My pal Lisa visited for the weekend from Champaign-Urbana.

On Friday, we went to 2 shows. One was a birthday party/reunion show for my pal kylie who’s been a local punk/metal musician in Iowa City for many many years. This was a trippy experience, for me, because people came crawling out of the woodwork and from all over the midwest to play in and attend this show. I spent a lot of time slowly recognizing people I hadn’t thought about in years.

Another highlight of the show was seeing the Stiff Legged Sheep play. Most of these bands were active in Iowa City in the mid-80s, which is when I was in High School. I was never allowed to come to Iowa City to see shows but the boy I was dating came up here all the time, and he’d make me mixed tapes with songs from a lot of these bands on them. My favorite was always the Stiff Legged Sheep.

After that, Lisa and I galumphed over to The Picador (formerly Gabe’s for those of you who’ve moved away from IC), and saw Leslie and the LYs play. They’re a group from Ames, Iowa. This show was utterly astounding –in fact, if I were you, I’d just click on the image below, and check out Leslie’s web site — it’ll speak for itself way better than I can. It’s all about the gem sweaters. and gold pants. and zombies.

Anyways, for six hours, Iowa City had an awesome little glow to it. As an aside, what is it with this cat meme? I’ve seen house cats used in various music contexts a TON lately..what is that all about??

I’m still recovering — I cannot do late nights with coffee and live shows as spryly as I once could. Because of this sacrifice of a bit of my life’s essence, an exhibit we attended on Saturday, which under normal circumstances would have just been bad, became somewhat nightmarish. I have been consuming large quantities of medicinal tea ever since.

So far, 2006 has been a good year. It’s early yet, though, right? A lot of changes have come my way thus far.

the job
The biggest change has been the offer of a new job. Right now I work for a small department under the Office of the VP Research at the University. We provide IT services for the VP and several sub-units..mostly research administrators. My job is about 1/2 server administration and 1/2 end-user support..I do everything. We have several Windows servers and several RedHat Linux servers offering LAMP services to the people we support. (for all you non-techies, sorry for the techno-babble, I’ll try to keep it low)

Anyway, I’ve always wanted to immerse myself in the Linux side of things more, so last summer I applied for a job with ITS, the main provider of IT services on our campus. I applied for one of two jobs and got one–except that they didn’t have funding for it at the time. Typical University experience! Finally, to my utter surprise, I was offered the job in January! The funding did come through after all.

After a lot of hemming/hawing, I decided to take the job. Even though it’s what I’d been hoping for, it isn’t easy to leave this job. I’ve worked here for 7 years, love my co-workers and have built very good relationships with most of my users. With the new job, my environment will change pretty drastically: I’ll be sitting in a basement with no windows and I will have little to no user contact. The good part is, it’s a title increase, a salary increase and my learning curve will shoot way up.

I start on Monday:

So we’ll see what happens; but leaving my current gig has been strange..a slow disengagement that is kinda sad. I feel like a barnacle that has ripped away from the hull, and as I float in the cold plankton-filled silence, the ship passes me by..it’s a big rusty ship.

turning older
Last Saturday, I turned 35. In the last year, my hair has become greyer than ever! I started going grey when I was 17, but now it’s really kicking in. Apparently it’s genetic; my grandpa Otto had completely silver hair by the time he was 40. I too, seem to be headed in this direction. The other strange bit is that my hair has gone from being crazily, uncontrollably curly to utterly straight and somewhat coarse. I had mostly straight hair until I was 14, then BLAMO curls, and now..back to straight again. 20 years of curly hair. How totally odd. I’m trying to adjust:

Also, my upper wisdom teeth need to get yanked out. They’re coming in and I can feel the pressure in my upper jaw. They’re pushing my one wonky front tooth out again too. When I was a little kid, I had one tooth that jutted out awkwardly, and then I had to get braces. Now it’s moved ever so slightly again. I hope it goes back into place once the wisdoms are gone. sheesh. Luckily a friend recently had her wisdom teeth removed, and she sent me some good advice for the recovery period.

