RILLY BIG SHEW....

Last DNA and the gang ran through the set. It sounded good. We are looking forward to expletiving the expletive out of the Hangar 9 tonight.

NEW DNA SHOW!!!!

The DNA Vibrators are playing the HANGAR 9 in Carbondale on June 18th. Our line-up is as follows: Mr. Kamikaze on drums, Hand of God on guitar, D-tronic on synthesizers, and the DNA Vibrator on bass. It will kickass.

More Video From the Show...

Here is a link to the video from the song, "Well."

Here is a link to the video for part of the song, "Big Black Cadillac."

Her is a link to the video for part of the song, "The Three Deaths of Juan Belmonte."

Pictures and a Movie....

Here are some pictures from the show, courtesy of Patrick Houdek.










Dr. Kick Ass is supplying some video of the event. Until then, let me link you to a page on facebook with the video on it: This House

On Saturday, the world changed....

...after the DNA Vibrators played a kick ass set out at Craig and Bert's 4th of July party. We started with the new song, "This House," and did about every song we had hoped to complete. We didn't know we were going to play until last week, we didn't practice, and our drummer, Dr. Kick Ass, and the H.O.G. had not played some of these songs ever before. The last time the three of us had played together was several years ago, as part of CRANK, at another Craig and Bert 4th of July.

As DNA commented on facebook, "Holy Crap. Jesus and the Buddha were in the audience tonight, and gave each other high fives after we played "Plate Tectonic King." We finished with a rendition of the song "Big Black Cadillac" and as we strummed the last chord, Jesus smiled, and a big black Cadillac appeared. This is why DNA is a Christian, cuz Bud...dha approves, but Jesus DELIVERS!"

Before the show, DNA had posted this: "If, at 7 pm this evening, something feels weird to you, its because The DNA Vibrators were playing and they changed the tilt of the axis of the earth from the power of their ROCK! Sorry about that. We'll be booking a show somewhere in the Indian Ocean to reverse that effect next month."

If you haven't had the chance to check, the earth's axis did change slightly on Saturday night, and DNA's friend Toney Stirewalt had a wish granted at the exact same moment. Here is his synchronous moment, also from facebook: "So, earlier, I'm watching Sneakers on cable. A 1992 movie with Robert Redford. About 30 or 40 minutes into the movie, I need to get away and help prepare dinner. I was a little bit interested in the movie, so I pressed pause on the remote. I don't have a DVR or tivo or anyting, the pause button doesn't do any...thing, normally. Later, after dinner, I go to netflix and request the movie to stream to my TV via my WII. The movie is already fast-forwarded to the spot I left off. That seems weird to me. Netflix knew where I hit pause on my comcast system. Does comcast own netflix? Does that pause button on my remote actually work? Is there another link I am missing? Is there always a missing link?"

To which DNA responded: "Interesting. Did you press pause out of habit, like you would if you had the movie on DVD or VCR, or were you pressing it while wishing you could pause the live broadcast? Wishes are very powerful things, you know.

It seems to DNA like that would be a lot of data that comcast or Netflix has to track on each one of its potential customers, on the off chance that they stop watching a movie and rented it later. Perhaps it was on a channel that Netflix quietly owns, and does track. Or perhaps you get your internet through comcast, and comcast and Netflix does have some kind of agreement worked about certain content. Or, maybe you rented it from Netflix one time before, and had to stop at that exact same spot and they restarted you from where you left off the last time.

Or, the wish thing. Perception makes up about 100% of our reality (maybe more), so DNA is not discounting the fact that you willed a connection between the two into existence."

The Reverend couldn't attend the party, and DNA has quit trying to corral Mr. Kamikaze into an appearance at this infamous shindig.

Here's DNA's "all is right with the world" moment from the show: While DNA was singing the lyrics to "The Future Is Rosie," (one of the lines being, "when you want time to slow down it moves too fast, and when you wanted it to fly, everything was standing by")at the exact time that DNA said, "fly," a biting fly landed on his ear and bit him, and while DNA continued to sing and play, and flail about wildly to hit the fly, it proceeded to zip away and bite DNA's other ear too! After the song was done, DNA said, "The fly on my ear while I was singing the word "fly" is one of the few examples of Nature's sense of humor at work. Natural irony. Lightning bolt!" Alas, a lightning bolt did not strike, but electricity was in the air all night long.

IT IS ALIVE!!!!

DNA crawled out of the grave. DNA met Dr. Kick Ass and the H.O.G. in the cemetery. They were each in the process of removing clumps of dirt and matted hair from their worm-eaten eyes. In other words, they looked about the same as the last time they all played together.

THIS SATURDAY, at Craig and Bert's infamous 4th of July bash, the DNA Vibrators return to muck things up with their own brand of zombie rock. You may never see this particular incarnation again. Which may be a good thing.....

August, 2008

By the end of July, DNA's summer therapy sessions led to an explosion of new music. The new record is shaping up to have 15 or 18 songs on it. Several of them might be good. DNA is getting really excited about playing on August 9th up at the Hangar. Expect lots of good photos and video from the event.

Permanent Historical Record: 08/01/08

School's Out...

DNA survived a brutal but worthwhile summer class schedule. He has a much better understanding and appreciation for what good teachers do to make lesson plans for their students. Think about that for a second. Every day, every minute of a school child's day is planned for by the teacher, and good ones take advantage of every second they have to get as much learned in ways that inspire their students. That is a heavy charge we give to teachers, and it is amazing that some of them actually meet this challenge or exceed it for their students. My professional hat is off to them.

In last month's blog, DNA spent some time talking about a local Carbondale girl, a person DNA has known since before she was born, Rosie, who was mauled by a dog. She very nearly died, but has survived, and is doing very well. For those interested, please check out Reach Out To Rosie.

She has continued to make great strides, and DNA hopes that you will take a moment or two from your busy life to think about Rosie.

The good folks and Thomas Publishing and the Carbondale Nightlife are also putting on a benefit concert for Rosie, at the Hangar 9 in Carbondale, IL, on Saturday, August 9th. Among the Carbondale music scene luminaries, it will be the honor of the DNA Vibrator, the Hand of God Attachment, Mac Daddy, AMICO, and Carlito, to play a few songs and express our love for Rosie and the Gordon family. We hope to see you there. DNA guarantees an unusual musical evening will be had, which will include laughing, crying, gnashing of teeth, funky dancing, children singing, computers, and maybe even robots.

Permanent Historical Record: 08/08/08

Pre-show...Jitters???

Yesterday, as DNA was practicing for the upcoming show, something happened to him which never happens. He got a funny, butterflies in the stomach kind of feeling. He thought maybe his blood sugar was low or something, but then realized, he was experiencing pre-show jitters!!!

Maybe you would expect this to happen, but DNA means it when he says this just doesn't happen to him. Then DNA started to realize why: This is the first time in nearly 25 years that he has played a show without a real live (and really good) drummer. It's a weird feeling. Who can DNA blame for fucking up the song? When the tempo gets all wonky, who will look like the drums are playing him? Will people think they are watching karaoke (to quote George Carlin: as exciting as watching old people fuck)? Will they wonder if we are lip-syncing? What if the computer fucks up? If there is a hiccup in the song cuz the processor gets bogged down? What if the sound guy never gets the mix in the monitor right, and we never hear good drum sound on stage? What if we're a beat off? (drum roll and crash for the old music joke---we're all beat offs :D ).

That has been too much shit to worry about. And, on top of that, DNA has been fighting a cold (and sore throat) for about two weeks, and will probably have to go to the doctor if it doesn't clear up. So, DNA has been babying his throat, and has been worrying way too much about how solid vocally he will be tomorrow.

So, internet confessor, DNA has spilled his guts, and let his cares spew out like eviscerated intestines on the floor. Tomorrow will be weird, there is no doubt. DNA may forget the lyrics. The computer may fuck up. DNA may lose his voice. But there is no doubt that every second will be worth it if it helps bring a few dollars more to the Gordon family.

Ah, DNA feels better now.

Permanent Historical Record: 08/11/08

The Aftermath...

DNA hates, math, particularly aftermath. Usually. In this case, though, describing what happened at the Rock Out For Rosie Benefit before, during and after is not like math at all.

On Saturday, we introduced three new members of the DNA Vibrators: Mac Daddy, AMICO, and Carlito. Carlito stole the show. DNA thinks we should vote him out of the band.

Click HERE for a video of his debut performance. But give it a moment or two to load, because it is a big file.

In the next couple of days, DNA will have some pictures to add to the blog. In the previous post, DNA discussed the pre-show jitters, the stuff about the show being little more than karaoke, but those nerves faded as H.O.G., DNA and Carlito loaded our gear up to the Hangar. Even though we were there early, there were already a lot of people there. Families. Those of you who know the Hangar, and spent many hours getting looped in those dark confines, think about kids romping through the place like it was a dank-smelling Chuck E. Cheese. It was a little surreal. There were dozens of raffle items, dozens of silent auction and live auction items, there was a web station set up to take credit card donations for Rosie, there was food from Hunan. It was, in a word, terrific.

We showed up early so that we could soundcheck the computer set up. Despite our planning, the sound guy was uninterested/unwilling to accommodate DNA. Now, if you have read this blog for any length of time, you know DNA strongly believes you should treat your sound guy right, because he controls how much you suck, no matter how good you might actually be. So, when the sound guy patronizingly said that he had been doing this for a long time, and if the computer tracks sounded good on the computer, they'll sound good tonight, DNA accepted that although the sound guy was trying to be reassuring in a self-improtant dick kind of way, the sound guy simply didn't realize what a sound check is for. The sound check IS FOR THE MUSICIAN, not the sound guy. It is the musician who needs to know what his stuff sounds like in the club, not vice versa. Any good sound guy already knows what his stuff is capable of.

DNA was not interested in teaching this guy this valuable lesson however, generally because lessons like that are wasted on sound guys who think they know everything about sound, and because being a dick himself wouldn't make the sound check happen anyway. As a rule of thumb, if the sound guy is telling you, "Don't worry about it," what they think they are doing is reassuring you, but what they are actually doing is telling how little they are there to work for you. It so happened that this is exactly how the evening unfolded, too. For example, before we went on, and we were soundchecking the computer, the sound guy said, "So, I'll need mikes for three up front, bass, guitar, computer, and drums?" and DNA said, "No, the drums and all of the other additional tracks are on the computer. This is why I would have liked a sound check, so I could see if the levels were good. I'd like to take whatever time we need so I can hear the drums through the mains." The sound guy patted my shoulder in a way that made me wish my should was covered in poison needles. "Don't worry," he said. "I have done this before. Everything will sound great." DNA wanted to say, "I have done this before....YOU WERE BORN, ya fucking' douchebag!" while he grabbed the patronizing hand and bent it back until it cracked, but instead said, "Okay, thanks alot!" Again, why antagonize the guy who controls sound output? DNa would rather appease the little sonic Napolean rather than draw the battle lines right on the stage. If you do that, you always lose.

This incident, however, was a welcome distraction. DNA was glad to see that some things never change.

Before this happened, the first bands played, and sounded fine, and after DNA bid on a couple of items (a nice guitar donated by Mike of Mike's Music) he left and chilled out at the hotel that he and the fam booked for the night. DNA made his way back to the bar with Carlito and wifey about 10 pm, and realized that everything had moved forward very quickly, and that all of the bands were ahead of schedule. If you're in a band, you know this never happens. Now, here DNA was, ready to axe a couple of songs out of the setlist, when one of the show organizers came up and said, "Hey, everything is running early, so you guys can play more if you want," to which DNA responded, "No, we can't," and then explained that we only had so many songs sequenced.

Well H.O.G. was also nowhere to be found, because he was expecting for us to start at about 11:30, which usually means 12:00, but in this case meant 10:30. See how this aftermath works? It screws you up.

DNA was able to get in touch with H.O.G., and we were ready as the Moonbuggy Kids finished a terrific set. We took our time to set up, went through the sound guy shenanigans described above, and then were ready to go.

AMiCO was excited, and maybe a little nervous, but was A-1 on top of her game, and was ready to press the buttons on Mac Daddy, even when DNA changed he setlist at the last moment. DNA decided that the Beatles medley and "It Could Have Been Worse" were just not going to fit, regardless of what time we had to play. We started with "Plate Tectonic King," which went well, but was way too loud, onstage and out of the mains. But hey, that's what you get when you don't fucking check the computer drums in advance, but what the fuck does DNA know, right?

We prepared the crowd for the karaoke death machine party we were bringing, and even talked everybody through what would happen if the computer fucked up, which it did on our second song, "Well." Mac Daddy is great, but sometimes, it gets bogged down with too many "live" tracks to render on the fly. In the middle of the break in the song, the computer simply stopped. AMiCO was freaked out by the message "Not all of the tracks can be displayed," but kept her cool and clicked "okay" and it started right back up again. H.O.G. and DNA didn't skip a beat. We kept singing and playing, and then amazingly picked back up where the computer left off. Thank goodness it was in the break part, because that part of the song was easiest to pick back up into. This would be the only computer glitch of the night, thankfully, and it actually relieved a lot of tension now that the worst had happened.

