Month: March 2008

Rachael’s

I’m always a little skeptical about new businesses opening in Bloomington, but Amy gave Rachael’s high marks:

So I wanted to alert you to a couple of cool things going on in town
that haven’t received much press yet and a couple of venues/locations
that should probably be added to the Let’s Go! Calendar. One of them
is Rachael’s Café, located at 300 E. 3rd Street, 812 330-1882. Rachael
is a member of the Indiana GLBT community, a huge supporter of the
arts, and a complete and utter sweetheart. Everyone should meet her.

She’s got a mission statement, but I’ll just put the first part here.

“Rachael’s Café grew out of a desire to create a friendly, inclusive,
peaceful atmosphere for all. Our mission is to bring understanding,
education and acceptance over a cup of coffee.”

Rachael’s Café serves gourmet coffees and drinks, homemade soups,
salads, sandwiches and entrees. She loves ethnic foods and healthy
nutritional options. I’ve been working with her to develop a more
extensive vegan menu. I bake vegan treats for her and have convinced
her to work more with raw foods, live/slow foods (homemade) like
smoothies, kombucha and saurkraut. The best part is that she’s going
to start serving loaded vegan hotdogs and vegan chili dogs!!! (Can you
tell that I’m excited?) I’m quite sure that she’s the only business
doing this from here to Chicago. So basically, I’m stoked that there
will be a new late-night, cheap food destination in town. The café has
wireless internet, good lighting, lots of walls and a large floor
space, perfect for music, dancing, movies, art shows or pretty much
anything.

Here are the dates for upcoming things at Rachel’s Café (missed the
deadline for last month, but I’ll post them anyway)

March
THURS 13th Shalom Writers Circle – Poetry Reading, 7:30-8:30pm
FRI 14th Bob Dylan Talent Show & Friday Night Open Mic (hosted by Alan
Ginsberg), 6pm
TUES 18th Gretchen Clearwater (Democrat for Congress, Indiana – 9th
District) hosts a political discussion about the pros/cons of the
Clinton and Obama campaigns, 7pm
WED 19th Verbal Terrorism Poetry by Jada B, 7pm
THURS 20th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
FRI Friday Night Open Mic, 6pm
SAT 22nd Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
THURS 27th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
FRI 28th Friday Night Open Mic, 6pm
SAT 29th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.

slipstraw

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon of Easter Sunday helping Piper, Michael, Will, and Eric work on the slipstraw structure that Piper, Jrd, and Amy plan to one day inhabit.

Me fluffing the straw

Link to Flickr set of photos from the work day.

this is why I love the Internet

Because it’s so much more interesting than mainstream music media.  AP Magazine asked Defiance, Ohio for an interview for an issue focusing on folk punk and we declined to do it.  Personally, I think that there’s too much focus on promotion and attaching music to genres and really narrow and rigid identities and values and by extension encouraging people reading media to attach to really narrow and rigid identities and values.  Also, it tends to focus on what’s cool in music instead of people’s relationships and experiences with music and music’s relationships and experiences within itself.  Today, I found that the Internet, in particular, Wikipedia offered the kind of more complex and connected information about music that feels more satisfying to read…

I’ve been listening to Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor and was interested in the track The Instrumental because it had this kind of icky sounding Linkin Park-style rock hook in it.  I was interested in who contributed to it, and it turns out it was Jonah Matranga who performed as OneLineDrawing who I used to listen to when I was in college.  The track is interesting because lyrically, it is a critical look at the influence of television yet according to Wikipedia was included in the soundtrack to the Madden 07 video game.

Jonah Matranga has a wikipedia user and I thought this was  interesting  from his user page:

I’m okay with (and happy about) being considered influential in the context of post-hardcore, anti-macho rock, but I take no responsibility for McEmo as it generally manifests today. I deplore the commodification of sincerity, and big budgets to make people look/sound ‘authentic’.