Now, my whole life I’ve absent-mindedly been plagued by disconcerting tooth horror fantasies. Like I’ll be sitting quietly somewhere or walking and I will suddenly just imagine my teeth exploding horribly out of my mouth..or shattering into a bloody pulp, or me smashing them with my dad’s hammer. I have no idea what this is about, these daydreams, but I’ve always had a thing about my teeth.

the records

Finally, inspired by Allanimal, I decided to talk about some of my favorite albums of 2005. In no particular order:

Sleater Kinney, The Woods: I previously wrote about this album and one of their shows in June. S-K has been a favorite of mine for several years, thanks to my artypapers buddy.

The Decemberists: Picaresque: I’d been hearing about these guys on the Kill Rock *’s mailing list, but didnt’ listen until they played a show for KEXP in Portland (i love the internets!). It was instant love, so I picked up their latest album, and have been enjoying it muchly.

Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run: 2005 was the 30th anniversary of Born To Run. I was a huge Bruce fan as a teenager, right before I happened across all the punk rock albums in my mom’s glass studio. Then it was all over for Bruce. Nevertheless..this is a nice release. There’s a great DVD of a concert in London in 1975, and The Priate + I both agree that the scrawny, scruffy bruce is hott!

Barry Louis Polisar, I Eat Kids: Speaking of 1975, I recently tracked down this record I had when I was a kid. I Eat Kids, by Barry Louis Polisar, was an amazingly huge influence on my already alternative-thinking kid psyche.

It has awesome titles such as When Suzie Sneezed (an anti-violence song), I Got A Teacher She’s So Mean , I Sneaked into the Kitchen in the Middle of the Night or Shut Up in the Library (The Pirate’s favorite).

It was really great to see that this record is still available, and I’m getting ready to send a copy to Noah. He seems to be about the right age to appreciate the humor.

I sneaked into the kitchen in the middle of the night,
and I found a chocolate cake and I cut it with a knife.
12 pieces did I cut and 11 of them I ate, and one by one
there was almost none left upon the plate.

so I spent most of the weekend working on various chores: refinishing a coffee table, cleaning the house, working on a website and enjoying my free time. my lawn had turned into a frightening tangle since the lawn mower died, so I finally plunked down the change for a new mower. i’ve never actually had to pay for a mower in my life, so i feel like i’m doing pretty good!

On Saturday, The Pirate + I went to see “Mi Amigo Machuca” at the Bijou. What a great film. About 2 young boys living in Chile in 1973, from two very different socio-economic backgrounds, how they become friends and how the September 11 coup in that country affects their friendship.

The director did a great job of flavoring it with the 1970’s! I remember patterns and decor similar to that from my childhood..that very same aura, if you will. the characters were well-built and the story line totally engrossing. hard to get across in this blog-medium how it made me feel (i’m much better at one on one writing!) but it made me feel many sad things and yet, many elations as well. also, it has an excellent soundtrack!

The story also sparked a need to read a bit about the Chile’s history during that time, so I dragged out Howard Zinn and re-read his chapter on the 1970’s, along with a chapter in “The Trial of Henry Kissinger” all about the U.S. involvement in overthrowing Allende. Which reminded me of my earlier post about the comic by El Fisgon.

On Sunday I puttered about the house and listened to a great episode of This American Life on the radio. Have I mentioned how much I love radio? I don’t have teevee (except for movie watching) so I get most of my media input from the I’net, the radio and newspapers. Anyway, yesterday’s program was different people’s experiences in New Orleans last week, and the storm and massive destructo disruption of their lives. It’s highly worth a listen, so here’s A Link to that (note: real audio!).

And although it is no longer the weekend, we living here in i-town will be treated to a show by The Gossip at the ever lovely Gabe’s Oasis, which is so crusty inside and out, that it can only still be standing because of all the many years of band stickers lining the walls. Beth Ditto is my hero. It will be loud, and smoky and perfect and fun.

