jack...

Taco Tuesday: Ancient Greece

Jay n' I don Spartan helmets and prepare for glory, with a little help from new albums by the Len Price 3 and Motion City Soundtrack...

Mid-Wilshire Nighttime Stroll

Put the finishing touches on the copy-edit manuscript for my '70s baseball book yesterday afternoon. They say Edward Gibbon took a stroll in his garden after finishing The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; since I was staying in LA for the weekend, I had no garden to stroll through, so I took a celebratory nighttime walk down Wilshire Boulevard, between the post office on Detroit and the LA Country Museum of Art. And I took my camera with me...

Stella Can't Cook: Battle Chef Edition

One of my favorite things we do at ShockHound is "Stella Can't Cook," a cooking series starring our label relations rep Stella Mowen, who gets schooled on a monthly (or so) basis by culinary-minded rock stars. This is our first "Battle Chef" edition, wherein Alex from Cobra Starship squares off against a dude from his record label; I'm the judge with jetlag and a hangover, having been roped into participating at the last minute following a late-night arrival from JFK. Enjoy!

Pizza Not Peyote: A NYC Vision Quest

Let's get one thing straight, right from the start: I love Southern California. In the 16 years I've lived here, I have never been one to whine about its plasticity, vapidity or its maddening traffic; and as I was just saying to some Chicago friends the other week, if the constant threat of earthquakes and fires is the price that we must pay for 72-degree-and-sunny Christmases beneath the swaying palms, then so be it. Yes, there are many massively fucked-up things about L.A. in particular, and the Golden State in general, but it still feels as much or more like home to me as any place I've ever lived.

And yet, New York City, the metropolis of my birth, has been exerting one helluva pull upon me this year. Actually, it's been calling my name for several years now; looking back at the five or six trips I've made to NYC since the fall of 2006, it's now quite clear to me that I've returned from each visit with new perspective on life and new insights into who I am — kind of like a Native American "Vision Quest," only with pizza instead of peyote.

It's only been a week or so since I returned from my 10-day vaycay in Manhattan and Brooklyn, which is way too early to fully process the lessons and experiences from this trip and figure out what the hell it all means — though I can already tell that there are some major life changes on my horizon. But hey, it was a righteous time in any case, so I'm-a just go 'head and run down some of the highlights from the past week and a half. First, of course, the food and drink...

Best Pizza: The brick-oven Margherita pie from La Pizza Fresca on 20th Street. (Pictured above in all its cheesy glory — thanks again, Jessica!) For sheer deliciousness of sauce and chewiness of crust, nothing else really came close — though the Margherita from Sal's in Carroll Gardens was pretty decent, as well. Not that I sampled nearly as many pies as I woulda liked, thanks to the fact that I was using my Dad's place on the Upper West Side as my base of operations. For whatever reason, the UWS seems curiously devoid of above-average pizza; I still mourn the loss of the old Vinnie's at 74th and Amsterdam, where I would often eat "breakfast" and late-night dinner in the same day during my visits back in the '90s.

Best Soup Dumplings: Man, this one was a real toss-up — the crab meat and pork ones at Grand Szichuan in Chelsea, or the shrimp and pork ones from New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe in Chinatown? Both totally delivered the goods, packed as they were with succulent fillings and soul-warming broth. The spicy Dan Dan Noodles at Grand Szichuan were pretty damn satisfying, too. 

Best Finger Food: The crostini at Gottino in the West Village. I ate there my first night in town, and copious amounts of wine were consumed, so I'm a little vague on what we actually ate — I just remember sardines and figs-with-goat cheese were involved. (Rebecca, if you're reading this, please jog my memory!)

Best Beer: When I walked into the Blind Tiger and saw something called Kuhnhenn's Fourth Dementia on the draught list, well... how could I not? (The fact that it was over 11% alcohol had nothing to do with my decision, I assure you.) Rich, dark, smooth and so tasty I wanted to lick the glass after I'd emptied it, it was the perfect comforting accompaniment to the lively music journalist war/horror stories I was trading with Michael.

Best Meal: Frankie's Spuntino in Brooklyn. The house-made cavatelli (little rolled bullets of pasta) with Faiccos hot sausage and browned sage butter was absolutely outta this world, as was the melt-in-your-mouth pork braciola marinara. The ricotta cheesecake tasted a little too much like "lemon fresh" Pledge, but I was just happy to have an excuse to linger longer in their romantic-as-all-hell back garden.