The next song was the bomb track by Carlito. He really did steal the show. After we left the stage, a talent scout from LA who happened to be in the audience asked for his contact information, no bullshit. That was weird and cool, and frankly, we (DNA and wifey) weren't sure how to handle that. We respectfully declined at that moment, but are willing to keep our options open. If he's got that kind of talent, he'll still have it next year, y'know? He's only 12. We're thinking we need to let him live like a 12 year old. Well, a 12 year old that hangs out in bars, and rips it up on stage.

The highlights of the evening for DNA included "God Made Us Funky," which sounded really good, and "The Future Is Rosie," which was well received by the crowd, and meant a lot for DNA to sing. DNA has included the rough version of that song on the front page.

After the show, the fam chilled out, went to Denny's for the after show feast, and then made it back up to the Hangar at closing time to catch the last few songs by Jackhead, who rocked. Then, we loaded up the equipment, headed back to the hotel, and DNA and Carlito stayed up and played Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

DNA knows he is reaching the end of the line. He is getting too old for schlepping gear in and out of clubs at 2 am. But, as we were loading gear out, H.O.G. said that he was looking forward to the next time, the next time we could do some of the new stuff with Mr. Kamikaze. DNA would like to see that happen, too.

Permanent Historical Record: 08/20/08

A Banner Day...

Started the Monday after the show and lasted until the Thursday after the show. First, as DNA was walking up to work that Monday morning, some fellow was sitting at the benches in the small garden between our buildings having a smoke. As DNA walked up and acknowledged him and said, "Hello," he said, "Hey, weren't you in CRANK?" This stopped DNA up short, cuz the last time someone said that was probably when DNA was still in the band CRANK, circa 1995. "Yeah," DNA said. "Man, that was a long time ago." The fellow responded, "I remember seeing you guys play. You were good. How's Dave?" At which point, we kind of meandered about in a very nice conversation about how awesome a player Dave is.

Then, throughout the week, many folks, friends and strangers, came up and said that they either dug the show or wished they would have been there. That was cool.

Finally, the 96 hour day ended on Thursday, when the Carbondale Nightlife and the Carbondale Times both did articles which featured the DNA Vibrators. Those articles will shortly appear in the blog and be archived in the article-y part of the website.

A banner day...and a great event for Rosie Gordon.

Permanent Historical Record: 08/22/08

The Press...

DNA was going to call this blog post "the fourth estate," but that was a little too full of journalistic integrity and importance (read--'gay') for DNA. After months of relative silence, in one week, DNA gets the featured article in the local entertainment rag, the Carbondale Nightlife, for the Akkademiks' record, and gets a front page picture in the Carbondale Times, a local newspaper, for DNA participation in the "Rock Out For Rosie" benefit.

Here is the picture of the Carbondale Times' article:



And here is the text of the article.

Rosie Benefit Exceeds Expectations

(picture) Roger Pugh and the DNA Vibrators perform during �Rock Out For Rosie� on August 9 at Hangar 9.

Brandon Weisenberger, editor

Life has been a bit surreal the past few weeks for Kendra Kennedy-Gordon and her family.

After her 4-year old daughter, Rosie, suffered severe facial wounds in a dog attack earlier this summer, their world was turned upside down.

The Gordons spent a month in a St. Louis children�s hospital while more than a dozen doctors cared for the injured girl. Then back at their Murphysboro home, the family entered what Kennedy-Gordon called �relative isolation� as the aided Rosie�s recovery.

But, little known to the Gordons, an entire community followed Rosie�s story throughout the summer and reached out to help. Over the weekend, the Murphysboro family finally came face to face with those who cared.

Hangar 9 was the site of the all-day Rock Out For Rosie benefit concert that attracted hundreds of people on August 9. City officials, business leaders, old friends of the Gordons and scores of others flocked to the bar for the event. Organizers said the attendance exceeded expectations.

Hunan Chinese Restaurant served a buffet and seven local music acts performed. Many businesses and individuals provided money or materials for the event (a full list of contributors is on page 4 [DNA�s note----DNA will not copy the full list of contributors, but it included almost 130 different contributors---amazing, huh?])

All proceeds from the door and from the dozens of items that were raffled and auctioned off went to Reach Out To Rosie, a trust fund set up at First Southern Bank.

"I don't think we could have expected this much support," said Kennedy-Gordon, a longtime employee of Thomas Publishing, publisher of the Carbondale Times.

She said she and her husband, Tom, were sure that close friends and family would lend a hand after Rosie's attack, but were surprised by and are forever thankful for everyone who helped out.

Supporters and donors ranged from complete strangers to old high school friends whom Kennedy-Gordon said she hadn�t talked to since 1986.

"I still don�t think I've come to grips with the enormity of the situation," she said.

A big source of comfort, Kennedy-Gordon said, came from comments left at www.reachouttorosie.org, which offers a forum for well-wishers. Entries continue to flood in to the site, which also features a blog that the family uses to provide updates.

As for Rosie, doctors have laid out a 10 year plan of reconstructive surgeries and therapy. Surgeons used flesh, a tendon and an artery from one of Rosie's arms to form a new chin, and one of the next steps is forming a bottom lip. Speech therapy sessions are also underway.

Other than the long docket of upcoming operations, Rosie is full of spirit and hasn't let the accident slow her down.

"She is just as wild and rambunctious as she was before the accident," Kennedy-Gordon said.

Along with attracting the support of a community, Rosie's incident spurred the city council to revisit its dog ordinance. Discussion has included muzzling requirements and allowing the city attorney to pursue charges against owners of dogs that are deemed vicious and attack a human.

At four years old, Rosie isn't quite aware of all that has gone on in her name, but Kennedy-Gordon said her daughter knows that people are doing good things for her family.

She said, "Rosie keeps saying, 'I love this town.'"�

Then, in the back to school issue of the Carbondale Nightlife, this, if DNA may say so humbly and sheepishly, wonderfully articulate and glowing article gave some terrific coverage to The Akkademiks. Here is a picture of the article, followed by the text of the article. Again, this fellow Roger Pugh is mentioned all over the place. DNA thinks this punk must be some kind of sycophantic loser, to glom on to DNA's well-deserved press. If DNA sees this know it all in a dark alley, he's gonna wait until the coast is clear, and then hope a lot that something really bad will happen to him.



And here is the text of the article.

Vibrators and Rocks

The Music of Roger Pugh

(pictured: Roger Pugh----whoever the hell that is)

By T.J. Jones

Roger Pugh has been a part of the Carbondale music scene since the late 1980�s. Aside from being a part of a slew of bands including CRANK, the Nightsoil Coolies, and Monster Truck, Pugh�s new-wave influenced DNA Vibrators have quietly been making some of the charmingly odd psych-pop music around.

Most recently, Pugh's band has released a side-project album entitled "The Akkademiks....ROCK!" The album is a fun romp that not only aims high at entertaining but is also useful to educate listeners about geology. With titles like "Sweet Geology," "Rock Cycle," and "Plate Tectonic King," the Akkademiks muse Schoolhouse Rock-like charm and catchiness to make an album that, like Pugh's work with the DNA Vibrators, is both humorous and seriously good. Students taking geology classes at SIU should consider buying the disc as a study aid.

Pugh also just released "Libertini," a set of recently unearthed live tracks by his first band, the beloved Nightsoil Coolies.

Nightlife recently caught up with Pugh, right before he performed at the Rock Out For Rosie benefit concert at the hangar 9 on Saturday, August 9.

NL: What can you tell us about your side project, the Akkademiks?

Pugh: The Akkademiks was born from that same burst of creativity that restarted the DNA Vibrators. In my real job at the Achieve Program at SIU, I work to provide academic support for students with learning disabilities. I thought that creating a Schoolhouse Rock series of albums for college level courses was a great idea, because music engages memory in different ways than visual/reading/textual sources do. Because I have tutored the introductory geology course at the university for many years, I felt comfortable enough with the curriculum to start with that class. I also thought that if I could write an album of songs about that, then I could write an album of songs for about any topic. So, while I had fun and personal creative release in the DNA Vibrators, I used my experience with those records to craft the Akkademiks record "The Akkademiks....ROCK!"

In October of 2007, I released the record to little local fanfare, but through my distributor have enjoyed some success with it. And yes, we will perform some songs off of the Akkademiks record for the show on August 9. We will also debut some new material which will be on an upcoming DNA [Vibrators] record.

NL: There seems to be a great amount of humor in your work, whether it be with the DNA Vibrators or the Akkademiks. Why is that? Is music meant to be funny? Do other artists and performers take themselves too seriously? Take a song like "Climate Change," from "The Akkademiks....ROCK!" It's a very serious subject, yet the song, like the rest of the CD, is quite fun to listen to. Why is that?

Pugh: When I played in CRANK, we were angry, we were misunderstood, we were like every other heavy alternative band. I'm not trying to diminish what we did or what others do, but it's easy to be angry in a rock and roll song. Rock and roll was created by artists to sing songs about sex and drugs and other wonderful behavior from the socially maladjusted. But rock music isn't just about shouting until you're hoarse, throwing up the devil horns and blasting out tri-tones all night long. [ahhh, those were the days]

It is also about being silly, about enjoying yourself, about love, about loss. Music is meant to be about interpreting your world, and interpreting yourself to the world. Even though a lot of my songs are kind of goofy, I'm really serious about what I do. I want you to dig the groove I'm putting down, I want you to move your feet, but I also would like you to listen to the lyric and maybe smile once in awhile. We have to be able to laugh at ourselves, or at least smirk snidely at each other out of the corners of our mouths.

Especially for the Akkademiks' record, I needed to craft good songs first, and then write lyrics that served the educational purpose, and then, if I could hook a little humor into the mix, why not?

NL: What can someone expect to discover when they hear "The Akkademiks....ROCK!?" Do you think people interested or studying geology will find it more interesting or fun than someone who is just looking to hear some good music?

Pugh: Well, I had the chance to try some different instrumentation and some different musical styles with the Akkademiks. In fact, part of the experiment was to try to make each song come from a different branch of the rock and roll tree. Most of the record doesn�t stray too far from the boundaries of alternative rock, but I did stretch my wings when I could. There's a funk horn section and three-part Pips-style harmony on the song, "Poppa's earthquake" and a nasty distorted bass line and solo on the song, "Rock Cycle," for example.

I hope people hear some good music, and if they know me, some things that they might not have expected me to do. I hope that the educational purpose is achieved as well. That's not so strange, when you think about it----all music is instructional, in some way, whether it's teaching a social more, or how to break it. This record was just a little more obvious and direct in its message and its audience. If you're taking Geology 111 this fall, buy the record, and learn some stuff about rocks.

NL: You have a slew of music out there. Exactly how many CD�s/albums have your released and how can people who are interested find them?

Pugh: "The Shape Of Things To Have Come And Gone," "The Result Of Continuous Exposure To Radiation," and "The Akkademiks....ROCK!" are all available for sale as physical product or digital download at CDBaby.com, on iTunes, and dozens of others of the most popular music download sites----Napster, Rhapsody, Snocap, et cetera. If you look for my stuff on iTunes, search for either the DNA Vibrators or for the Akkademiks. You can link to these records, and listen to songs from previous bands in which I played (most of the old stuff is free to download) from my website, http://www.the-dna-vibrator.com, or go to the ubiquitous MySpace and type in http://www.myspace.com/TheDNAVibrators.

July, 2008

June is over. DNA feels like he is sleeping less and less, and spending more and more time fighting cats hand to hand, crying in his car, and talking to Jesus. Wow. That sounds pretty fucked up, now that DNA sees it in print. Perhaps professional help is required. Too bad the doctor is OUT. June saw the completion of several songs, and DNA's new record creeping to completion. Perhaps by this time next month, DNA will be singing a different tune!

Permanent Historical Record: 07/01/08

Important News!!!

In the last week or so, a local Carbondale girl, a person DNA has known since before she was born, Rosie, was mauled by a dog. She very nearly died, but has survived, and is doing very well. For those interested, please check out Reach Out To Rosie.

A recent article regarding her experience and her recovery is here.

The good folks and Thomas Publishing and the Carbondale Nightlife are also putting on a benefit concert for Rosie, at the Hangar 9 in Carbondale, IL, on Saturday, August 9th. Among the Carbondale music scene luminaries, it will be the honor of the DNA Vibrator and the Hand of God Attachment, and possibly, drum majorette, Taz, to play a few songs and express our love for Rosie and the Gordon family. We hope to see you there. DNA guarantees an unusual musical evening will be had, which will include laughing, crying, gnashing of teeth, funky dancing, children singing, computers, and maybe even robots.

