SwampLog 3.0

New Digs

When Marty and I moved in together in 2002, one of the jokes from friends was we needed to have some sort of webcam set up to chronicle our misadventures together. We took that a step further, and built a whole web site around the concept.

DevinAndMarty.com has been a fun portal -- even if it was mostly me updating the site, since Marty was working his ass off ninety percent of the time. We've screwed around with developing techology and methods of infiltrating your personal space and sucking up valuable time, such as the SwampLog and DAMradio.

It's time to bring the rest of our friends into the fold.

As of Monday, January 9, I'm happy to announce the launch of TheAmigos.net. It's a place where anyone who has the misfortune to be associated with us can pimp out their lives, display their work, moan about life, or gloat about their achievements. Each of the Amigos will have their own corner of the site, and all will be able to make entries on El Blog de Los Amigos.

We'll likely keep DaM.com up for a while, but all of the content will migrate over to TheAmigos.net in the next week or so. in the meantime, if you subscribe to the feed for SwampLog, you should now subscribe to the RSS feed of El Blog using this here link.

I'm still screwing with a lot of the settings of the site, so if a link doesn't work right away, rest assured we're on it.

See you at the new address.

Best. Tutorial. Ever.

While DAMradio has been a fun diversion for Marty and I, we haven't gotten into the video podcasting boat yet. We don't have a good FireWire camera to use, and most of our videos would have to be coming from No Frills Grill or somewhere else that has a good locale other than The Swamp. (This would mean we would have to clean. Screw that.) However, when / if we do decide to start up a video podcast, we now know how... thanks to the unmitigated greatness of the French Maids (link mildly NSFW). If all tutorials were this entertaining, I would have learned a lot more by now.

Who's Got The Deep Ellum Blues?

Originally posted at my new digs at Metroblogging: Dallas. Gravitas.

I swear to Bog, I'm not going to whine. I'm not.

Okay, maybe a little.

There was a ten-year period where the North Texas area had some of the most phenomenal live music options. You had an influx of phenomenal rock and funk bands from Denton, a plethora of potent acts in Dallas spanning the musical spectrum, and Fort Worth was brimming with scads of hard rock and soul outfits. On any given weekend night, you could go to Deep Ellum and see an amazing live club gig from a band that you just knew was going to be the Next Big Thing.

Of course, that was before the Great Gentrification of Ellum.

I'd like to think it was a gradual sloping off of the coolness factor, but the truth is the climate of the district changed a lot in the mid-1990s. Bring me your tired cliches of crime, gangs and hooliganism, your yearning to return to a simpler time. You know the story -- the Dallas Observer has chronicled the Decline of Deep Ellum for the last 20 years. Hell, I remember a cover story in the Observer as far back as 1991, claiming the current residents were fearful that the higher dollar developers were invading Ellum and stealing its soul.

I didn't believe it then. I sure as hell believe it now.

Last month, I did a Saturday fill-in DJ gig at The Bone. It was the week before Christmas, and a fairly dead night. I was floored to find out that we had the second-highest amount of people on Elm Street, and I was certain I was tanking. When I asked who had more people, I expected to hear it would be Trees or Dada. Instead, it was Lazers.

Now, Trees is gone. When you don't pay your rent for two months straight, you can expect to get your doors locked. But what really stuns me is the lack of hue and cry from people who love, live for local music. Where was the "Save The Trees" fund-raising concert? Where was the groundswell support movement that would have kept Trees open and functioning?

From all accounts, nowhere. The owners, Entertainment Collaborative, kept holding out hope that a white knight would swoop in and buy Trees at the 11th hour, and that never happend. The space's landlord, the Belmor Corporation, is actively looking for new tenants -- so, if you're thinking about opening up a live music venue with a bit of capital to burn, get moving.

Dada's gone, too. Didn't pay taxes. Not to go all L33T here, but WTF?

Sure, it's depressing to think about it. Wail and moan all you want. But, once you're done with that, ask yourself a couple of questions.

* What are you going to do about it? The concept of taking ownership of something as big as a live music district is a bit daunting, but a handful of people did just that in the late 1980s. Jeff Liles, Russel Hobbs, Charlie Gilder, and Jeff Swaney did it. Where are the people who will -- or can -- step up now?

* If they build it, will you come? Have your nightlife instincts changed so much (as, I fear, mine have) that the thought of heading to Deep Ellum gives you a headache? The shrinking parking options, the crackdown on cruising that makes navigating the district a nightmare, the bonehead goombahs out looking for a meaningless fight...

I want to believe that the answer to one of Dallas' music scene problems is forthcoming. The question is, is it too little, too late?

Just A Liquid Crystal Wound

Alright, first things first. I'm a compete fucking moron.

Marty and I provided the music at the New Year's Eve shindig, at No Frills Grill Saturday night. It seemed the easiest way for us to have as many people as would show up over, and the bar's manager, Dave (a.k.a. The Big Ball Of Fun) said we could jack our iPods into the house system to provide a specially selected mix of music for the night. (I'll post the playlists later, once I stop fuming.)