So last week we went to Chicago’s Riviera Theatre to see Sleater Kinney. They’re touring in support of their new album, The Woods. There was a minty little copy of The Woods waiting for me when we returned from Vactioning in pdx, olywa and vancouver, so it’s been on rotation in the car. Until the show, I was feeling a little undecided about their latest release. It’s definitely a departure from previous endeavors. No surprise there; everything they’ve said publicly about their new album says that they wanted, needed to go a new route with this album, their 7th.

And it has been said many times that this record is more popular with male audiences than was true previously. Does this somehow mean that they’re sell-outs? No longer feminists? S-K has never actually claimed to be feminist specifically, though they’ve definitely been considered “trail-blazers” for women in rock. They only claim to be themselves. And as evolving people, one must expect and embrace change. Who wants 10 copies of Dig Me Out anyways? Does S-K have to be explicitly feminist to be feminist? I don’t think so. Their unwillingness to compromise their own ideals, whatever they be; their commitment to quality music, whatever it sounds like; their joy in their work; that’s what makes them a feminist band to me.

They put on a hard-working show. The new music makes total sense, having seen it performed; felt- heard it crash over all of us in waves. Janet Weiss is fucking amazing. Her precise beats drove the new album relentlessly into the crowd, accompanying Carrie + Corin’s threshing guitars. The audience (pretty equally male/female, by the way..lots of punkers, queers, young people and all) loved it: bringing the band back for 2 encores. And they seemed to enjoy putting on the show for an appreciative crowd; especially Carrie Brownstein, who so obviously loves being a rocker, and oozes this joy out of every pore and lick, leaping and bounding and grinning into the mike. Her chemistry onstage with Corin Tucker, whose voice burns right through your heart, is still palpable; the three of them together are magical.

It was a good mix of old songs sprinkled through the new album. They played my son’s favorite: “little babies”, and my favorites: “end of you”, “words + guitar”, and “light rail coyote”. We had front row, balcony seats; an excellent view, without the crush of the floor. The Riviera is a beautiful old theatre, a lot nicer than The Metro, which is a bit grimier. And the sound seemed much better at the Riviera, too, but that may have been due to my location.

So seeing the show, and spending more time reading the words to the songs has solidified my appreciation. It’s the same kick-ass S-K I’ve loved since hearing them on my friend’s stereo..still political, if you know how to read (some criticism has claimed they lost their political bite). It’s all there: fuller, gnashier, louder, harder, and just as hott as always.

Maybe their sound is more masculine, or whatever..ha ha. I don’t know. All I know is that when I listen, my response is, simplistically: “hell yeah, they rock!“

So last night, Neko Case (and her Boyfriends) played here in town at the Englert Theater, a great old icon of Iowa City that was closed for 5 years for remodeling.

Neko was the first show I’ve gone to in the new digs. I’ve been to two community forums, but had not yet been able to marvel at the amazing acoustics available. And whoa! Neko was a great way to baptize the ‘lert! The woman has quite a set of pipes..really, the records do not do her voice justice! She’s charming, spunky, and has a dark sense of humor that invades her music. Not that she wasn’t upbeat, though. At one point, she started laughing and couldn’t stop.

See the Penn State t-shirt in the picture? Her story is that she left her bag in a cab in NYC and had no shirts; the only place open was a sports shop, so she got the Penn State shirt which she now wears constantly because she had to pay $40. for it. When someone in the audience heckled her about the shirt, she said,

“What?? I don’t give a fuck about Penn State! It’s got this pretty lion! I love the pretty lion! Who cares about sports?? Where are we here, the frat house?”

Said to much applause from the 99% IC townie audience. Which was another great thing: The audience was truly Iowa City’s community. The people that come out after the students leave for the summer, and it was a nice feeling of camraderie. A fabulous show, nice people, a bueatiful theatre..and that sound..oh!

Neko did old songs, new songs, and a couple covers. My favorites were a gospel song sung as an encore, during which the Boyfriends’ banjo player totally rocked out..an unusual move for a banjo player, in my experience. It was so savory. And the title track from The Tigers Have Spoken was wonderful as well. I was hoping she would do her version of “Poor Ellen Smith”, but it wasn’t to be. Nevertheless, one of the better shows I’ve been to, right here in my hometown; Thanks, ‘lert!