The Bass Geek

Wish I had more - I’m truly kicking myself for missing this event.

Opening weekend for ACT went fine - since we’re not playing all the time, I was able to take in the muffled thud from the biergarten next door between numbers.  The Polkaboy-inspired madness Friday night was expected; it was the cover band from Saturday night that surprised me.  Was Eric Clapton’s “Forever Man” really a wise choice?  I’m fairly sure there wasn’t enough cocaine down there to really make that song sound as good as people seemed to think it was in the 80s.

I managed to miss the On Procession parade due to some scheduling mix-ups.  By the time I was headed back to the neighborhood, the floats were on the way out, Miss Botox was deflating her blow-up dolls, and people were chasing giant olives down the alley after they’d escaped the giant martini glass.  I’ll post the meager two pictures I had tomorrow.  I settled for some jazz at Deano’s after my show and went from there.

My share of the MySpace book is finished, too, despite their efforts to prolong my writing.  Just as I was getting ready to put it to bed, the MySpace Applications feature went live, and that had to be tossed in.  Still, it’s done, and folks can find out more about adding next-gen quizzes to their pages just . . . in . . . time.

Radio Radio has Cuba, The Here Now and the Iry tonight. Tomorrow features a Barack Obama benefit (hey, did you hear there’s an election coming up?!) with The Philosophy and a reunited Mab Lab.

Sam’s Saloon features Punk Rock Jessie’s 1st Annual Aids Life Cycle benefit on Saturday. Unfortunately, Hayes Carll had to cancel tonight’s show due to illness.

Big Car Gallery has hot Pecha Kucha slide show action with an appearance by Chambray Blue Jumpsuit. The boys will also be unleashing their sound experiments on the On Procession art parade tomorrow at noon, as brought to you by the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The Shirtless Biddles are at Deano’s Vino tonight, and the John Harden Project plays Saturday. Also, it’s Swing Night at the Fountain Square Theater.

Finally, it doesn’t have to be this weekend, but I’ll be in the band for Victor/Victoria at the American Cabaret Theater through June 1st, so come on out and enjoy the show.

Having a straight week of rehearsals has been great for getting me up to speed on the score (the singers have been at it longer than us, but we get to read our parts for the whole show, so we win), but I’ll be ready for Saturday night and a little respite. From then on, we’ll only be doing show Friday through Sunday, and I can resume a little normal free time then.

Which will no doubt be spent with more writing, but that’s okay. There’s time for “Battlestar Galactica,” too.

Side note: I’m also scheduled to talk to with Marsha Collier and Marc Cohen about “MySpace For Dummies” on wsradio’s Computer and Technology Radio show Saturday at 12 noon Eastern (my location)/9am Pacific (their location). I’m glad they’re the ones getting up early and not me.

Finally, the new IMN podcast is up. Download it here.

I’ve been going back through my iPod, trying to catch up on the backlog of albums I’ve loaded in the past weeks (Nicolay was today, and the new Gnarls Barkley waits patiently).  Right now, I’m making my way through the Nine Inch Nails Ghost collection (purchased, in the interest of full disclosure, at a local record store as part of Independent Record Store Day).

What strikes me most goes beyond the music (which hits me as interesting but not particularly moving soundscapes or tone poems) - it proves both that somebody can make huge money off of a self-produced and distributed release (bonus for the artist!) and that they need a loyal cult following already in place to make it happen (bonus for that one particular artist only!).

It’s just impossible for me to separate this work from the established backstory.  It works more as an example than it does a work of music.

Well, maybe that’s premature.  Let me get through the second recording and see what I think.  I don’t suspect much of a change, though.

EDIT:  No sooner do I write this than there’s a new track up at Reznor’s website.  The email/track exchange is fairly familiar and common, so let’s see how many folks jump on this.