…

I am an utter rock geek, an art idealist, and I absolutely believe in the transformative, transcendent power of rocking the fuck out. Rocking the fuck out is in no way tied to volume or mood, it’s just letting go.

Although  I would also argue that macho rock is also in no way tied to volume or mood and one of the biggest problems with post-hardcore or “McEmo” is that it often reflects the same masculinites (and often mysogyny) as genres of music that are more frequently criticized for those things (metal, hip-hop).  I think that Weezer’s Pinkerton which is infectious and also chock-full of mysogyny and a sense of sexual entitlement is my textbook example of this.

memes for media literacy discussions

  • Lupe Fiasco on sexism (from masculinities in media blog). I heard about Lupe Fiasco when someone brought ihis music up in the Q&A after the MED lecture last month. I heard a really great song called Kick, Push about skateboarding by Lupe Fiasco along with a lot of other great music on the Pandora Radio site.
  • Gabriel Teodros (thanks st!) on multi-racial identity and language in Africa East.  More and more I feel like punk music doesn’t speak to the questions that I need help answering, or to my experience, or connecting my experience with bigger things.  If it does connect with my experience, it seems often to link from my intentional investment in a particular subculture.  That’s not entirely true, because I think punk culture and the experience of playing music and organizing shows in a small town was, and remains, so honestly and beautifully linked with my experience growing up in central PA (and my parents as college-educated middle class people and the lifestyle that created for me).  But, that’s not my whole story, and it’s more and more unsatisfying to feel so invested in music that seems to lack a language to talk about some things, or has a political motivation without a complete perspective (say, in punk’s consistent striving to talk about and against racism but doing so without talking about race).  I’m searching for, and would like to think that I can help make multicultural music, not stylistically in the Lotus Fest, Puntamaya sort of way, but in terms of theme and perspective.

Tonight! The Dark, Dark, Dark; Glorytellers (ex-Karate), Sticky and the Bees, Morrow @ Bear’s Place. 10:30p. $5

Glorytellers sound interesting, but honestly, I am so stoked about the Dark, Dark, Dark.  They played randomly at the Wylie House last year in the hospital parking lot and were really amazing.  They are a 4 piece with accordian, banjo, random percussion, and upright bass.  They play spooky sounding songs with an old-timey feel.  One of the best parts of their songs are the sultry vocal harmonies.  I played their CD-R almost nonstop last year.

From the press release about this show:

Friday March 21
@ Bear’s Place
-Glorytellers (Southern Records)
-Sticky and the Bees (Bloomington)
-Morrow (Bloomington)
-surprise opening set by Dark Dark Dark (not Bloomington)
10:30pm (for real)
$5

Glorytellers
http://www.myspace.com/glorytellers
“The creative force behind Glorytellers is guitarist/singer/songwriter Geoff Farina, who spent the better part of 14 years fronting Boston’s genre-bending Karate, and as one-half of the formative lo-fi duo Secret Stars. Gavin McCarthy (Karate, Cul de Sac), Joshua Larue (Him/Mice Parade), Luther Gray III (Ida, Joe Morris Trio), and engineer Andy Hong are also part of Glorytellers.” And they play good music too. Real good.

Morrow
http://www.myspace.com/weatherprophets
This Bloomington 3-piece plays southern-tinged gloom-rock with a passion unbeknownst to their droopy indie-rock peers. You must see this. Brilliant.

Sticky and the Bees
http://www.myspace.com/stickyandthebees
This is a band from Bloomingotn. Nobody in the band is called “Sticky” and there are zero bees involved. No bears will be harmed during their performance, or at least not in direct relation to their actions or words or musics. And this band will be playing some new songs that nobody has heard yet (not even the band)!

Dark Dark Dark
http://www.myspace.com/darkdarkdarkband
This is a great indie-folk band. They are on tour, so do yourself (and them) a favor and check it out. They will play a short set promptly at 10:30 pm.

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