Worst Meal: The utterly vile gristle n' MSG lo mein at Wo Hop in Chinatown. Yeah, I know it was 2 a.m., and we were drunk, but surely there were better places we could've gone for a post-karaoke feast than this? Right, Shawn?

Best Karaoke Choice: Shawn and I wound up hitting Winnie's not once but twice during the course of my visit; and even though their blown bass cabinet prevented me from rocking the house with a rendition of Foreigner's "Dirty White Boy," the highlights were still too numerous to name. But our painstaking scientific research did prove that nothing gets the party started quite like a tag-team version of Rick James' "Super Freak."

Best Live Band: Okay, I only saw three — Silver Summit, White Hills and Psychic Paramount — all in one night at the Union Pool in Williamsburg. Though the sound was kinda off-kilter from where I was standing (i.e., the bar), I was once again blown away by Silver Summit's freaky brand of electric folk music for mind and body — and their new rhythm section added a whole Zep III vibe to the proceedings that definitely tightened my trousers. Didn't like the other bands as much — White Hills were unspectacular stoner rock saved by a truly spectacular drummer (Kid Millions, also of Oneida), and Psychic Paramount's all-instro kraut-psych just plain bored me. But hey, lotsa folks dug all three...

Best Musical/Religious Experience: Actually, there were many. Before heading to NYC, I'd put together an iPod playlist of songs that were about New York, recorded in New York, recorded by New York artists, or all three. Every day when I would leave the house to traipse through Manhattan and/or Brooklyn, I would fire that sucker up and inevitably be rewarded for my efforts — whether it was hearing the New York Dolls' "Subway Train" or the Ramones' "Rockaway Beach" while on the subway, grooving to the Jaynetts' "Sally Go Round the Roses" while walking through Central Park, or blasting Mongo Santamaria's "Hippo Walk" while boogalooing down Broadway. But listening to Side 2 of Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle while pounding the Midtown pavement on Labor Day — good god, y'all. I mean, just the part towards the end of "Incident on 57th Street" where Gary Tallent kicks on the fuzz bass... A friend of mine just went to see Bruce play Born to Run in its entirety in Chicago; not sure I'd pay to see that (especially since he's typically played most of those songs in concert since the late '70s), but if he ever decided to play Wild/Innocent in its entirety, I'd seriously be on that shit like grease on pizza.

Best Ballgame: By sheer stroke of luck, the Cubs were in town to play the Mets — and Brendan managed to score us two front-row seats at the "New Shea" (I refuse to call it by its heinous corporate name) in the upper deck between home and first (view pictured above). Derrek Lee hit two home runs, the Cubs won, and the Italian sausages weren't too bad either. Hoped to get out to a Brooklyn Cyclones game on Coney Island, as well, but couldn't fit it into my schedule. Next year, for sure!

Best Picnic: I'd only recently heard that Governors Island was now open to the public, so when Nina invited me to join her and her pals for a Sunday picnic there, I jumped at the chance. Didn't get to explore Castle Clinton (pictured above), but had a great time chilling and chowing while watching the island "fun run" (which we all decided was truly a contradiction in terms) and gazing out at the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the southern tip of Manhattan.

Best Walk: Matt's guided tour at dusk of the Brooklyn Promenade (from which the above pic was snapped) and Brooklyn Heights, followed by a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge — an engineering wonder whose wonderousness is exponentially magnified when you're actually standing on the sucker. Wow...

Best Nature Hike: Though I've passed through Central Park countless times since my Mom used to push my stroller there, I really fell in love with it for the first time in 2006, when I re-learned how to walk there after my appendix went kaput. Since then, I've really gotten into exploring Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's Manhattan masterpiece, and I took a long walk one day in the gorgeous  "North Woods" section of the park, which I'd never previously ventured into. I spent a long time sitting by the above waterfall, feeling about a million miles from the city I was in the center of.

And finally, thank you once again to all my friends and family members who gave me such a warm welcome and showed me such a good time. Much as I love the Big Apple, it would be a considerably less tasty place without your beautiful presence...