Oh, DNA will probably end up with about 15 songs on the new record, one of which will be a little song for Rosie.

Permanent Historical Record: 07/09/08

Hard Work!!!

You may have noticed, that DNA is not posting as much, nor isn't nearly as funny as he used to be. Others have lamented this to DNA, but DNA says that it's all relative. When it comes to funny, when it comes to frequency, it just depends on your point of view. For example, this is the first internet. If this were the 30th or 40th internet, then you might have a basis for your argument about the incidence of funny or frequency of posts, depending on the behaviors of users of the previous internets. What if the last internet only published stories about slicing people's tongues with paper or getting poked in the eyes with razor blades? See? There is nothing funny about that, ever. What if the last internet only allowed 4 posts for your entire life (they generally were [for guys] 1. First boner story, 2. First time you touched a girl who wasn't related to you story, 3. How you could be the ruler of the universe if you just really wanted to, and 4. Is this all there is? Fuck)? Well, then, DNA has posted lifetimes worth of funny, funny, shit on the internet by those standards.

As DNA has said previously, school and work are really taking a toll on his internet time. But classes for the Ph.D. go well, and work has been hectic, but rewarding. In fact, the only aspect of DNA's life which is like a lodestone is this fucking blog....

Not really. DNA loves it too!

Although school and work have been hard, DNA has also been hard at work preparing for some songs he will play for the Rock out for Rosie benefit. He just finished a remake of "All I Want For Christmas Is A Whole Lotta Cash" which will definitely be on the new record once H.O.G. can work his magic on it. Also, DNA wrote a song just for Rosie, called "The Future Is Rosie," and will hopefully put the finishing touches on a song called "I Got What I Got [and I'm Gonna Get It On]" as well. H.O.G. seems up for the challenge of also doing "Whole Lotta Rosie" by AC/DC, and if we can sneak Spazz, jr. into the club, we'll do a song by the Gorillaz, too.

Like DNA said, Hard Work, but, worth it.

What if this is the 40th version of the internet and we just didn't know it?

Permanent Historical Record: 07/21/08

For the Thousands...

of you who have been checking out the blog and seeing nothing new, DNA apologizes. This little shining point of light in your otherwise obsidian void of a universe must seem like it's winking out, but it's not. Grad school is kicking DNA's ass, along with lots of other things he has complained about recently.

Tomorrow, if DNA can steal the time, he will post some of the new songs he has been working on, especially for the show on August 9th. You know, if you live in Oregon, it only takes 22 hours to drive to Carbondale. You could decide, on the morning of August 8th, that this was something that you shouldn't miss (you would be right). You could still make the show, and sleep for two hours, too! DNA is talking to YOU, Tony Stairway!

(Okay, his name isn't actually Tony Stairway, but he knows exactly who he is---how many other people have that nickname?)

So, if you live way closer than that, my Chicago friends, hop in your Corvettes or your Volvos and drive yourself down for a great time. Even if the DNA Vibrators suck, it would still be like climbing Everest on a cloudy day---shitty view, but worth the effort.

Permanent Historical Record: 07/22/08

New Stuff...

As DNA promised, here's the new song he's been working on (in case you missed it on the front page):


I Got What I Got

This is what happens when you listen to the Supersuckers a lot and you have a brother who really is like a tornado.

We will definitely be playing this song at the show on August 9th. The new DNA record will be coming out shortly after that. It will depend entirely on when the Hand Of God can come in a do some solo work. As you may have noticed on this recording, DNA's guitar solo is crap.

March, 2008

February, like a Valentine's chocolate, held an unexpected surprise for DNA. Chance and opportunity presented itself, and DNA, Gone Brian Vaughan, and Mr. Kamikaze were able to play a couple of songs for a Chicago institution called Hoot Night. The first blog post highlights that event. Also, Mr. Kamikaze and DNA decided that another DNA show will happen, probably this summer. Probably one in Carbondale, and one in Chicago.

Permanent Historical Record: 03/02/08

Schuba's Hoot Night Was Cooler Than Us!

This week, on February 27th, DNA and his pals Mr. Kamikaze and Gone Brian Vaughan, also known as BV, played a two song set at Schuba's in Chicago. Last week, DNA was bold enough to brag that we would rock. In fact, Mr. Kamikaze and DNA were so sure of our godlike gifts, that we agreed that when we got onstage, we were going to call ourselves the Super Awesome Punk Rock Rocker Motherfuckers, (said with a straight face) and tell everybody right before we played that "We hope you brought your cocks tonight, because you are going to rock out with them." However, from the moment we were all at the club, it was apparent, despite our nearly 45 minutes of practice, that we were not rocking cocks, socks, jocks, or anything else that rhymes with "rocks." However, the night was still fun, full of a lot of good music, even if ours wasn't. DNA thinks it would be fair to say that we didn't completely SUCK, and that we were goofy, sloppy and obviously having fun in spite of technical glitches, and not having drunk nearly enough beer to be well oiled yet.

Schuba's: If you haven't been there, it has every element of a classic Chicago corner bar---lots of old woodwork, splashes of neon, mirrored glass behind ornate, but well-worn bars, and then because it is also known for its great musical history, you'd also expect a corner or side of the bar to be a stage for bands. On this one point, DNA was glad the bar was not like so many other Chicago nightclubs.

Instead, Schuba's has a separate music theater, replete with stage, seats, lights, and a nice sound system (but not overpowering). A small, separate bar keeps the bear flowing.

The Hoot Night was everything we expected---inventive, strange, full of surprises and generally funny moments. The re-union of the Coolies also went exactly as expected: Sloppy and enjoyable. Those who were expecting filet mignon were probably disappointed by The Coolies' pulled pork barbecue.

On Tuesday, we were able to get together and practice our two selections, "Police and Thieves," by the Clash, and "Sing (Sing A Song), made famous by the Carpenters. Take a moment to listen to our practice renditions. Now, don't judge----we practiced a whole 20 minutes on each of them before we made the recordings. In this respect, our preparations were also a lot like how it used to be when we were in the Coolies. Despite, obvious errors, off key singing, etc., these recordings represent the potential of how cool things could have been.


Police and Thieves (with apologies to the Clash)


Sing (Sing A Song)(no apology suffices)

Many, many thanks to John of Nonagon, and his lovely wife, and their awesome dog, who made DNA feel right at home. John gave his time to record and duplicate practice. Why audiotape a practice? Perhaps this email between DNA and Mr. Kamikaze will illuminate:

To: BV and Mr. Kamikaze:
From: DNA:

Did you get the (music)charts? Also, is there a time scheduled for us to play? Some of our old college buddies might be there (Ken, Jeremy, Vince, John) and maybe a couple of others. Real quick---will someone be recording this, or do you think we can get a recording off of the board?

Talk to you later,

DNA

To: DNA
From: Mr. Kamikaze:

Got them-- but you know they mean pretty much nothing to me, right?! I understand what they are-- and I can appreciate that-- but seriously. I don't reallly have to sing or anything, do I?

The schedule thing is more a BV question-- I'm not sure if there is any kind of schedule until we get there. My recollection of how these work - and BV can help with my horrible memory - is that Tom (the guy) will make a list of artists in the order of how he thinks it should go. But I don't think he does that until that night. BV?

I'm assuming that since DNA will be way the hell out in St. Charles that evening, we won't be going on until late(r)....

And I'm really not sure if anyone will record this. I know Tom's got some recordings of a few "acts" in the past-- maybe he'll record it since this is a pretty special night for him as he's been living in Ireland for the past few years and hasn't done this in awhile...? Also not sure how recording would happen.. DNA- don't get the idea that this is going to be a super-organized affair. If memory serves, it's usually a clusterfudge.

But really--will this be worth recording? Scratch that. DNA records himself taking a dump if it's got a cool beat.

To: Mr. Kamikaze:
From: DNA:

Okay Mr. Kamikaze,

Yes, motherfucker, you will have to sing on the song Sing. Get it, got it, good. At the end, when the lead is doing the verse, and I'll be harmonizing, there has got to be the really annoying kid's chorus going "la la la la la, la la la la la la ....." and, that would be YOU!

I know a B's the same as a Q to you but what was I going to do? Your email was already on the "to:" line in the note I sent out.

I'm cool with it not being organized. But we better be lock step, jackboot hitlerian in our approach :D That works for everybody, right?

I'll bet its recorded. Ker splash, plop plop. And thanks for recognizing that I know a cool beat when I hear one.

DNA

On Wednesday morning, DNA did his scholarly duty, and presented to the world at the Learning Disabilities Association of America's international conference a session which demonstrated how his band the Akkademiks started. It was well-received. Actually, DNA would say it was inspiring. Afterwards, DNA quickly changed presentation materials, and drove an hour away to another work-related function. That went well, too. After the "official" presentation was over and materials were packed back in the car, DNA sped back to Chicago, navigating an accident, a detour, and a lot of traffic. On the upside, DNA's parallel parking skills were well practiced throughout the whole trip. He found a spot a hundred feet away from Schuba's that Twiggy couldn't have squeezed into. Okay, that allusion was from the 1960's. How about, "that Callista Flockheart couldn't have squeezed into." No, still too fucking out of touch. Paris Hilton, or Nicole Ritchie? Too obvious. How about "that a really skinny person couldn't have squeezed into." Don't worry, folks, DNA redeems his metaphoric language in just a minute.

Because time was at a premium, on the sidewalk of a downtown Chicago thoroughfare, at 9 pm at night, at about 18 degrees above Zero, DNA changed out of his "work" clothes and into his "play" clothes. However, this was barely noticed next to the crack whore blowing a guy dressed up like a nun in the alley.

Outside of the club, enjoying a smoke, was Vinnie, former room-mate and continued friend of DNA. He ushered DNA into the club, and back to the venue. One thing DNA noticed by its absence, was smoke. The club, like all venues in Illinois, is smoke-free. DNA has to tell you, at first, a while ago, when it heard a smoking ban would include bars, it was against that draconian measure. But smoke-free bars mean smoke-free hair, smoke-free clothes, and a smoke-free guitar case, and despite what bars lost in ambience, the actual atmosphere was better for it (See? right there folks: smooth, articulate, metaphorically rich prosidy----almost poetic, one might say, if one were flexing his writerly muscles. An English degree (well, two of them, actually) is good for sumthin after all).

From there, it was great to see Vinnie, John D., Annie, Paul, John H., and many other old friends. DNA had time to slug one beer back, and grab another before we were on. It got out its bass, the super queer tribal sun Traben (look on the Basses DNA Has Loved And Lost page to see it).

Immediately, there were problems. There was a ground loop hum in the bass which would not go away. It was loud. It sucked. And, there was no plan "B" for this kind of shit. DNA was willing to wait a minute or two to figure it out, but the MC needed things to move quickly. DNA has to say, none of the other dozen or so bass players there were too quick to fucking help, that's for sure. Thanks. So, DNA fiddled with his shit until the hum was less noticeable. It had the tonal quality of a porcupine fucking a cat. Some people out in the crowd saw me messing around with the amp on stage and probably actually thought that "porcupine fucking a cat" was the sound DNA was going for. As we got squared away to start, as BV brought his hand down for his first strum of his tuned guitar, he broke a string. It looked like kind of an important string to have in one piece, as far as DNA was concerned, but at this point, we already wasted too much time, and were committed. The song started, and before we were past the intro, we pretty much fucked it up. However, we plowed along, had some fun, lost the beat in the middle, but pretty much ended together. About three dudes in the back knew who the Clash were, and seemed appreciative.

Then, BV took a breather, and talked to Tom, the MC, and the crowd a little, and DNA realized that he only looked at Mr. Kamikaze once the whole song. That was not a good sign. We needed to look at each other, so we wouldn't spaz out about the train wreck that just happened, or the next one we were about to engineer.

Unfortunately, DNA had backing vocals for most of the next song, and couldn't spare too many looks back.

"Sing" was silly, goofy, and a lot more fun to sing and play. People seemed to like it, though again, it really wasn't how we practiced it, and we buttsexed the ending.

What happened next, as we quickly grabbed our shit and left the stage, was a moment that everyone in a band has experienced. When you get off stage, you know that some people are gonna say "Dude, that was awesome," but they also say that about mold on cheese, about the size of the log they left in the toilet, and about the amount of snot stuck to their fingers after booger mining. Some band members buy that shit, but there are always those around you who will tell you like it is if you are willing to listen. For us, that was Vinnie and John D. When we walked back to where they were congregated, guitars and drumsticks in hand, their looks said it all: "Guys, it was fun and all to see you up there, but you really kind of sucked. I remember you guys used to be better than that." Annie also was appropriately honest: "You were fun, sloppy, and silly." BV was always the optimist: "That was a blast!" As Mr. Kamikaze walked off stage, he said, "Sorry" to the MC.

