The Poverty Jet Set

It’s a sad day in the world of underground media and music. The venerable, excellent and unique magazine offering, Arthur shut it’s doors today. They covered all sorts of great bands from the cover story on Sunn O))))) to introducing me to Growing.

I knew that things weren’t all well because my pal Laris Kreslins had been the mag’s publisher until last month when he announced to us all that he was stepping down. I didn’t hear why, exactly, but I guess things weren’t right.

I’m sad to see it go. It was a great find, imported from the freaky SoCal scene by Laris himself, when he moved to Philly.

I hope something as good can spring from its ashes.

Update: Maybe it’s not dead after all! More after the jump…

Technorati Tags: art, arthurmagazine, love, magazine, media, music, povertyjetset, psychedelic

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I share with you this guy Joe Taheny’s blog post about the music of Pakistan. He’s a traveler who’s just interested in this stuff and does a pretty cool job of documenting it. Pretty awesome stuff, with great videos to boot.

I love folk music, man! Especially the classical and folk music from Asia. It’s amazing. Have a look.

Technorati Tags: vagabonding, music, povertyjetset, folk, travel

A video I shot of my friends, Fern Knight last weekend (November 11, ‘06) at Johnny Brenda’s. This was their album release party and members of Espers sat in with them. More videos of all kinds of live music coming soon!

Technorati Tags: espers, fernknight, johnnybrendas, music, performance, philadelphiazoo, Philly, psychedelic, video

Come out and see the show if you’re in the neighborhood! It’s going to be fantastic! First Golden Ball show in six months. Two new members in the band, whole new vibe. Come and get it!

Technorati Tags: goldenball, music, psychedelic, johnnybrendas, Philly

The Golden Ball crew and I went out to the deep wilds of the Jersey Pine Barrens yesterday to shoot a video for their new single. Lucky for us, we had a Whimsy for a guide. (Click this link for more photos)

Technorati Tags: pinebarrens, video, goldenball, adventure, povertyjetset, america, music, psychedelic, lordwhimsy

This comes from my friend Chris in Espers:

friends, especially musicians, please take a moment to read my rant about delta airlines. this ws a very sad and alarming experience.

espers went to LA over this past weekend to play a festival. we flew out via delta airlines. usual policy states that you can carry a guitar on if it is in a soft case, as it will fit into overhead bins. we fly 10+ times a year for shows and carry on 2 acousics, 2 electrics. sometimes we have to assure folks that it is “cool”, as the agents at the very front gates can be unaware that it is ok to carry on, but it always works out. we always confirm this when tix are purchased as well as day of flight via phone call. we did all of this with delta.

Technorati Tags: deltaairlines, espers, music, povertyjetset, travel

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I made it back to Philly. Actually, on Friday. Spent the weekend recovering, sleeping, eating. You know, normal things. The other thing I did was upload my photos and a short video. Here are the photos. And here’s the video. It’s nothing too special, as I shot it on my still camera. Its interesting, though, that a crappy little still camera can take video footage. I do like the campy-ness of it all. My apologies for the quality.

Technorati Tags: povertyjetset, music, grizzlybear, video, magdalenus, travel, america, adventure

I’m sitting in front of a cool little coffee shop in Echo Park called Chango where me and my old Telluride-come-LA pal Thrax (aka rapper Apoc) and his freaky and slightly crazy friend from Alaska, Jeff (click the link to listen to his songs about cats) are checkin’ emails and rapping about how no one in LA has an unprotected wireless network. Even the coffee shops have passwords. Hmm.

Anyways, yesterday in the big city was pretty fun. I met up with the Grizzlies at the airport and drove them straight up to the Indie 103.1 studios for a recording session for radio. The fellas are bleary-eyed and totally zoned out from a long night, post-New-York-sold-out-Bowery Ballroom-party-cross-continent-flight-jetlag-uncaffeinated-weariness, but they break out their instruments, tune up for a few minutes, set up the mics and jam out four renditions of songs from their new album that has the DJ shaking his head in awe. I’m hoping to get a bootleg.

We spend half an hour ripping off the building’s wireless trying to Priceline a hotel so they can shit, shower and shave and somehow luck upon the Hollywood EconoLodge right across the street from Guitar Center on Sunset Blvd.

I bid farewell (until their show tonight at Spaceland)… and met up with Thrax and Jeff and went on a bit of a bender of cheap Mexican food, cerveza and hipster dive-bars of Echo Park until the wee hours.

