Sun Ra: Possibly the opening to an episode of Miami Vice?

Relax...just melt...

Ween: Hair on fire, teeth grinding meltage

Instruments used in 5th grade music class...

Melt...

TOUR DATES: Jon Fishman April Tour

Henrietta hits the road in April for a day-long tour featuring himself.

A limited number of tickets for all shows will be available through a real-time ticket presale directly through Fishman's online ticketing system at http://fishman.tickets.rlc.net. Tix are $6, $7 DOS. The presale begins tomorrow, February 9th at 10am ET and will end Thursday, February 14th at 5:00pm ET. Tickets will go on sale to the public beginning Thursday, March 110th at 10:00am ET. For complete ticketing information, please visit the Tour page.

THIS MONTH IN FISHMAN HISTORY

3/27/2008 Delfest

Who could forget this memorable night on the Maryland buyou? A 30 hour car ride from ole' El Paso, TX didn't stop this Fishead from catching some wicked snare hits. Note: This was a benefit show for 50 year old men who wear turquoise shirts and white visors.



IS YOUR FACE ON FIRE? Stop, Drop + Roll!


Set up my reel-to-reel deck next to the soundboard for max AUD quality = crunchy center stage loss less heady AUD! Who DAT!


Jon Fishman, Del Fest. Set II: "Jungle Boogie"


SET I: Intro > Drum Solo > Lengthwise* > Drum Solo, Faht, Bike*, Hello My Baby* (1:26)

SET II: Space > 2001# > Space > Theme from Three's Company# > Highway to Hell$ > Space > Drum Solo > A Self-Teaching Guide to Drumming in Retrospect (1:58)

E: Jungle Boogie%

* A Capella
# Performed on a Flute
$ With Toby Keith on guitar
% Performed on Piano

Blossom Music Center: "Here We Come"

"TELA! TELA! ...TELA! TELA!"







"TELA! TELA! ...TELA! TELA!"







"TELA! TELA! ...TELA! TELA!"





"TELA! TELA! ...TELA! TELA! ...Dude, have you seen my dog?"

Face Melting Politicians: John Ashcroft

Got to hand it to you John, the front row never saw that that kind of performance coming. Who could have foreseen the Attorney General of the United States melting the makeup off church-goers from rocky coast to rocky coast with his own American classic.


Adding to the meltage, was the eagle soaring news coverage which became an instant classic with young and old both sharing in the moment.

FACE MELTING CHURCH FLASH BACK!





Abridged Lyrics:

This eagle's place is in the sky.
She's still got a lot of flying to do.
You can see it in her eye,
Though she's cried a bit
For what we've put her though.

'Only God, no other kings.'
Let the mighty eagle soar.


I can say without a doubt my favorite line is the last. It really ties the room together, no? Amazing he was able to use God, Kings and Eagles in two phrases and make it work that well. Bravo, sir, on a job well done under pressure! Let the Eagle Soar is definitely going to replace God Bless America as my go to smashing-bud-cans patriotic song of choice.

In the FWIW category, my fact finding research on the phrase 'only God, no other kings' turned up this gem from a reverend for the Christian Coalition. Check out Reverend Austin Mile's Blog in which he manages to use the phrases "poop-bombing" and "Chicken Friendly City" - Awesome, rev! I will never make the mistake of challenging a member of the Christian Coalition to a game of Scattergories ever again. Be a fan!

Jaco Pastorius Melts Himself

At first I thought this clip of Jaco Pastorius was going to melt me, however, it became apparent that Jaco started to melt himself around the 3:25 mark (Note: 1st self ownage of the blog). A couple slaps to the frets and Jaco slows down time. The trick though, is for all the mustacho's in the band to play faster. Later on, the keyboardist says, "Oh, what the heck" and starts whacking a drum. Not to be outdone, Jaco starts whacking his bass. BOOM! MELTAGE!

Let's analyze the meltage, shall we? When you just start whacking your instrument with reckless abandon and your technique is so good it works, your face is definitely on fire. How that drummer didn't have a "time to make the donuts" meltdown I have no idea, but for the rest of us, just another snapshot into Jaco's insane abilities.

Interesting point they make: why the hell would musicians want to get on stage and try to improvise? Don't they know nobody listens to that crap?