Who was right? We all were! We are all so much the sum of our parts. Vinnie and John didn't really care if we were good, but remembered at one time we were. Wouldn't it have been awesome if without practice, and without lubrication (beer) we could have gotten up there and made statues of the Madonna cry? Annie was on target, so was Mr. Kamikaze, and so too, was BV. What did DNA think of the whole thing?

He remembered something he thought was important from a long time ago, when it comes to bands: If we would have wanted to be perfect, we would have replaced ourselves with much better musicians a long time ago. We did what we did, fucked up what we fucked up, and enjoyed every minute of it. Enough people who DNA didn't know and didn't need came up to him afterward said, "I loved what you guys did." They had no reason to say that---they weren't being kind or following the band code to give props to other musicians---they just kind of liked what we did, warts and all.

DNA was still hearing comments an hour later, when the club was shutting down.

So, it turns out, people think dogshit is cool. Who'd a thunk it? Actually, people think being heartfelt is cool. And that, BV, Mr. Kamikaze, and DNA has in spades.

Permanent Historical Record: 03/06/08

Pictures and a Movie...

So, if you didn't know, DNA was invited to play with some friends up in Chicago at a club called Schuba's. It was fun. Below are some pictures and a short movie of us playing.



15 Seconds Of Fame

That's it. Good night for now.

Permanent Historical Record: 03/14/08

The Butterfly Effect...

You've heard of the Butterfly Effect, right? Totally awesome movie with Ashton Kutcher? Yeah, DNA knows, that movie doesn't exist. There is, however, a suck ass movie with Ashton Kutcher in it with that title. This, however, is not what DNA is referring to. DNA is referring to the idea of sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

In science, the method is to observe, hypothesize, experiment, report, repeat. Every once in awhile, no matter how tight the control, sometimes things go apeshit. When things go apeshit, and a normally repeatable experiment produces an unpredictable result, most of the time, scientists chalk that shit up to experimental error, or some anomaly. Although science can be described as a means to define universal laws, it does so through a method of averages. You essentially blindly test, and through a process of elimination, "weed" out noisy or unpredictable experiments, and narrow in on only those results which seem to make sense, which fit best approximations.

This is not a bad method. It has gotten us to the moon. It has gotten us inside an atom. But, unfortunately, except for the most obvious of cases, except for the most simplified "versions" of the real world, the method really doesn't work. The philosophy does, clumsily, as any philosophy based on best guesses would work. The problem is that we have few other options to try to figure out the world. Nobody left the instruction manual. Thanks, God.

However, one science, born out of the study of turbulent fluids, and how matter behaves in those regions at which it changes states, (but also in the study of weather, economics, well really, in everything) the study of chaos, comes to a closer approximation of how the world and the universe probably actually works.

DNA isn't preaching to you, and can't write it up well enough anyway. Go read James Gleick's seminal layman's handbook (DNA has been waiting 10 years to be able to write "seminal layman")about chaos called CHAOS. You will digg it. Once you do, you will see chaos in the simplest of systems. In fact, any system with more than two variables will inevitably behave unpredictably. Hence, the Butterfly Effect: A butterfly flaps its wings in China and ultimately causes a hurricane in Florida. Or, a tiny change in initial conditions, something most scientists would tend to ignore or average out, might lead to huge changes down the road. This is why, no matter how advanced our weather prediction equipment gets, once you get more than a week to two weeks out, no one can accurately predict whether you get rain or shine. Even the simplest systems, like a pendulum, or the "random" flipping of a coin will display unpredictable fluctuations.

The problem is that they happen so rarely in our life experience, and that as a species, we are good at lumping things together and ignoring things that don't lump, we tend to forget or not even see the basic chaotic structure of the universe. Yeah, DNA knows, "chaotic structure." Here's and example: All oak trees look like oak trees yet no two are exactly alike. All leaves on all oak trees are identifiable as oak leaves yet no two have exactly the same venous brachiation. How is that shit possible? If you tried to model or map every single variation with a computer, well, you couldn't. It is a ubiquitous, but nontheless hidden complexity that lives right down inside us. It's why we see beauty when something isn't perfect. It's why we "ooh" and "ahhh" over computer graphics when they approximate reality well. We know inherently, that perfection is easy. It's the countless fuck-ups and variations in nature that are mind-blowingly difficult to replicate.

Here is DNA's brush with the butterfly. After the show at Schuba's, Mr. Kamikaze and DNA talked about wanting to play another show. Just talk, really. No big deal. The Hoot Night experience was fun, too, but no big deal either. However, the effect had begun, and within a short while, all the guys in the band had birthed a fucking great idea for a show. It looks like that show will happen in July. More on that in the next few weeks.

Brush number two: The year has barreled by. Before DNA even knew it, March 13th had arrived. On this day, 17 years ago, DNA was still single. The next day, March 14th, he was married. Best decision he ever made. Well, the butterfly moved a while back, and unbeknownst to wifey, DNA bought sumthin' real purty for her. He can't wait until morning.

DNA's definition of the butterfly effect: No way would you have predicted that a moron who stared at this hot punk chick in the cafeteria where he worked (that would be DNA staring at his future wife) would end up marrying her, staying happily married for the next 17 years, and feeling luckier every day. Nor would have DNA predicted that about 13 years after DNA quit playing in bands that he would be in the most successful band he has ever been in, writing more music than he did when he was a kid, and planning the most awesome show ever. Yet, here we are.

Chaos is cool.

Permanent Historical Record: 03/21/08

New Songs...

Both of the new songs on the front page, There's Something On Your Back, and Black Monday, have went through a final round of turd polishing. DNA thinks they sound a little better. Particularly the guitar. When he last recorded, DNA was having some kind of mid-range withdrawal, cuz the guitars were chock full of that ringy, nasty shit. Now, they are a little more sedate, and operating within some normal parameters, and not EQ'd like Jimmy Page was trying to hear it.

No offense to Jimmy Page, but everything he has done over the last decade sounds like he broke the treble knob off in the "Ow, that is really fucking annoying" position.

Permanent Historical Record: 03/27/08

In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb, In, Out, In, Out, In, Out, Uuuuhhhhhhhh!!!!

March has always had a certain effect on DNA---Spring has sprung, the flowers are blooming, love is in the air, and there's no doubt, it's biznezz time, if you know what DNA means.

All of DNA's kids were born in December, so do the math. March just happens to be the time in DNA's life, in his wife's life, that motility and viability, egg-droppin' and sperm-countin'is right. Not only is fertility up, but so is artistic fertility. DNA commented before that December was always a good recording month, but so are the months of March and April. The first of the new records last year actually dropped in March. Years ago, in Crank, our first real full length CD was ready in March. This March, after weeks of musical inactivity (not by DNA's choice) a new song has been inspired and nearly finished in the last couple of days. It is a wedding present for some friends of DNA's.

When DNA gets the final touches done, he will post it here. What are the final touches, you might ask? How about, gulp, a banjo and a fiddle?

Permanent Historical Record: 03/31/08

A Song You Have Heard Before, Or Not...

DNA and his wife don't get to watch movies all that often, and when we do, it's rare that we agree on one that we both like. Only a couple of movies we have rented lately, like Stardust, or Enchanted, actually appealed to both of us. I Am Legend appealed a little, until the chick and the kid shows up, but everybody on the internet who tries to express an opinion about movies has already talked about that, so DNA won't add to the search engines' results if someone types in "Will Smith" "Legend" "Ending Sucks Donkey Balls" (yields approximately 20,000 hits).

DNA isn't about movie reviews anyway. What DNA likes in movies most people do not. Also, DNA really likes some movies that are really bad by anyone's approximation. DNA really has no taste in movies. However, music in movies is something that DNA pays close attention to.

DNA has long felt that movie soundtracks were little more than silver marketing machines for bad movies. Does your movie suck? Put a bunch of well-liked classic songs on it, and it becomes a retro collection. Or, gather up a bunch of indie bands dying for a little more mainstream exposure, and you gain street cred for your dogshit movie. But, every once in awhile, the soundtrack makes the movie, or works in perfect harmony (couldn't resist) with the visual elements of the movie.

DNA watched a movie yesterday which sucked. It was called Southland Tales. Don't go see it. It was supposed to be awesome, directed by a visionary director, chock full of the coolest and most unusual ensemble cast, but in a case of David Lynchian proportions of not being able to live up to its hype, it was a two and a half hour weird-a-thon. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but after a little while, seeing the bizarre and only understanding part of why its bizarre gets annoying. As much as you might like vignettes, characters, or individual scenes, the actual movie falls apart. Sure sign a movie sucks dogshit: When one of the characters has to provide a voiceover for most of the movie to make sure the audience "gets" the otherwise convoluted and and unnecessarily quirky, moody and metaphorical plot. DNA doesn't want to spoil it for you, in case you watch it despite this stern warning: DON'T!!! But, some of you might like watching Duane "the Rock" Johnson die. Whoops, sorry about that reveal.

Well, if you watched it, then DNA is sure you agree, it sucked. But, one thing that did not suck was the music. In fact, there is one point, near the end, in which music takes center stage, so to speak. First, Rebekah Del Rio (yes, sounds like a porn star name, but it is not) knocks out a version of the Star Spangled Banner which gives Jimmy Hendrix's version a run for its money as the coolest version ever. DNA ain't lyin. Go to iTunes and look up the soundtrack, and listen to 30 seconds of it. You will be sold. Or watch this scene from the movie:

Also, Sarah Michelle Gellar does a terrific job on a song called "Teen Horniness Is Not A Crime."

It's hard to reinvent a classic, but Rebekah did. What do you think?

February, 2008

January was exciting for DNA. He went back to school, enjoyed the wild success of the Akkademiks record, and began working on a new DNA record. However, writing on the blog slowed down quite a bit. DNA predicted this. Now, he writes in the time that he used to reserve for sleep.

Permanent Historical Record: 2/3/08

When Being A Musician Carried Political Clout...

There was a time when, if you were a political leader and also a musician, it meant instant bad-assification, the equivalent of banging Jessica Alba AND snorting coke off of Lindsay Lohan's ass while you were signing the secret orders to bomb the fuck out of Turdistan. Not only were you the decider but also you were hip enough to have some soul. You signed that order while listening to Hell's Bells and flashing the devil's horns. Shit, JFK only associated with musicians and he was too cool a president to be allowed to live. Imagine if Madonna had sung "Happy Birthday" to Bill Clinton? Would there have been any doubt that he not only was the leader of the free world, but also that instead of being nearly impeached for a blow job by an intern, his interns should have expressly printed on their resumes their oral skills as a requisite for the job? Actually instead of interns, he should have had fluffers ready at every stop, even one sitting hidden in the podium as he spoke to the press. Today, the Marilyn Monroe thing of JFK's time would be the equivalent of Angelina Jolie making eyes at Bush at a correspondent's dinner. DNA doesn't care what you think of Bush, if it was clear that tang like Angelina was strutting for George, even Hillary would cut him some slack.

However, despot, tyrant, or leader of the free world, it's not enough to simply play an instrument. You have to play the right one. Would we consider Nero the crazy motherfucker we do if he had been known for playing piccolo? While Rome burned, he screeched away on that fiddle made of gold, y'know, the one Charlie Daniel's sang about. Hardcore. Ghengis Khan played drums made out of the skins of his enemies. You don't think that shit wouldn't cause you to re-evaluate your diplomatic strategy as his hordes approached your borders? Even if that weren't true (DNA can't say, he made it up just a second ago) it still proves DNA's point: For a moment when you thought what DNA said was accurate, everything you already knew about Ghengis Khan being a bad motherfucker was amped up to 11. There is a synergy between the life and death power controlled by political leaders and the creative power controlled by musicians. At least there used to be.

Vince, an old friend of DNA, pointed out to him the following in a recent email:

Ok DNA,

I was watching CNN or MSNBC last week when all our Presidential Candidates were down in South Carolina whoring for votes.

So how does this relate to DNA... Well Mike Huckabee, is up on stage with a young local band ripping out Lynyrd Skynrd, Stevie Ray Vaughn among others.. and I thought to my self, "what does DNA think about this". Why does Huck feel the need to show us that, does it make him more electable..

It occured to me that we already elected a Jazz playing saxaphonist, who went on to be a blow job getting impeached saxaphonist..

Is playing the bass inherently cooler than the sax, what does that say about Huckabee as a possible President. Is it relevant that all the tunes he played that day, at least the ones I heard, were by dead guys who fell out of the sky.

Anyway kind of chuckled to myself and thought I'm sure DNA has an opinion on this..

Maybe not.. Maybe so.