Don't Forget the Motor City

I read last night that the final wrecking balls have started swinging at Tiger Stadium, which by now is such a foregone conclusion that only a handful of Detroiters actually showed up to watch their city's beloved baseball stadium (where I also happened to see my first-ever major league game) literally bite the dust. I suspect that the slow death of Detroit itself is now a similarly foregone conclusion, which is such a massive tragedy on so many levels — economically, historically, culturally, racially, musically, even culinarily if you're a Coney Dog kinda person (I, for the record, am not) — that I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. Doesn't seem like too many other folks can, either.
    I last visted Detroit five years ago on a Revolver assignment; I specifically asked to stay downtown, so that I could wander around and take photos in my free time. As a kid growing up in Ann Arbor in the 1970s, the Motor City seemed to me a scary but still vibrant and glamorous (at least in a seedy way) kinda place; when I explored it in 2004, it was scary and still, which made it seem even more unnerving. I literally walked around downtown for hours one Saturday morning without seeing a single living soul — with the exception of two bums who asked me, "Hey Elvis, you got any change?"
    I took a number of photos that morning with my old Lomo, which I finally got around to scanning and put up as a Flickr set. I regret that I didn't take better notes about what most of these buildings or streets are/were; the silence was so eerie, I felt like I had to keep moving or I'd become a target for whatever zombie armies were lurking in this or that abandoned hotel. But you can still see the beauty and the power of the city in these old buildings, and get a brief whiff of the days when Detroit was still the baddest place to be and be from. I wish I'd taken more photos while I had the chance.

Devine Intervention

To paraphrase Samuel Beckett, I interviewed a veritable fuckload of recording artists at South By Southwest this year; two months later, most of them are a complete blur. But my interview with singer-songwriter Kevin Devine stuck out in my mind, both because he was an absolutely charming and hilarious cat, and because — in addition to talking about his very fine new album, Brother's Blood — we wound up discussing pizza, baseball and making out, three subjects that are certainly very dear to my heart. You can read the transcript of our chat (and watch a three-minute video snippet of it) right here...

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Yep, Jay and I "went" to Mexico for this week's episode of "Taco Tuesday" — and no, we didn't get swine flu. We were actually going to do the whole episode in surgical masks, but the powers that be deemed it "over the line," since it's apparently not kosher (no pun intended) to make fun of the panic over a non-existent pandemic. (Our little NAMBLA joke slipped by with no problem, however...)

In other news, I turned 43 on Saturday, and celebrated with the help of a few good friends — and a staggering amount of birthday wishes from pals around the country. I feel blessed and humbled by all the love and positive vibrations from all o' youse righteous folks. If I could afford to buy tacos (or the new records by Gallows and the New York Dolls, both of which are really fucking good) for everyone of you, I truly would do so...

Texas Toast

Totally fried from travel, but too wired to sleep, I will hereby attempt to summarize my past week at the SXSW Music Conference in Austin, Texas...

Tuesday: After a fairly agonizing ride on US Airways' screaming child-filled flight from Phoenix to Austin, my Editor-in-Chief Randy and I rolled into downtown Austin in the late afternoon, cranking the 13th Floor Elevators in the rental car as we drove. Free for the evening, we dragged our colleagues Russ and John out to the County Line restaurant for some serious Texas-style BBQ (pictured above). John, who generally subsists on things like yogurt and air, was horrified when Russ and I took him up on his joking suggestion that someone order the "1/2 lb. Sausage Plate" appetizer. We also added a plate of "Cheese Bits" (basically jalapeno poppers) for good measure. Then we met up with my friend Juliana's posse at the Four Seasons bar, where we sipped wine in a most civilized fashion until last call.

Wednesday: After an equally civilized breakfast on the patio of our hotel, we headed over to the Fader Fort, a sprawling (and newly constructed) compound east of the I-35, where SXSW's biggest unsanctioned gatherings would take place over the next four days. It was here, in a somewhat converted mobile home, that I and my colleagues would do our interviews (nearly 60 of 'em in all before the week was out); today, my old friend Tim Stegall (pictured above) was on hand to help with the grilling of various rockers, rollers and rappers — today's interview highlights included Gallows, the Postelles, Kevin Devine and Kid Sister. Afterwards, I guided Randy, Russ, John and our co-worker Stella to the Boiling Pot, where all but Russ and I were semi-grossed-out (or worse) by the spicy crawfish and unpeeled shrimp that were dumped on our table. Pussies.