I'm fairly certain that the final tally for the evening's debauchery was:

* four bottles of Shiner Bock
* five pints of Shiner
* eight shots of Maker's Mark
* one chintzy plastic glass of champagne
* one bottle of champagne (Dave likes me)
* one shouting match with Woody (never discuss business when you're soused)

* ...and one cracked iPod display

As near as I can figure it, I put my iPod into my front pants pocket once my playlist was complete. The same pocket where my keys were.

When I woke up New Year's Day, I discovered the display was ruined on the right-hand side -- the one where the battery remaining is displayed.

It's still useable, and I'm going to have to use it, as I'm working at Gator's this evening (another emergency fill-in gig, but I'm still retired, dammit!) and need it for fill-in music.

My options at this point are: 1) Have the display repaired, which will run me around $120; 2) Buy a refurbished iPod of the same model for $200; or 3) get a new 30 GB video iPod for $300.

Anything I pay will be a stupidity tax. Dammit!

Engine In The Car Goes 'Bbbbbb Bbbbbb...'

There's a Nissan ad for the new Z series, with a whimsical song in the background. "Take me ridin' in the car car / I wanna go ridin' in the car." I knew it was a folk tune from a while back, but wasn't sure where it came from.

Well, thanks to the digital crack shoppe that is the iTunes Music Store, I can now report that song is a cover of Woody Guthrie's "Take Me, Riding In My Car." The cover Nissan uses comes from Ramblin' Jack Elliot, called simply "Riding in My Car." Get your friends hooked on it today -- it's as infectious as the 5,6,7,8s.

This Week's Weird Dream

(My dreams tend to run into one another through the night, so there was likely something before this part.)

I was DJ-ing at a downtown Dallas nightclub. Dimly lit, with a small dance floor and a lot of tables. I was playing Eighties music, and couldn't fin the record I wanted. So, I put on "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" by the Human League, and went out to my car. The manager (generic club guy) told me not to go out there, because there was a race riot brewing. I pish-poshed him, and went out.

My car was parked three blocks away. As I walked to it, I saw crowds gathering at each intersection, blocking traffic and screaming at each other. I got to my car (the white Mitsubishi Mirage that I used to drive), and started looking around in the back seat for a record.

This girl and her friends, who say they love my stuff, ask me for something free. All I have are some beads, which I have draped around the headrest of the driver's seat. I tell her, coyly, "C'mon, you know how that works." She sighs, and flashes me. She's fairly small-chested, and isn't embarrassed by it. I give her the beads, she smiles, and her friends leave.

I don't find the record I want, and head back to the bar, stopping first in another tavern along the way. I need a drink, if I'm going to finish out this night. The bartender hands me a 16-ounce tallboy of some kind of domestic beer, and I guzzle it down. As I'm getting ready to leave, the bouncer from my club comes to get me. "That song's been over for ten minutes, dude. Let's go."

I get back, and there's a crowd waiting by the dance floor. Silent. Glaring. They didn't say it, but I knew they needed to hear something to reduce whatever tension was brewing on the streets outside.

I put on "Thank Ewe (Falettin' Me Be Mice Elf)" by Sly & the Family Stone. This makes most of the people happy, and some of them start dancing. But one older white guy comes up and starts bitching at me. "When are you going to play the real music? You know, good rock and roll, not this jungle bunny stuff? Traitor."

I don't know what happens next because at this point, Edison starts yelling at me to get up.

Konnichiwa, Bitches!

Happy New Year. Really. Honest.

We Are All Made of All-Stars

While getting ready for tonight's NYE shindig at No Frills Grill, I came across this ESPN note, crowing that the NHL will hold its next All-Star Game in Dallas, at the American Airlines Center.

I was damned lucky to get to go to the MLB All-Star Game when it came to town in 1995, and it was an experience I'll not soon forget. Joe DiMaggio threw out the first pitch. PA Guru Chuck Morgan played a snippet from Phil Collins' "I Don't Care Anymore" when Hideo Nomo left the mound ("No mo'... no mo'. No mo'... no mo'."). Muhammed Ali was handing out autographed Nation of Islam brochures on the main concourse.

Here's hoping that such a collision of scenes repeats itself in February 2007.

Still Waiting For The Answer

Mike Luckovich, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, published this in October. I wish I had seen it when it was published, but it's just as powerful now:

Oh, and by the way, which one's Pink?

... probably not David Gilmour, but it didn't stop me from feeling like crap for missing out on tix to see him play at that little teeny auditorium they have at the Heywood Gallery in London a few years ago.

One of the great regrets of my life. When they annnounced the third show, I had my finger on the trigger to buy two tix. I wussed out because I couldn't get anyone to go with me. I should have just bought two and picked up a bird while I was in London.

Once I heard what was in the set list, I was just crushed. It was an unplugged show, with David playing acoustic guitar in front of a quartet which played just enough backup to fill in the spaces. Classical pieces, solo stuff, Pink Floyd songs and his own solo work -- all done in the warm glow of the intimate acoustic setting.

Today, I have exorcised that demon.

Two tix to see David Gilmour at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles in April. He has no new solo album coming out. I hope this is the show he's been performing in England for the past few years.

Oh, I hope I hope I hope......

=M=