Well, Vince,

Clinton and Huckabee are both products of their times, their state, and unfortunately, are the heralds of the death of the poet-king, the Athenian ideal, the death of the concept of the political leader made more awesome because he was a musician. Now it's a calling card for commonality. "Ah'm laik yew, I laiked Chubby Checker when Ah wuz uh kid, too. Saxuhfone wuz cool, and the chicks digged it." It's a fact that playing an instrument in Arkansas takes the place of your GED, and qualifies you to teach in Arkansas' public school system, so they have a different social pressure to play something, anything, down there. Arkansans have a higher than average per capita rate of people opting to be professional musicians. Everybody there knows that you are 5 times more likely to get lucky with someone who is not a family member at a Methodist church lock-in if you are the guitar-playing youth music minister. Paid and laid, in Jesus' name, Hey man! You might be thinking that DNA is going on an express elevator ride to hell for that kind of talk, and DNA would agree, if every word of the previous little lock-in vignette was not the straight dope.

Like the preacher's daughter DNA knew named "Angel." As virtuous as a stripper named "Chastity." Again, straight truth from the heartland. Anyway, since both Clinton and Huckabee are literate, and had to join the Skynyrd Militia if they were to keep Neil Young from touring in the South again, it's no surprise that they learned to play instruments. What is sad, is unlike previous maniacal despots whose musicianship accentuated their penchant for mass murder, these guys parleyed their potential into mass....appeal.

But, DNA knows why Vince asked his question. DNA is a bass player from way back, and bass players share in a fraternity that is not known among other musicians. It's fraternity in which membership depends on being not quite as bad-ass as the lead guitarist, not quite as charismatic as the lead singer, not quite as pretty as the keyboard player, and not quite as rhythmic as the drummer. In short, bass players tend to require a level of consistent professional failure that does not translate well into political office. At least Bill was gonna get laid playing the sax. Mike probably is the guy that said, "Sure, you guys can store your stuff at my house," and that's how he got in the band. This is actually true. When he formed a band in Arkansas, Capitol Offense, they practiced in the basement of the Governor's mansion.

Vince got me thinking about the position most guys who would call themselves "bass players" are in when they are 42. That wasn't very pleasant. And, DNA got to thinking about all the bass player jokes he has heard. And, about other famous political people who were musicians. So, without further ado, here is the internet research portion of this blog, filled with jokes, musically inclined politicians, and a final word or two. Some of the jokes were blatantly stolen from here. Some of the political facts were ripped off from here.

How do you confuse a bass player? Put one of his strings out of tune, but don't tell him which one.

What's the definition of a bass player? Halfway between a drummer and a musician.

How do you know the band is over? The bass player says, "Hey guys, I wrote a song I'd like us to try..."

What's the difference between a bass player and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four.

John Quincy Adams played the flute. Yes, he was totally gay. Thomas Jefferson played the violin, which normally is the antidote for jungle fever.

Ross Perot plays the accordian. DNA can't make this shit up. Nerd birth control, the accordian. Apparently, Ross hung the accordian straps from his ears.

A dad takes his son to bass guitar lessons. After the first lesson, dad asks the boy what he learned. His boy said, "I learned the first five notes on the "E" string." Dad took him to his lesson the next week. After the lesson, he asked his boy what he had learned. His boy said, "I learned the first five notes on the "A" string." His dad went to take him to his third lesson the next week, but his boy said, "Sorry dad, I can't make it." His dad asked, "Why?" and his boy said, "I've got a gig tonight."

Condoleeza Rice played the piano. She was a pianist. If you are a juvenile dork or retarded, you are laughing right now. Pianist.

Abraham motherfucking Lincoln played an AXE!

What do you call a bass player without a girlfriend? Homeless.

How do you make a bass player play quieter? Put sheet music in front of him.

How can you tell if a bass player is at your door? He knocks out of time and comes in too early.

Yeah those jokes are all pretty old and tired, but so are most bass players, like Mike Huckabee, our bass playing presidential candidate. DNA went to his band's myspace page. It's the only myspace band page DNA has been to which does not feature music from the band. DNA guesses that Huckabee is like the kid who bought Rock Band for his PS3 so he could have some friends. "I'll be the bass player," he says, not knowing exactly what the bass player does, but ensuring that those three other cool kids will not construct some reason to be elsewhere.

On the other hand, DNA kind of respects Huckabee for playing bass. He sure as hell ain't playing it because its cool. He must really love it. In fact, it's got to be a power trip all its own to be the Governor of a state and also be a bass player in a band full of politically appointed guys who work for you, guys whose future you hold in your hands. Instead of the guitarist ignoring the suggestion of the bass player to turn down, the guitarist would say, "Yeah, good idea, Huck." Huck says, "Maybe we could play some more Skynyrd?" and all the guys say, "that's just what we were thinking!" Maybe there's a bit of Ghengis in Huckabee after all.

DNA would be in a band called Ghengis Huckabee in a heartbeat.

Permanent Historical Record: 2/6/08

Another Bass Joke...

Most of the bass jokes DNA reported above were old, and have been around in one form or another for some time. Here's one of his own DNA thought of today:

Definition of a bass player: The third or fourth best guitarist in the band.

Let's see, more bass jokes: How about
Billy Sheehan? Duff McKagan? Kip Winger?

Those were cheap shots. DNA is really sorry----that anybody took pictures of them. DNA thinks that either they were posing for Tiger Beat or Cream. However, DNA chose each one of these guys because they all have played some bass that DNA would rather not admit to liking. Billy Sheehan is a gifted bass player. Kip Winger was way more talented than his rock and roll band would let him be, and "She's Only 17" is exactly why America is fucked up sexually. A 20 something year old guy talking about fucking your 17 year old daughter, and everybody is cool with it. That's the power of rock. Finally, Duff McKagan. He was in two cool bands---Velvet Revolver and The Cult (for a little while). Oh, and he was in Guns and Roses---a band in which he fit the punchline to DNA's joke about being the third best guitarist. Also DNA chose these guys because, it never fails, when a bass player tries to look cool, they look queer, stoned, or like a stalker. They don't grow hair well, and tend to either handle what little spotlight they get poorly, or fade away and write new age music.

Here, I'll prove it:


Bass players are sad.

Permanent Historical Record: 2/14/08

It's Valentine's Day, so why don't you shut up, m'kay?

This week has been weird for DNA. First, he actually likes his statistics class. Second, he so thoroughly enjoyed geeking out playing D&D he is copying ALL of the old notes from years ago into a readable format (you have no idea how many pages it will be---maybe hundreds). Third, a horrible ice storm has hit the area and until now, that is, right now, DNA and family has been without power, heat, lights, internet, you know, the essentials. Removing power, when it is cold, when it really is a necessity, makes you realize how contrived your world really is, and how dependent we have become on amenities like continuous electricity. But also, it makes you realize, that if you had to, you could, and if you knew you weren't going to have it, you would, readjust your life accordingly.

On Monday night, about 11 pm, after the house had been without power for several hours, and the temperature was noticeably cool, we began to hear it: unearthly cracks echoing through constant click of sleet and ice. Trees began to break, snapping under the weight of about an inch of collected ice on all of the branches. Here's a picture:

It's not a picture of our ice storm, or our town, but it is a picture of AN ice storm. DNA just searched for the first "ice storm" picture that wasn't a huge f'ing jpg, so you would get the idea. It was pretty much like this, even with coyotes, no bullshit.

There's something about the primeval forces at work, the grinding of our artificial system to control our environment to a stop, which brings out, or more correctly, allows for the re-emergence of, creatures that usually operate at the periphery. Then you see it, like we did: A grizzled coyote, with ice hanging in clumps from its fur, eyes gleaming at you, clearly thinking, "Now this is more like it. You aren't so much in control now, are you? Kind of like how it was about 10,000 years ago, when you huddled at the base of a mile high glacier, and we took your babies at will?"

Or, maybe it was looking for some tasty trash to root through.

Anyway, it was surreal, like a slow-motion tornado, as tree after tree snapped in a cadence like the cracking bones of osteoporotic octogenarians performing Swan Lake.

Let that sink in for a second: Old people writhing on the floor of the nursing home, screaming, "Help me, Jesus, Lord, help me!" as they crumpled to the ground after flailing and failing to keep their balance as an orderly spun them into pirouettes like a dozen antique plates on sticks, and a stunned Activities Director, later, in front of the board of trustees, says, "I honestly thought it would be good for them."

After power was out for two days, it didn't seem quite so fun as that anymore. We were able to pack up the kids and the dog, and the practically frozen hermit crab (fuck the cats---they had to stay) and went to a hotel.

We came back tonight, after we heard and saw that the power was restored. We picked up right where we left off watching a movie we had rented, and along about one hour into it, after we joked about how the movie was cursed, and it was the movie which caused the power outage (the movie was cursed--it was "The Gameplan," which starred the Rock---what was that? Oh, that was the sound of your opinion of DNA's taste hitting the floor like an open container of chocolate pudding? Sue me, the kids liked it!)the power went off again. "Oh great!" we all said. DNA said, "I knew this would happen," accusatorily to his wife. "Do we still have those hotel rooms?" She said, "No, I already told them we weren't staying there tonight." "But didn't we already pay for them?" (we had to, to hold them for tonight---we had the option of getting our money back as long as we called before noon---but, guess what, we had no power at noon, so we had to buy the rooms---but then our power came back on, and we would rather stay at home--the hotel wasn't that nice) "Yes, but I gave the keys back." "Well, fuck, that ain't cool. I knew this was going to happen." Here's a tip from ol' DNA: You want to piss your wife off faster than anything? Imply by the tone of your voice that things completely beyond her control are her fault, and not only that, that her bad decisions means that we're even more completely fucked. Then, all the kids started in: "I can't stand another cold night!" "You mean we can't go back to the hotel?" "Mom, why didn't you hold the room?" "I feel cold!" If lasers could have shot from her eyes, there would be holes through my head and my dick. After some frantic moments finding our candles again, she called the hotel, only to be told that despite our paying for the rooms, they were already booked solid, because we had told them earlier today that we would not be needing them. DNA yelled at his wife, "Oh, that's perfect. They can't do that. We paid for those rooms!" Here's another tip: Yell at your wife and make her feel like somebody else's corporate bullshit decision was her fault.

Then, the power came back on. In less than two minutes, we had become like the coyote. Wolfish in nature, backbiting, waiting in the cold for civilation to fail. She said, "I am not very happy with you right now," meaning DNA. DNA said, "Y'know, it's not like I'm the only one who blames someone when shit goes wrong," and then our son, Spazz, jr. said, "Yeah Mom, you're like the pot calling the kettle black." Final tip for all you dads out there: It just isn't a good idea to be wrong, and then make your wrong look better by throwing in your wife's face the fact that she has done exactly what you just did. It didn't help that Spazz jr. was cheering from the peanut gallery.

Like most men, DNA is generally slow on the uptake, and only then realized that he basically said that his wife caused the power outage, our problem with the hotel, and it was her fault that our kids would freeze. So DNA said as sweetly as he could, "She can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never never ever let me forget I'm a man." He even did a little dance as he sang, knowing that if acted like enough of a dork, she wouldn't stay mad. DNA said, "Hey, baby, you know it's Valentine's Day?" She said, "Why don't you just shut up, m'kay?" But she said it in the sweetest way.


Permanent Historical Record: 2/20/08

Another Sign Of The Apocalypse...DNA Plays Again!!!

Next week, DNA has to go to Chicago for a week for conventions, presentations, speaking engagements, etc., and as usual, when he does these things, he always looks up Mr. Kamikaze so DNA can commiserate with him about the good old days.

This time, when DNA called, Mr. Kamikaze said that BV, the honorary fourth member of the DNA Vibrators (you didn't know there was an honorary fourth member---tsk, tsk. And you call yourself a fan). Well, BV, of the Nightsoil Coolies, of Monster Truck, and of many great bands, is getting a band together to play a show up in Chicago this coming Wednesday night. It's a special show, a to-play-you-have-to-be-invited kind of gig, and BV goes way back with the man who is putting it on. So, Mr. Kamikaze and BV wanted DNA to join them at Schuba's in Chicago on Belmont and Southport for a night of Streisand versus Violence. Yes, you heard it. Each of the bands that play will play a song by Babs and a song about violence, and we all will be better for it. So, if you were a fan of the original Nightsoil Coolies, or if you remember us from back when you were in college, or if you like Barbara Streisand or violence, please come out and enjoy the show. DNA guarantees it will rock. And when was the last time you got a guarantee of rocking on a Wednesday night that didn't cost you $50 bucks and a bad smell on your breath the next morning?

July, 2007

July is a Carbondale milestone. One in which Craig and Bert put on a 4th of July rock and roll barbecue that has become such an event that people don't say, "What did you do this 4th of July weekend?" They say, "Were you at Craig and Bert's this weekend?" The DNA Vibrator's show last month was awesome, and not just for the band. We got a good recording of the show, which will likely take the summer to mix. July will also likely see the birth of the Akkademiks, the educational project DNA has been working on, and will also likely see DNA's application into the Ph.D. program in Special Education at SIU become a reality. Ah, DNA is finally growing up.