Today… well, more on that tomorrow. Back to the ongoing discussion going on next to me about how great it is that women wear dresses all year ’round in LA and how Jeff has a friend who’s a body-mod artist who had his nipple removed recently. Uh, yeah.

Technorati Tags: grizzlybear, magdalenus, losangeles, music, adventure, echopark, indie1031, travel, povertyjetset

In a strange, yet pleasantly interesting turn of events, I find myself doing a quick drive from New York to Los Angeles in a posh, leather seated, late-90s model conversion van (aka, a shaggin’ wagon). This all came about because of a MySpace bulletin from one of my new favorite bands, pleading for someone to get them out of a tight jam. In three logistical days time, I went from being merely Grizzly Bear’s fan to driving their empty tour van to Los Angeles for them to start their national tour with TV on the Radio.

Right now, I blog from my parked van in front of the Blue Springs Cafe in Highland, Illinois. Unfortunately, I had all these grand plans (I’ve got lots of time to think), to post funny photos from the “fly-over states” — and believe me, I have a bunch already — but I forgot my damn cable to upload photos from my camera to computer. Alas. You’ll have to wait in suspense.

Technorati Tags: adventure, driving, grizzlybear, magdalenus, music, povertyjetset

Damon McMahon (Astralwerks) is on a radio promotion tour with Tomorrow’s Friend this week and tomorrow, Saturday Sept. 23rd, they’ll be playing a live show at Johnny Brenda’s in Philly. Should be an awesomely psychedelic night! Come on out if you be locally-located.

Technorati Tags: music, fishtown, tomorrowsfriend, parties, damonmcmahon, johnnybrendas, povertyjetset, Philly

My favorite watering hole, sometime employer and best new music venue in Philadelphia, Johnny Brenda’s opened with a bang last night. Bardo Pond, Jack Rose, Meg Baird (of Espers) and the blistering hot band, The War on Drugs played to an insanely packed house. It’s the dawn of a new era in Philly, friends. Yes! [Click here to see my rather blurry photo set.]

Technorati Tags: bardopond, jackrose, johnnybrendas, magdalenus, megbaird, music, parties, Philly, povertyjetset, fishtown, thewarondrugs

Oh my goodness, these boys are so on top of their game. This new album is incredible. I bought the elder “Horn of Plenty” the other day, and was pretty pyched about it. But, “Yellow House”. Oh man. They’ve really outdone themselves. If they don’t hit it big, I’ll be amazed.

The album is dynamic and sublimely textured. I’m totally in love with “Knife” and all its heady Beach Boys overtones. Pure love.

One of the things that these guys are doing so well, and what I think is really the future of any 21st Century artist’s career is interracting with their audience. Check their entertaining blog (they’re in the middle of switching servers right now, so have patience if it doesn’t come up), and friend ‘em up on MySpace.

All this, AND, they’re about to go on tour with TV on the Radio. I bought my tickets for the Philly date the moment I read about the show!

Technorati Tags: povertyjetset, psychedelic, grizzlybear, music, magdalenus

Hope all you Philly peeps are going to make it out to the great event of the weekend… TONIGHT! at the International House, presented by the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, a screening of Jaromil Jire’s 1970 classic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders with a new live soundtrack by my friends:

Greg Weeks (Espers, Grass), Margaret Wienk (Fern Knight, Eyesores, String Builder), Brooke Sietinsons (Espers, Grass), Helena Espvall (Espers), Mary Lattimore (The Bitchin’ Harp Babes), Tara Burke (Fursaxa), Jesse Sparhawk (Timesbold, Jaggery), Orion Rigel Dommisse, Jessica Weeks (Grass), Charles Cohen

Stay tuned for a DVD of the Making Of… as well as the final soundtrack. It’s amazing!

Technorati Tags: povertyjetset, music, magdalenus, mashup, film, art, experiment, espers, phillyfringe

Just read this interesting article in WIRED News about this guy Daniel Levitin and his new book: “This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession” There’s heaps of really interesting stuff in this article. Here’s just one quote:

“There’s no evidence that (talented people) have a different brain structure or different wiring than the rest of us initially, although we do know that becoming an expert in anything – like chess or race-car driving or journalism – does change the brain and creates circuitry that’s more efficient at doing what you’re an expert at.”

Technorati Tags: magdalenus, daniellevitin, neuroscience, music, povertyjetset, books

The good people at one of Philadelphia’s most popular blogs, Philebrity, just chose my great friends The War on Drugs first home-recorded EP, Barrel of Batteries as their featured album of the week! I’m spreading the word because you can listen to the entire album via streaming audio (hosted by Apollo Audio) on Philebrity. And dig the awesome review!

