During the time that I was in Royal Quiet Deluxe (chicken band), I was invited to a large dinner with the Reverend Al Sharpton. Everyone had to go around the table and describe who they were and what they did. I was neither an accomplished member of the community in Norfolk, nor was I African-American. Everyone else at the table was both. I just kinda ran with a description of the band.
It did not go well. At all. In fact, the evening rippled throughout my life for about ten years, causing tremendous embarassment in a comic book store this summer.
Here’s a video of me telling the story on stage at The Moth:
I think I’ve just about milked this chicken band thing for all it’s worth now …
Today is national fix-the-country day, and it’s gonna be a long one. No matter what side you’re on, you’re probably sick of the campaigning by now. As a little distraction from all the election-related news you’re sure to be drowning in, I thought I’d post a video of me telling the story of Royal Quiet Deluxe, (chicken band) at The Moth.
The story links to one of our recordings, made with a primitive drum machine, delay/loop pedal, and my tireless prattling.
The following track, though, is a different sort of sound collage. We recorded it on the front porch of Tim’s parent’s place out in Botetourt County, VA, one hot summer evening. You can hear crickets and locusts in the background, something I think is pretty cool. I am playing the typewriter as percussion here, Tim is playing guitar, and the chickens are pecking and vocalizing. Tim mixed in a recording about Exotic Newcastle Disease in Southern California that was recorded over the telephone many years later, and presto — you have:
There’s one more story in this saga. I’ve told it onstage at a Moth event recently, and I’m waiting to get ahold of the video so I can crunch it and post it here — and I’m working on the text version for those of you that want the full-on boxed-set experience. Suffice it to say that while the Internet has helped me find a whole new audience for this band that I never thought existed, I am 100 percent positive that the Reverend Al Sharpton still thinks the whole concept of Royal Quiet Deluxe is the stupidest thing he’s ever heard.
You can see a story by The Moth’s Jim O’Grady here:
Jesus’ teats blasting eight solid sunbeams, I am SO in love with this video. It’s got everything all together — lurching grinding trippy catchy electronic sounds and a montage of seriously strange video clips from the ’80s. There’s industrial instructional stuff here, infomercial clips, vintage exercise videos, people stepping in sticky stuff and sandwiches and just a little bit of cheesy porn.
That’s just a dildo, though, not an actual cock.
So yeah, this is probably NSFW, but I mean, really. The dongs in this thing are obviously phonies, and they’re just kind of waving around. Any boss with half a brain would see that they’re just comedy dongs, not used with any sort of intent here.
I can never tell what’s safe for work and what’s not, because I just can’t get my head around the fact that a disembodied rubber dildo could be at all offensive in anyone’s workplace, unless that workplace was like, an Amish barn-raising or something.
But somehow I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. Anyway.
This video is for the song “Truck Sweat,” directed by Tobacco, for music also by Tobacco from the album “Fucked Up Friends.” Tobacco, as some of you may know, is a member of the psychedelic super-group Black Moth Super Rainbow. On with the clip and let the dicks fall where they may:
Grey and foggy days used to terrify me. As a small child, I’d have full-blown panic attacks when I was in the woods or even tall grass with my family on an overcast, misty day. I was sure that a rotting arm would punch its way up through the dirt and grab my ankle. Or worse, the undead would snatch my family and spare me, leaving me in the world utterly alone.
I spent a lot of time alone in the car reading X-Men comics in those years, on the grey fall days when my mom and dad would want to get out into the country as a family and get some fresh air in the country.
“Fuck togetherness, there’s zombies out there,” I’d think, huddling down onto the floor of the car after my mom got tired of pleading me to come outside.
For some reason, the zombies were out to torture me and me only. I knew my family would be safe if I wasn’t with them — the undead would just lie there and let them pass unmolested, leave them to move around like the rest of the earth’s walking meat. As the Chosen One, sworn enemy of the non-living, I had a responsibility to protect my family and sometimes it got a little lonely.
Sometimes the Internet is nothing but a glowing wind tunnel filled with gas blasts from the intellectually obese. Even on the best days, the creatively flabby power this thing, gobbling information and repeating it with no regard for quality, just a quick hit of a familiar flavor in massive, constant quantities. Real insight can be a soap bubble lost in that hot, stinking howl.But not today. Today the Internet is a psychedelic sausage-grinder — feed stuff into it and turn the handle, and presto, flowers!
Twenty-four hours after posting, an old friend that I hadn’t heard from in ten years contacted me. He had what everyone thought was the only surviving copy of one of our performances on a dusty cassette — he ripped it to mp3 and sent it to me, and I posted it. A few days after that, I was contacted by one of the minds behind , a really, really fascinating podcast/radio show based in Mexico City, as near as I can tell. I don’t speak much Spanish.
I was finally able to get in touch with Tim after years of drift, and man, it was like no time at all had passed. The good news is, he’s got tons of old recordings, remixes, and other soundscapes we made way back then.
The better news is: we’re going to pursue performing in New York. If not at clubs and bars, in the subways. Chickens are easily available through botanicas here. The only catch so far is a place to keep them while we rehearse. If anyone wants to volunteer ideas or their apartment, send me the bat-signal through the Contact form above … I’ll keep you posted.
Musically, our culture has achieved singularity. Every song ever recorded is dripping off the tip of the Internet’s long tail and into the ears of anyone with headphones and an iTunes account. Bands like the Black Lips and Interpol do solid service to sounds past, and Girl Talk mashes old songs together to make something new. While New York’s Francis and the Lights has one foot rooted solidly in Prince’s synth-heavy ’80s output, the other foot is rhythmically shimmying its way straight into the future.
I’ve mentioned them here before, several times, with good reason. They’re one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, in New York or anywhere else.
This video for “The Top,” from the new mini-album “A Modern Promise” just made me scream. It’s shot on 35mm, pops in a giant new Quicktime window. Compared to Youtube videos, this is Batman in IMAX, except funky. Click the dancing Francis after the jump to see for yourself: Read the rest of this entry »
I can’t get enough of “Work the Walls” by Bay-area DJ Worthy, and the video’s nearly perfect, too. The song itself chugs along like a relentless earworm chewing a funky tunnel right through my eardrums and deep into my soft, soft brain. It kind of reminds me of Yello’s “Oh Yeah,” and the video is a perfect throwback to the videos I grew up with — back when hair was high, effects were cheap and videos were about STYLE, not fashion. I love the grinning, creepy, surreal announcer and the whole enterprise feels like the sort of thing that only came on late at night, blasting through a wave of static.
The remix is pretty solid too. You can hear it here, though the screen stays black.
Every so often the universe conspires to bring together disparate awesome elements that combine into something so incredible that the brain’s pleasure centers hemorrhage with white, blinding joy. This video for Zombie Zombie’s “Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free” is a deep soul tickle from God’s favorite finger. It’s an homage to John Carpenter’s “The Thing” — both the movie AND the soundtrack — reenacted with G.I. Joe figures. The song is rocking, repetitive and minimalist earworm, and the video, well … have a look for yourselves.
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