Permanent Historical Record: 7/1/07

Taking a Breath...

Yes. Before another wave of lots of things to do or prepare for hit, DNA needs to take a breath. So, instead of writing lots of new stuff tonight, DNA will copy the last entry from last month. That's not cheating. It will get you caught back up into the continuing story of the lead up to the kick ass show DNA played on June 23rd, 2007. So, here below, is the recap. Next week, I will finish the sordid tale.

The Practice, or, The Shape Of Things To Come...

June 22nd, Friday:

Starting that afternoon, DNA loaded his equipment up, from home and from his office. Packing and loading equipment is a ritual, that DNA has practiced since it first became a musician, many years ago. The ritual is much like the ritual a skydiver will go through to pack his own parachute, or a soldier will go through to clean her own weapon. DNA invests that much energy into the process. Like those others, DNA visualizes how he will use the Big Muff Pie distortion (yes, an original, with germanium capacitors, that bleeds signal like a wino�s gums bleeds, well, blood) as he carefully packs it in his milk crate. He carefully winds his cords, unscrewing the ends to check the solder joints, and then wraps them with neon green duct tape. He changes out the batteries on his stage tuners, his pedals, and a signal splitter. He packs his tool box, and all of the other musical necessities away (guitar slide, picks, extra strings, etc.).

Then DNA checks his guitars. DNA has been kind of bitch about having a guitar stand and strap for each guitar. They are not that expensive, and mean you have to do a whole lot less fucking around on stage if you have to change guitars. DNA checks the batteries on each of the basses, checks the strings on all the guitars, and packs away the guitars in their respective cases. DNA closes the flight case for the pre amp and amp, and then loads up the stuff.

DNA built his own basses for several years. Along with that, DNA built his own speaker enclosures, too. At the time, the only money he spent was on musical equipment, and so DNA bought the best: An EVM 18" and 4 EVM 10"s. DNA built two 2 x10 cabinets and 1 18 cabinet. This was the rig DNA used at the height of playing out, when sometimes the clubs he would play were huge, and needed more bass, or was so small, the PA had no subs and really couldn't deliver bass. Either way, DNA was ready to deliver.

The 2 x 10 cabinets were eventually chucked in favor of a custom built 4 x10 enclosure which DNA still has. DNA has had the same speakers for 17 years. They will probably last another 17. Seriously, EV doesn't make the "M" series anymore, because they were too expensive and frankly overpowered for everything except the biggest applications. A rough measure of a speaker is the mass of the magnet. Each of those EVM 10's weighed approximately 40 pounds. Fuck is right.

The 18 cab, well it has had a history. DNA traded it to Mr. Kamikaze for a drum set. At that time, Mr. Kamikaze was learning to play bass in a band called Taylor. He was pretty good. I have yet to actually unpack the drums I got. 13 years have passed since then. Well, Mr. Kamikaze still has the 18 cab, and the bass player in his other band, Nonagon, uses it. Mr. Kamikaze promised to bring the cabinet with him, to reunite the 4 x 10's with the 18 cab. (Mr. Kamikaze indeed did bring it. The day after the show, DNA received a very nice email from an old friend, who said whatever I had up there sounded "tits.") DNA likes tits.

DNA met the Hand of God at the practice space, which thankfully, was air-conditioned and sound-proofed. Besides DNA's own monstrous bass rig, H.O.G. had a 200 watt all tube ampeg head and a Marshall 4 x 12. The problem with such a stadium filling rig is that it doesn't really start to kick ass until it's turned half way up, and we wouldn't be able to turn it up past 1, other wise it would simply be too loud.

About the time we had finished loading equipment into the practice space, DNA got a call from Mr. Kamikaze asking for directions. He and long time pal The Song Engine came down from Chi-town. On the way in, the guys bought some liquid refreshment, and by 6 pm we were set up and ready to practice.

For some vocals, DNA brought his Mesa Boogie combo in. This is the same Mesa Boogie that the song Engine used to own. It's the same model that Neil Young played through for many years (maybe still does). Mine still works awfully well.

Do we have high expectations? Well, yes. To quote somebody famous, "I know, it's only rock and roll, but I like it." We are competent musicians, and H.O.G., well, he's from another planet, a planet where the best musicians on earth go to shine the shoes of the lowest of the low there in hopes of hearing an alien play even a single note on a dimestore kazoo while they are bored at the shoe shine stand. And these aliens are the dregs, the loser aliens who by alien standards can't even play a kazoo. H.O.G. is good THERE. He just happens to be HERE. DNA lives eats and breathes this shit, and Mr. Kamikaze is truly the shit on drums, so it was surprised when practice quickly started to sound like a blind man beating a bag of cats: badly punctuated screeches, lots of fits and starts, and a lot of extra motion to get the simplest shit done. DNA began to lose a little confidence after two hours and several beers did not improve the situation.

Let's get one thing straight: Nobody was mad or anything. Fuck, it would be kind of funny in a karmic way if after all the hype and crap about the show, if we old guys totally sucked and couldn't make it come together. In old-style mythology, the hero generally dies at the end in a great flourish. Our flourishes have already come and gone. In the new American mythology, the hero keeps coming back again and again for the sequel. People don�t stay dead. However, in real life, when people try to emulate that crap, eventually they get too old to live up to the hype, and they fail, either publicly or privately, but only then do they learn the lesson that there comes a point after which you give up the games of youth to the young. Was this our moment? It seemed like it.

After 10 pm, we seriously started axing songs that sucked. Some were simple, some were the good ones, the ones that were musically challenging. What we were left with was a core of somewhat shaky songs, DNA with a somewhat shaky voice (after singing for several hours), and also having his left arm hurting (after an accident from a couple of weeks back left a couple of his fingers numb---like carpal tunnel numb, nothing too serious). The guitar sounded lame, cuz we couldn't get a good tone out of the underdriven ampeg.

After 11, we all agreed that no further damage could be done. We discussed renting a Marshall head for H.O.G., and the boys decided to grab some food. DNA had to drive an hour home, say goodnight to the wife, see what the boy was doing etc., so instead of food, he went home. Reuniting with the guys was great. The playing was a little underwhelming, but at the very end of the night, we all realized, that for Mr. Kamikaze, this was actually the first time he practiced this stuff on his actual drums, and not just while listening to it in the car, and for one song, DNA knows this is hard to believe, but for Folsom Prison Blues, Mr. Kamikaze had never ever heard it before, not even the original. H.O.G. played one of DNA's guitars because his own had corroded and rusted so badly from disuse that we couldn't string it. Meaning that H.O.G. had not picked up an electric guitar, except for those times over the last couple of months in which DNA wrassled him into the studio, for OVER A YEAR. With those starting conditions, our practice didn't seem so bad. But we would have to get a lot better if we weren't going to suck ass on stage on Saturday.

Did DNA pack his parachute correctly, or had he forgotten some important but elusive element in his ritual? Was H.O.G. really from earth, after all? Was it true that Mr. Kamikaze played the drums only because he had some?

The proof would be in the pudding, or more specifically, in the Quatro's Pizza the guys gorged on after DNA left.

Permanent Historical Record: 7/3/07

Later That Night...

DNA left the guys, to calls of being a pussy, being whipped, of them knowing who wears the pants in his family. Okay, fine. DNA had to drive. DNA's throat hurt. Sleep would be better than partying, and in the end, it was DNA's ASS hanging out if we fucked up DNA's songs tomorrow at the Hangar. So, the rest of DNA's story Friday night is short. DNA drove home, silently thinking through the songs it wanted to play out tomorrow, and made it safely home (about an hour's drive through wooded back country). Once home, Lara asked how everything went. DNA said, "Let's just say it sucked, but not as bad as it could have sucked." "Really?" she asked, somewhat surprised. "Yeah. Mr. Kamikaze wasn't kidding when he said he sucked. DNA is not worried though," DNA said as he began to get ready for bed. But, DNA was worried. A little.

DNA left at 11:00 pm. Here was the scene at 11:03: "Okay, now that douchebag is gone, let's get some food. I am fucking starving. We haven't ate since noon!" The 'we' here is Mr. Kamikaze and the Song Engine. Yes, plenty of beer had been drunk, and several shots of tequila were downed, but no food. H.O.G., said that he was up for anything, because unlike DNA, he sets the rules around his house. Mr. Kamikaze and the Song Engine both said, "Quatros, then." (Damn, DNA ought to be gettin' paid for this free advertisement and shit. DNA will take it in pizza, if you reading this, Quatro's man. Don't wonder why your website is gettin' hella big hits. It's all DNA!)

Up at Quatros, they devoured a large deep pan pepperoni, and after the second slice, each felt bloated. Like weebles, they tottered from Quatros, party warriors, pizza spartans not ready to surrender themselves to the embrace of sleep. Down the street they wobbled, walking past the Hangar, the DQ, the old Varsity theater, and Booby's, until finally, they located a source of a subharmonic thump which had been tugging at subconscious minds of the three pizza killers. PK's was the source.

PK's, back in the day, was a biker bar. The kind of biker bar that had a certain reputation. If you didn't have a bike, don't go in. It wasn't a poseur bar, it was the real deal. And the patrons, nice folks, were just as happy as not letting Bif the Fraternity Dick keep on thinking that. However, fairly recently, probably thanks to Dave from the Dammit Boys booking some of the bands, the bar had taken on a more punk rock feel. Again, not poseur, Avril Lavigne punk, but the "I got enough money for my medicine, or this guitar, so fuck it, I'm buying the guitar" punk.

PK�s would not disappoint the three Italian pie-eating argonauts. Besides the Dammit Boys playing, the headlining act, The Oscars, ripped it up, and played like they were gonna die tomorrow. After the cheap beer out of the tap at PK's, the Song Engine, H.O.G. and Mr. Kamikaze also felt like they too might die tomorrow.

Bloated, slow, sick. Like the men of Odysseus caught between the Scylla and Charibdys, they now felt like we had sounded like a few hours before. There was only one way to save themselves from the siren's song: HEAVE!

The boys were proudly carrying on a tradition of staying up way too late and getting bent, that began years ago, on the night before the first DNA Vibrator's recording, in which Mr. Kamikaze and DNA proceeded to drink themselves into oblivion. While DNA finished checking his email one last time before shutting down the computer and going to bed, he hoped the boys were doing something like he later heard they were doing. The trip through the underworld before a show was the last step of the ritual that the DNA Vibrators needed to follow, so that just like the first time they recorded, the night before was hell and death, but the next day would be magic and rebirth.

Permanent Historical Record: 7/6/07

The Day Of The Show...

After a good night's sleep, DNA woke up at approximately 10 am the next morning. First thing on the agenda was to contact Mike at Mike's Music and see if he would rent a Marshall head to power H.O.G's Marshall cabinet. The short answer was yes. After DNA talked to Mike, he talked to H.O.G. who was able to go pick up the unit.

DNA's voice felt pretty good, his arms felt good, so when he called Mr. Kamikaze in the morning, he faked like his voice was roached, just to freak everybody out. That put DNA in a much better mood. Believe it or not, DNA doesn't want to admit it, but it is a vain little entity. It spent way too much time picking out clothes for the show. It used to be that DNA would always wear a pair of cut off overall shorts, (he called them overshorts) with a NASA patch on the front. This was the uniform. DNA still has a pair of overshorts, but they just didn't feel right. So, a pair of shorts, a shirt with a ufo on it, and the word, "PREPARE" and some cool old high tops, and DNA was ready to go. Then, DNA did its nails, eye shadow and lip gloss. DNA is a fashion whore.

As DNA drove up to Carbondale, Lara agreed to meet DNA at the hotel that they reserved so that besides having hot monkey sex after the show, they could rest in C-Dale without the prospect of having to drive home later that night (Lara wouldn't let me write that we had hot monkey sex after the show if we had actually had hot monkey sex after the show). She would meet up sometime after 6 or so, to have some food and then hang out at the Hangar. On the trip up, DNA called Mr. Kamikaze, H.O.G., and the Song Engine. H.O.G. couldn't meet up, but the guys went to the local record store, and then to Mike's Music, where DNA picked out some picks, and everybody shot the shit for awhile with Mike, who would later come up to the show and ROCK OUT LOUD.

When we got to the practice space, things were much cooler all the way around. We got some honey tea, some Coca-Cola, and were ready to go again. This time, we had already culled the un-do-able shit, and everything else sounded pretty good. The Marshall head and cab made H.O.G. sound extraterrestrial again, and within a relatively short while, the world was right with us. We shut it down, loaded up, went through the load up ritual, and at about 5 or so, were up at the Hangar, loading shit in. About the time we were done loading, we met the Moon Buggy Kids, who were all young and digging just being there, and after their shit was in, we were called by the rest of Nonagon, and then before we knew it, their shit was in too. And not a moment too soon, because a pop-up evening shower had quickly rushed in to soak the ground.