 

Tried to go and see Tony Joe White, but the line was too damn long. Wound up going to see Montreal heavies Priestess over at Emo's Annex, and (in typical SXSW serendipity) was blown away by the band that came on before them, a British duo called The Sea. Imagine a heavier White Stripes crossed with the early Jimi Hendrix Experience and some late-sixties UK psych a la Mike Stuart Span, and that's kinda what these dudes were laying down. Dude was playing a Rickenbacker, too. Also caught the last half of Manchester Orchestra's set at the Radio Room, and was pleasantly surprised by how "rock" they've become. Oh yeah — Priestess totally fucking ruled...and could also be heard about three blocks away.

Thursday: This was the most brutal one. Somewhere along the line, it was decided that there would be no backstage catering at the Fader Fort, even though a) it was in a somewhat remote area, and b) we would have no time to leave between noon and 8 pm to get anything. "No problem," we were assured; "It'll be easy to have something delivered." Well, it wasn't; the lunch that was ordered around 2 pm finally showed up around 6:30. Which meant that our writer Nadine Cheung (who was helping me out with the interviews), my video droogies Bryan and Rusty and myself were all in pretty fucking foul moods as the afternoon dragged on and we subsisted on beer and candy. One respite came late in the afternoon, when a break in the interview action allowed us to run out to the stage area to watch Janelle Monae (above) kick some major ass. Think of Grace Jones minus the cocaine plus Josephine Baker times James Brown doing the funky robot, and you'll have at least some idea of what kind of brilliance she's bringing to the table. She gave a great interview, too, as did Big Boi, Lady Sovereign, Amanda Palmer and the goofballs from Brooklyn buzz band Amazing Baby. Between the long day, no food, and the heat and humidity, I was in no shape to go out and make the scene once evening rolled around; I poured myself a vodka and cranberry from my minibar, took a bubble bath, and was fast asleep by about 10:30.

Friday: Feeling way more refreshed than any SXSW attendee probably had a right to be, I sailed through one interview after another — so much in the zone, in fact, that I can't even remember right now who I interviewed that day. This was our third day of being cooped up in the mobile home, and by now we were getting pretty punchy; Rusty, Bryan and (especially) I regressed to about twelve years of age, engaging in between-interview banter that can charitably be described as "foul". Much mirth in particular was derived from the fact that our snack basket was filled with a granola bar called "Sweet & Salty Nut"; seriously, we riffed on that one for hours. Oh yeah — I interviewed Devo, who showed up in grey radiation suits and "energy domes". They were amazing to talk to, though there was an awkward moment when they asked me if I was going to come and see them that night. I thought it would be bad form to lie to Devo, so I told the truth — "I'm gonna be at the New York Dolls show." Bob 1's face fell somewhat, and he muttered "Well, your loss," in a decidedly crestfallen way. I felt really shitty, like I'd just gravely disappointed my dad. Still, I don't regret my concert-going choice; the Dolls (above) were utterly amazing. David and Syl seemed to be having a ball trotting out old numbers like "Trash," "Jet Boy" and "Personality Crisis," and the songs from their forthcoming new album sounded pretty great as well. And their Johnny Thunders medley of "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory/Lonely Planet Boy" was profoundly beautiful, silly and moving all at the same time. There was so much heartfelt joy pouring off the stage, it made me giddy just to be in its onrushing path.

Saturday: Three down and one to go, and this time I had no one to help me with the interviews. Didn't matter, though; by this point, I felt like you could have dug up Brian Jones and I would have gotten a good interview out of him. Today's subjects/victims included Exene Cervenka, Andre Williams and UGK rapper Bun B, the latter of whom spoke rapturously of the Dead Kennedys and Suicidal Tendencies. Our surreal locker room humor was spreading, however; Mike, our head video guy (and easily the "straightest" dude in the trailer) emerged from the editing room to announce, "Gentlemen, the good news is, I remembered to bring my booty shorts." We were all laughing so hard, we never did find out what the bad news was. I finally finished my last interview of the festival around 8 pm and headed back into town, stopping at Tacos Del Fuego for some pretty decent beef and cheese tacos on my way to Antone's to see Cage the Elephant, the Duke Spirit and Silversun Pickups, all of whom put on excellent shows. Afterwards, I wandered up to Sixth Street looking for trouble, but found only the last few songs of the Riverboat Gamblers' incendiary set at Emo's Annex, and a really shitty slice of late-night pizza from a stand on Red River. After one more victory lap across Sixth, I went back to the hotel and hit the hay. Which is exactly what I'm gonna do right now.