Technorati Tags: music, povertyjetset, magdalenus, psychedelic

I was shopping for a new analogue 8-Track recorder for my girlfriend on eBay this past week, and finally won a bid for a Yamaha MTX8II. When I paid for it, the seller told me he couldn’t ship it right away because he’s working 16-hour days, but managed to make a quick plug for his band: SteelWind.

Have a listen to his MP3s. It’s just too classic. It’s almost too “ironic” (in the annoying hipster ersatz use of the word).
You’ve gotta wonder about SteelWind. Where these guys live. What their lives are like. What their musical dreams are / were. Maybe it’s just awsesome that they’re still out there *rockin’*. I have bittersweet feeling about it. Will I become this dude one day? Will I be woefully out of style, in that retro kitch kind of way because I just *can’t let go* of the totally awesome early 00’s? Half of me, some little voice inside me wishes that this guy would find his nitch market and sell 100,000 copies of his home-recorded demo. The other half of me want to turn my head in horror.

Technorati Tags: work, music, identity, employment, magdalenus, povertyjetset, kitch

I hereby coin a new term: The MP3 Slush Pile — random music that someone recommended as you cruise through their plentiful harddrive, taking anything that sounded interesting on a whim, then immediately forgetting about all together (or losing it among the 3GB you just shared).

This occurred to me today as I was getting bored with my 35GB in iTunes (this scares me, how does this happen!?). I saw this name, Erkin Koray, and thought, “what the hell is that?” So I click on it, and immediately I’m hooked. It’s amazing! But he’s singing in some strange language so I have to go Google him…

Here’s his Wikipedia entry. What a genius, this guy! Says here he was the first dude to play rock n’ roll in Turkey. Clearly, this man must be a national hero over there and I haven’t ever considered his existence!

If anyone remembers giving this to me, thank you! Got any more??

Ah, beloved MP3 Slush Pile, what will you come up with next? You guys know what I’m talking about?

UPDATE: It turns out that my good friend Nat of Deep Water Acres fame gave me the Erkin Koray album. Thanks, Natty! Looking forward to some new stuff soon!

Technorati Tags: 60s, erkinkoray, mp3slushpile, povertyjetset, psychedelic, technology, turkish

Today, a couple of nice kids from Denmark came by my house. They’re a band known as Family Underground. We had a chat about traveling and their tour around America. These guys obviously don’t have much money. They’ll be playing a show in our backyard for donations, sleeping on our couches tonight and eating dinner we make them.

I’ve been doing some thinking lately about how I’d like to spend time defining the idea of Poverty Jet Setters (refining who we are, and coincidentally, thereby guiding me to what exactly I’d like to blog about here). We all tend to have a view of ourselves as outsiders of one kind or another, but how specifically? I like to think of myself as a modern gypsy, some kind of an urban cowboy of the 21st Century, a nomad, an artist. I guess I feel like a Poverty Jet Setter is all of the above. But each part of that could be further refined.

Clearly, the Family Underground must belong to “us”. Artists who use their art as a device to travel. Travel as a way to spread their art. So are they a sub-set of Poverty Jet Setters? Some kind of sub-genre of the rather obscure genre? What do you think? What are some other forms of being a Poverty Jet Setter? Feel free to comment.

Technorati Tags: adventure, travel, familyunderground, povertyjetset, art, identity

Well, I had this post all written and ready to post last Friday, but it just got buried in the pile and I forgot to send it up. In any case, it’s still cause for celebration.

Yeah, sure it’s Bastille Day, the day in France when they celebrate their anarchic storming of a hideous prison used by the elite to torture dissidents. That’s already a good reason to celebrate! Down with tyranny!

But today [July 14th] is also another very important day. In case you’re still in suspense (didn’t the title of the post already give it away?), it’s Woody Guthrie’s birthday, too! One of my personal heros. He was the man Bob Dylan most respected and after whom he tried to model his life.

Here’s to Woody! Let’s raise a glass. Read more about the ramblin’ song and story man at his archives.

Technorati Tags: heros, music, woodyguthrie, povertyjetset

A sad day for music. The reclusive artist, Syd Barrett died today. He was 60 years old. He was a genius, an innovator and a beautiful soul. I hope he’s found his peace.

Technorati Tags: sydbarrett, pinkfloyd, povertyjetset, music, psychedelic, 60s