Like most summer showers in Carbondale, it didn't last long. We were checked into the hotel, and back on the Strip eating sandwiches at Booby's Beer Garden by 6 pm. Within an hour, we were back up at the Hangar, with the Song Engine, Lara, and DNA's old pals Big Mike and Susan. As we got ready for sound check, DNA met the sound guy, Gary, the recording guy, Mike, the bar owner, Sally, set up the video camera, and got the beer tickets.

Beer tickets are part of the economy of a show in a bar, one DNA now realizes that the general public may not be too aware of. It's a throwback to a simpler time, when you bartered for goods and services. Drink tickets were issued for X number of drinks out of whatever is on tap in the bar that night. There were never enough drink tickets for everyone. Bar owners have learned from long experience that supplying bands with too many drink tickets means the bands are fucked up band by showtime, or means that the bar may actually lose money that night, depending on how advanced the alcoholism was among the various bands.

DNA took his share of drink tickets, and over the course of the night, bought several more rounds. The Moon Buggy Kids started promptly at 10pm, and despite some feedback issues, sounded terrific. Because neither Nonagon or The DNA Vibrators were really equipped to play longer than necessary, we didn't encourage the Moon buggy Kids to speed up or stop playing. In fact, we just kind of enjoyed the show. Then, without even trying, the Moon Buggy Kids did us a favor. After they finished, they started to break down their equipment on stage. As bands move upward and onward to bigger gigs, this is kind of frowned upon, because the next band wants their 15 minutes of fame just like you do, so you can break your drums and case your guitars offstage, if you please. In our case, however, speed was not of the essence, and gave the crowd at the Hangar, of which there actually was one, something to watch before Nonagon hit the stage.

Nonagon rocked. From start to end, the band is frenetic noise, melodic thrashing, and terrific bass counterpoints to a buzzsaw guitar. That, and Mr. Kamikaze was fucking awesome on drums. Which begged the question, "Why did he suck so much during our practices if he was this fucking great on stuff that was 10 times harder and faster than what the DNA Vibrators played?" It was funny, kind of, because during both practices, we had to keep on telling Mr. Kamikaze to slow down, relax, and let the beat flow. If the DNA Vibrators' songs were too fast, they would fail miserably. So, like Ray Charles always said to his drummers, "Slow the fuck down! I'm blind, not deaf, you broke mother fucker!"

After Nonagon finished, Big Mike got the video rolling, and H.O.G., DNA and Mr. Kamikaze got set up and ready to play by about 12:15. It was late, DNA had a little too much to drink, and at that point, wasn't sure if he could sing, play, or really, stand all too well. Showtime!

Permanent Historical Record: 7/10/07

Get To The Point....

Right. DNA can be long winded. So here we go. The first song was an instrumental, with a couple of little hitches in it which make it cool. DNA really was feeling a little tipsy, and wasn't sure how strong his voice was. We went through a brief introduction, and then began. Sound was good, but by the first break in the song, about 10 seconds in, DNA could tell that Mr. Kamikaze was a little tight. Things got sloppy quickly. A couple of basic cues were missed. It started to feel ugly. Just then, at the next pause, DNA could hear the Song Engine screaming at the top of his lungs, timed with the stops and starts of the song. That made DNA feel better, because people feed off of that kind of energy. The second song began right after the first one, with a distorted bass line. That one was sloppy too, and right away would test the limits of DNA's voice. Quickly, those limits were surpassed, but, song 2 was better than song one. Still, way too many missed cues. The third song, "A Note To My Old Band," actually had a groove, and as soon as we started, things finally clicked. It rocked. People started dancing, some were even singing the chorus. The next song, better, and even though there were some dips here and there, everything was good. H.O.G. played some sick, sick shit, and Mr. Kamikaze found his happy place. DNA let it hang out from the get go, and by the end of the night, we had rocked. Guests came up and sang on stage, everybody drank to excess, and by the time we were through, we converted the youngsters, and made the old folks stay up past their bed times. DNA, Mr. Kamikaze, and H.O.G. all agreed that they should do this again, sooner rather than later.

After we settled the money, we agreed that we should find an after hours party, which we did, just a few blocks away. To our surprise, we found the Moon Buggy Kids there. Some guy was climbing a tree, someone else was playing with a lit tiki torch, and two guys were playing acoustic guitars and screaming into a hurting little peavey combo. In other words, a typical college party. As we were walking around, someone yelled, "Hey, that's the DNA Vibrator!" Notoriety felt pretty good. The same someone then offered DNA the last swig of a plastic jug full of Canadian Mist. DNA faked like he drank it, and gave it back to the drunk person. Either it, the drunk person, or both, smelled like paint thinner.

Although the party was fun, we felt a generation removed from the sophomoric fun most of the revelers were having, so we decided to walk over to Lost Cross house. Something is always going on over at Lost Cross. Because most of us had been fixtures in the Carbondale music scene for many years, we recognized some of the folks there, and vice versa. Inside Lost Cross is like a underground music museum. Posters, flyers, handbills, for shows going back dozens of years adorn every surface. Old bands DNA was in were enshrined in here. New bands that have hardly played out have flyers here. It was nice to show the guys from Nonagon the house, but by this time, it was about 3 am, and time to get to sleep. We walked back to our cars, and drove to the hotel.

Lara and DNA had their own room. Right on, baby! But, discretion was the better part of valor, and as soon as we could, we were laying down and falling asleep.

The next morning, some of us (the Song Engine, Mr. Kamikaze, DNA, Lara, Big Mike, Susan) got together and had us some breakfast at Harbaugh's Cafe (a relatively new, but terrific, Carbondale tradition). Then we parted company, tired, sore, but better for the experience. Rock and roll is pretty cool, sometimes.

Permanent Historical Record: 7/12/07

Don't Put This Blog Up On No Shelf...

Why Rock Idioms Make Rock Stars Sound Like Idiots

Since this rant has something to do with music, it will appear in both the blog and the rants section of the website. Cross-categorical analysis, how fucking bitching is The DNA Vibrator, after all? Quite, it appears. Bitchin'? Yes, he's an antiquated old fuck, isn't he?

There are many words that have made it into the rock lexicon, mostly as euphemisms for fucking or sex. From the obvious to the sublime, rock and roll has pretty much always been about sex. Because most conservative Christian elements of the time (and now) confuse sex and desire for physical pleasures as equivalent to satanic temptation, that is, doing EVIL, rock and roll was considered EVIL, the devil�s music. Of course, everyone knows the devil�s music by definition would be music with no soul, and today, that would have to be Taylor Hicks. Sorry Taylor. That�s not a cheap shot, it�s true. He�s the latest musical antichrist, following in the hoofprints of psychotic geniuses like John Tesh, Michael Bolton, and Hell�s own keyboardist, Yanni.

DNA believes that the key thing that separates rock and roll from other types of music, is specifically its subject matter. This is why DNA finds Christian rock, well, funny. It is also why so many word or phrases that simply are not used in everyday speech find their way commonly into rock songs. From its inception, rock and roll songs were made to talk about something (sex) that couldn't be talked about, so euphemisms, double-entendre, and a separate lexicon has been built around this music.

This double-speak has amused and bothered DNA for some time. It's an idiosyncrasy of the medium that we simply accept, and anytime that occurs, we frankly should question why we accept it. Maybe there is a good reason for it, maybe not. Many years ago, DNA wrote a song about it, called "Cindy." In the song, DNA poses as some frat boy king of the jungle who brags about sexual "conquests," and talks offhandedly about how he fucked Cindy Crawford. This right off the bat shows how long ago the song was written. Any 20 something today would say, "Who?" and the obvious idiocy of the premise of the song is kind of lost if you don't know Cindy Crawford. But, DNA did his best to club listeners over the head with the obvious stupidity. "Is it better to lie about it, whose gentle ears am I protecting, if I say 'making love' instead of fucking, if fucking is what I mean?" Then DNA goes on to say, "I didn't fill Cindy's void, love potion number 9 was not employed, I didn't give her an afternoon delight, or rock her fucking world all night. What I did was more direct, no metaphoric plugs or sockets to connect, no slots or tabs to insert---what do you think I am, some kind of pervert?" The laundry list of obfuscating, or clever, or attempting to be clever, phrases is endless. Aren't you tired of it? Fuck, DNA was/is!

Well, believe it or not, this rant is not about sexual innuendo in rock songs, since DNA already covered that topic. It really is about idiosyncrasies of the idiom. Because it is too obvious to use double entendre to demonstrate how certain phrases in rock are found only in rock songs, DNA wants to focus on one phrase, and in particular one word, that really is only used in the way DNA will describe in the rock and roll vernacular. It is a strange word in that it is so common that the fact that it is used contextually very differently in rock and roll will become obvious to you once DNA says it. From Led Zepplin to AC/DC to Belle and Sebastian, this word has wormed its way into our consciousness and it just ain't quite right.

The word is "shelf." Strange, huh? In rock and roll, when songwriters refer to a shelf, they usually write something like "don't put my love up on no shelf," or "leaving me up on a shelf," or "she left my heart up on a shelf." Very rarely do you get something like, "She put her books up on the shelf," unless "books" is a metaphor for pussy or something. In the rock and roll idiom, someone pushed "shelf" to make an ingenious leap from being a place on which you might store or set something, to meaning a person being put in his or her place, or having a person's feelings "put away" (discounted, forgotten) like dry goods in a pantry. The interesting thing is, despite minutes of research, DNA can't find the song or link in which somebody makes this leap of meaning. There isn't a song from the 1930's in which Stump Leg Willie sings, "She cut out my heart, canned it with tomatoes and wrote one word on the label --- She put it on the shelf next to the beans, where you could read the word 'love' if your eyes were able."

Basically, "shelf" has become a metaphor that only finds purchase and plausibility in a rock and roll lyric. If you don't believe DNA, then try this metaphor out when you are talking to someone. You won�t believe how abhorrent it is to say out of that context.

"So Randy, you gonna ask out Stacy?"

"No, Jeff. I've been through that before with her. She'll just put my love up on a shelf."

"What did you just say?"

"She really wouldn't validate my feelings in a positive manner?"

"No, what you said first was 50 times gayer than that. What, were you in the Georgia Satellites after you quit high school?"

Get DNA's point? There is no common usage for "shelf" as a place where hurt or unrequited feelings go, outside of rock. Why did this metaphor develop in the first place? Did someone need a good word to rhyme with "self?" That is DNA's educated guess. If anyone has more information about this little word and its rock and roll heritage, please let DNA know.

Until then, remember, if you like a girl, do what Gene Simmons of KISS would do, and tell her that you want to put your log in her fireplace, or more subtlety, like Paul Stanley, that you want to eat it like a piece of cake. This is why rock and roll will never be considered more than pop art, thank God!

Don't put DNA up on no shelf!

Permanent Historical Record: 7/16/07

Gettin' My GRE On...

Which means, that despite having 10 songs ready to go for the new album, DNA must take a break from blogging. If you do not know, the GRE is the graduate record exam, or a fancy way for a testing company to say, "Want to get into grad school? $140.00 please."

DNA is taking the test as part of the requirement for the Ph.D. program it is applying to. Yeah, motherfucker, pretty soon it will be Doctor Vibrator.

But, that means DNA has to study, has to take the test, and also has to do his job thing. DNA probably won't post until next week.

Boast about your academic credentials on your own website.

Permanent Historical Record: 7/25/07

Learning A Small Truth...

First, the bragging. DNA isn't the sharpest wheel in the zoo, but he got a 590 on the Verbal and a 590 on the quantitative sections of the GRE. Not bad for a 40-something spud who hasn't actually studied a scholarly subject in about 15 years. The analytical section has to be judged separately, so no score yet on that, but, DNA can tell you, he fucking rocked on it. Let DNA have his personal moment in the sun. When you were derisively called "professor" as a kid for being the one who read the encyclopedia for fun, it's nice to savor a moment in which a national test score validates your geekiness.

Oh, and real quickly, off topic----DNA just saw a commercial for intel which DNA is sure featured a new DEVO song in the background. DNA is excited, cuz it sounded pretty good.

Okay, now that that is over, DNA actually learned something important a couple of days ago. This is something that DNA has simply taken for granted as a FACT for so long, it surprised him that something he took as being fundamental in the construction of his world was wrong. That doesn't happen all that often, at least in a verifiable way.

Truth revealed itself simply. DNA was called upon to wash his daughters' hair. He has twin girls. So, DNA herded them into the bathroom, and when they were ready, grabbed the nearest bottle of soap, and got started. It was from some fancy bath shop, it smelled of fig and brown sugar, and soaped up just fine. Then DNA rinsed out their hair, and found it was difficult to get it all rinsed out, and found even more puzzling, that their hair was almost more tangled after the shampoo than before. However, he worked at it, and got their hair clean and then dried.

The next day, DNA's wife commented about how she didn't know what the girls got into, but their hair was a mess, and if she didn't know better, she would swear it hadn't been washed in awhile. However, she did know better, she saw DNA wash their hair.

This sounds pretty mundane, huh? You see, up to then, DNA simply assumed that the 30 different kinds of soap that his wife insists on buying were really pretty much all the same, and it was a 'girly-girl' thing to have one kind of soap for your hair, another for your face, another for your feet, and so on. DNA is no dolt, it knew the difference between say, shampoo and conditioner, but the difference between green tea and aloe body wash and vanilla and strawberry shower gel? That, DNA assumed, was the difference between his money and Loreal's bank account.

But, DNA was wrong. It was obvious by the results of his daughters' hair that you can't use fig and brown sugar bubble bath to wash your hair, instead of vanilla fields shampoo. They are different. Different soaps do not constitute proof of some corporate conspiracy, or the subversion of masculinity brought on by domestic living and the hidden feminist agenda. Until recently, this is what DNA believed.

DNA remembers, when it was younger, that any old soap would do, to wash his hair, to make bubbles for a bath, to wash his face....but that is not true anymore. Perhaps it was never true, really. So this is the small truth revealed: That sometimes, despite what you believe, things are different than you expect, in the most basic and fundamental ways. It takes so much more energy to try to explain the need for different soaps to fit DNA's world view when he didn't think different soaps were needed. Now that he has proof that different soaps do different things, it all seems so easy. You'll never learn that shit from the GRE, no matter how many times you take it.

Talk about yer own old school lernin.'

Permanent Historical Record: 7/26/07

My Wife Has A Special Talent...

My wife has a special talent---no you pervy bastards, no matter what you were thinking, and DNA knows it wasn't very flattering to her, it is not THAT. Among many positive qualities, the most important being that she has learned how to put up with DNA, she has long had the talent to be able to take two unrelated metaphors, and mix the elements of them with great comedic effect.

DNA long thought that this was done unwittingly, that is, without her wits, or in other words, by happy accident. But DNA noticed that it happened so often, and so interestingly, and each time was so damn funny (in context) that it couldn't have been done unwittingly. It was almost as if it was being done subconsciously, but that wasn't quite right either. You see, while she was talking, some part of her brain, like happens with all of us, was thinking just in advance of her mouth, choosing the right phrase or direction to capture the meaning she intended. For most of us, this subtextual linguistic thinking is automatic, with most words or phrases appearing more or less in sequence, and in complete units of meaning, metaphorically speaking. There are often many metaphors which might fit a particular situation, or several which have similar structure which fit a class of situation. So, as we barrel along with our speech, we don't have to think about exactly the right twist of phrase to fit the context of the sentence. It happens naturally.

Haven't you ever wondered, though, why this guy or that girl always seems to say the right thing, or the funny thing, at just the right time? It's because for most of us, the process of preselecting units of meaning, either words or phrases, works adequately, but for some people, it works amazingly well. The little sorting machine which provides those people with their language choices in the split second before they say something is quick and efficient. For some people, the process of preselecting units of meaning is laborious---they are the ones who might have something very funny to say, but never say it right then, or they are the ones who don't mind speaking to their brother, but can't put two words together to their boss, or are the ones who really don't know or can't decide the right phrase to use in conversation, and so either say the wrong thing, or choose to say nothing at all.

And then, there is my wife, who thinks of several units of meaning, particularly certain types of metaphors, and finds a way to say elements of both (usually she mixes two at once). DNA is sure a psychiatrist has a name for it, and so does DNA---Damn Funny.

Just like hyping band names, now that DNA has built this concept up, it surely won't seem as funny on paper. DNA doesn't care, DNA lives with it everyday, and it always puts a smile on his face.

"That's the way the cookie bounces." See? Isn't that shit funny? She said this just last week. As in she took the best part of two separate and similar metaphors, "that's the way the ball bounces," and "that's the way the cookie crumbles," and preserved the meaning of the metaphor but made it funnier. That is hard to do. For example, if she would have said, "That's the way the ball crumbles," it is in essence the same thing, but that version does not have near the same immediacy, fluid movement, or poetic appeal of "that's the way the cookie bounces." Also, the actual image of a cookie bouncing, coming from the stove of a domestic goddess who is not quite used to the role of domestic goddess, kind of an "I Love Lucy" moment, is so much funnier than a view of a ball, crumbling to dust, a la the Terminator's Sarah Connor atomic war nightmare.

"Whatever floats your bucket." DNA doesn't want to deconstruct that one. Just smile. It's funny.

"Don't walk in my parade." Sometimes she just replaces a key word, so it's not truly a mixed metaphor, but a new metaphor, which is funny in context of our understanding of the original phrase. In this case, "don't rain on my parade," was made six to the funniest times funnier by making the event that fucks up the parade YOU, instead of an act of God. However, there may actually be a mixed metaphor here---she may have taken two opposite metaphors, such as "walking on cloud nine," that is, achieving a state of satisfaction, and "don't rain on my parade," which expresses a fear of falling from that state. But, that one may be a stretch.

"Does the Pope shit in the woods?" DNA ain't lying. She said it. But this is one of those phrases that DNA has heard elsewhere, so as a phrase, it has reached a high enough level of cultural consciousness to be said by others. But, it is much more likely to be a case of parallel genesis in my wife's situation. Of course, it comes from two similar metaphors, "does a bear shit in the woods," and "is the Pope Catholic?" Equally funny, but not as likely to be heard, would be, "is a bear Catholic?"

"I'm gonna make like a tree and split." DNA laughed for about 10 minutes straight when she said that. It is the artful combination of "I'm gonna make like a tree and leave," and "I'm gonna make like a banana and split." Underneath the ludicrous image is the subtext of a log being split, so there is a bent logic which makes the phrase work.

She has done several variations on this theme: "I'm up shit creek without a spoon." "I'm up shit creek without a creek." "I'm up shit creek without a canoe." "I'm up shit creek without a pot to piss in." "I'm up shit creek without toilet paper." It seriously can't get much funnier than that.

"You couldn't piss on a boot." "You couldn't pour piss out of a boot." Both simplifications of the phrase, "You couldn"t pour piss out of a boot with the directions on the heel.� The original is condescending and spiteful in it's derogation of the subject's idiocy. Her takes, though not examples of mixing metaphors, are simply put, funnier. It takes the completely unrealistic image of a boot with directions on it, and makes a more objective statement of a person's stupidity. Why would a person piss on a boot? Also, from this same camp, she minted this beauty: "I wouldn't piss on your ass if your face was on fire." Of course she wouldn't.

This next one is subtle. The two original metaphors are: "You can't tell your head from a hole in the wall," and "you can't tell your ass from a hole in the ground." It felt much dirtier when she said, "You can't tell your ass from a hole in the wall." DNA wondered, for a moment, what truck stops she might have frequented in her youth.

She said, "You're dumb as a box of stumps," which was much funnier, and more accurate, than if she would have said, "You're dumb as a stump," or "You're dumb as a box of rocks." Imagine how big a box of stumps would be. That's pretty dumb, huh?

Not to bring things down a little, but not all of them are funny. Once she said, "Once in a blue Sunday," which DNA thinks rings culturally more true today than saying either "Once in a blue moon," or "in a month of Sundays."

DNA could go on, and probably will, as he thinks of more of these. DNA could probably fill a book with the product of her special talent. She read through this and said that she was glad that she amused me. She agreed, that some of these phrases were "funnier than a three-dollar whore."

(DNA is kind of seious about the book idea---ka-ching---oh, yeah, all of these phrases are copyright Brainmilk Publishing, and yeah, it is a real publisher, ya thieving dicklickers, so don't think about stealing my book idea, or DNA will sue you faster than shit through a shingle)

This is why DNA loves that woman.

This isn't rocket surgery.

As of a few minutes after DNA posted the above posting, Mr. Kamikaze tagged the guestbook with this:

If I could put time in a bottle- I'd be DNA and have mixed it with sausage and gin and barfed it forward a day. Making like its the 26th already when the damn fool knows very well its still the 25th.

To which, DNA responds: Well, well, well, somebody turn a year older and think they smarter than the old man? Not so fast. What are you doing up now anyway? Don't you gotta work in the morning? Shit, DNA was already in bed when he wrote that shit. Wireless. Wireless router, wireless keyboard, wireless mouse. DNA is synonymous with wireless. You know that.

Believe it or not, when DNA goes to update its website, on the ftp interface, yahoo geocities displays a universal time, which DNA guesses must be Greenwich Mean Time, which currently, as of the time that this is being typed, reads Jul 26 03:36 am. BAM! Don't blame DNA for being all international on your ass. DNA gots to look out for his British bloghounds.

From : Mr. Kamikaze

"They don't have wireless where we live. Oh. This thing? Yeah. I got wireless." - DNA

Now, Mr. Kamikaze and DNA are having a little fun here, see. We have known each other a long time, some may say too long, and are awfully close friends, some may say, too close, and very regularly, our families visit each other. Not long ago, DNA was happy to have Mr. Kamikaze and his whole squadron of holy Japanese warriors fly down to DNA's neck of the woods. Even though DNA lives in a cultural backwater, DNA gots the internet, satellite TV, porn on demand, and the town DNA lives in has a fine liquor store. So, Mr. Kamikaze brought down his kick ass Mac laptop, and was wondering whether DNA had a wireless connection in his house. To which DNA replied with conviction, "Fuck no. Nobody down here has wireless. I checked into the cost of wireless, and it just wasn't happening." Imagine the harummmphing in DNA's voice like the old dude from the Autolite sparkplug commercial from years ago (and if that allusion is too obscure, fuck it, DNA can't think of a better one---just imagine a pompous old bastard, absolutely sure of himself, and absolutely wrong). Now, open your eyes. That's me, DNA!

So, Mr. Kamikaze came over to inspect the computer set-up in DNA's room, and says something like, "Isn't this a wireless router?" To which DNA says something like, "Well, sure, the router is wireless. Of course the router is wireless. I mean, when I said that nobody the fuck down here has wireless, I meant, like, y'know, satellite hook-ups, and no phone wires or cable coming into the house---but sure, the routers are fucking wireless. Why wouldn't they be?"

At that point, DNA felt like Sarah Silverman, when she said that she wished all the people who were retarded would become resmarted. Sometimes DNA says some utterly stupid bullshit, with such conviction that DNA knows other people want to believe him as much as he believes himself, but, they just can't, the little fuckers.

This kind of thing happens pretty regularly. Case in point, which Mr. Kamikaze and DNA will never forget (or let be forgotten): When DNA first went to college, he had led a sheltered farm-boy's existence. Even though he had listened to some good music, he had listened to a very small sampling of music, period. Yet, ignorance of a subject had never kept him from speaking up and out. Underneath this willingness to insert his foot in his mouth is his own confidence, so really, don't hate DNA for being arrogant. He is willing to accept the consequences of speaking with authority when he has none. Well, anyway, one night at the dorms in college, everybody was talking about music, and in particular, we were talking about the song, "Relax." Somebody asked who did that song, and for no reason in particular, DNA said as if he were Casey Fucking Kasem, "Bruce Springsteen," which even now, is so obviously ignorant and WRONG as to embarrass most people to never speak in public again. Deaf drunk developmentally delayed people couldn't confuse Bruce Springsteen with Frankie Goes To Hollywood. On no level could you hear one and think the other. Yet, fearlessly, DNA opened his mouth.

That happened about 20 years ago, and DNA still can't forget that shit. Nor can Mr. Kamikaze forget to remind him. Sometimes, to quote my wife, DNA is "Dumb as a box of owl shit." So, Mr. Kamikaze, with your very accurate bullshit-o-meter, yes, DNA posted the above post on the 25th, even though he wrote the date as the 26th. But it is also true that the yahoo-geocities ftp interface does list the current time as 26 Jul 04:10 am. So, DNA guesses that this time, he can have his cake and cry if he wants to.

Permanent Historical Record: 7/26/07

Moving Day...

Not moving physically, moving digitally. DNA has transferred a lot (20?---30?)of songs from its computer at work to the website. Please look on the [link borken] Music Download Page if you haven't been there lately and see how like kudzu, tendrils of songs have spread down the page.

Also, it is about time for DNA and the boys to get moving on wrapping up the new album. DNA is shooting for lucky #13, and then the rough tracks will all be done. It is still waiting on the mechanical licenses on two covers, and after that, album photos, etc., but that will happen in due time.

DNA has a had a chance to listen to the live tracks recorded by Mike Lescelius from Misunderstudio, and there are some worth mixing down in the studio. These will probably be released online only, just because there isn't enough good stuff there to do a live album. Hey, at least DNA is honest, not that we sucked, but the shit sure ain't studio perfect.

What are you moving today?