I'M PAYING FOR YOU TO PLAY IT LIKE ITS CUT ON THE CD SO MY WIFE DOESN'T GET BORED A-HOLE!!!! Sorry, your wife is probably going to leave around the 6 minute mark.

Anywho, this classic recording sets a new gold standard for any young inspiring mustached musicians trying to play complicated jazz. Jaco Pastorius, the man, the myth, the chart

Looks like Alcohol is a 1.4 in harm and nearly a deuce in dependence. All the good ones...

Bryan Adams: The Canadian Sensation

Bryan Adams ("BA")- King of Rock or Rock King?

Doesn't matter what you call him, all he does is continually melt faces all over northern north America. Is there such a thing as too much intensity at a live show? As far as I'm concerned, no living musician today can match the kind of tonsil exploding face meltage this Canadian commander has crushed over the years. Think you know how to party in the Plain States, eh? Try getting BA'd by some heart wrenching acoustic vibrations for gosh sake...

Bryan Adams Festival?

Fire up the Gravitron and helicopters! Bryan Adams is coming to your town to throw it down. How did I miss this festi? Jambase concert alert fail of epic proportions.

Nonetheless, I'm super pumped for the Fargo, ND show. Just hoping I don't get those crummy seats like last time.

Miami Herald Interview - Bryan Adams can play jazz? -

Of course not, but...

'Everything I do'... STILL KICKS SERIOUS ASS

Look into my eyes - you will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart - search your soul
And when you find me there you'll search no more

Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

Look into your heart - you will find
There's nothin' there to hide
Take me as I am - take my life
I would give it all - I would sacrifice

Don't tell me it's not worth fightin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

There's no love - like your love
And no other - could give more love
There's nowhere - unless you're there
All the time - all the way

Oh - you can't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
I can't help it - there's nothin' I want more
I would fight for you - I'd lie for you
Walk the wire for you - ya I'd die for you

Ya know it's true
Everything I do - I do it for you

Particularly moving is the 5th stanza in which the Canadian Sensation states:

"There's no love - like your love
And no other - could give more love
There's nowhere - unless you're there
All the time - all the way"


Passages from 'Tao Te Ching' or an 8th graders diary? You be the judge.

This tragic love void can only mean one thing - the sickest whammy bar guitar solo of all time and the infamous "hold a guitar like a dangerous snake" D-Chord trickery only BA can pull off.

Prince: While My Guitar Gently Melts Your Face

Face Meltage commences at the 3:20 mark in this clip. This guitar solo rocks, nothing funny about that. Seriously, Prince is the man.

For those of you who thought you would spend your Saturday evening nestled on the couch with your loved one casually flipping through the tube...

WHAM! STRUT! WHAM!

The funny looking little man in the red top hat turns out to be Prince and he proceeds to melt your f-ing face off.

Wo0K w/ Trey Blazer

Trey must have finally realized most 45 year old men don't wear Marvin the Martian or Pepe Le Pew t-shirts.



100% Wasted Wook
100% Worsted Wool

Boogielope - "Set the gear shift to the Stevie Wonder of your soul"

Face Melting Sparkle - "FMS"

The Yellow Rubber Ducky Dub...

Euclid Tavern

I have to explain this one. A poet friend and I traded off rapid fire spontaneous creative writing responses while downing a few Burning Rivers at the Tavern across from the Cleveland Institute of Art one evening. None of this has been edited except for two choice words I excluded - so there are some mistakes, naturally. Sudhir Kade joined us later on and added some intuition. Essentially, you get 1 or 2 minutes and you have to write a sentence. It can be about anything. She writes poetry, I write prose. It's not hard to decipher who wrote what if you think about it. I think she started, but I had a few multi-sentence runs and so did she. I might end up using some of these at some point, but mostly this was just for fun.

The bricks hold the history and echo the present moment

Self-correction in periods of excess tend to ??????????????

Melt the moment into a memory by being mindful of your own delusions

Chickens could do this, surely so could he

Illuminate the night by embracing the union of a burning river

The Jonathan Club was Los Angeles most prestigious mens club, there was no unnecessary talking aloud.

The black and white borders surrounded the red square that spoke of the silence that leads to violence.

The Chocolate cake couldn’t keep up and so it slid itself into the trash as if to say you’re too good for me

The gaggle cut the ribbon as the dame slipped out of her sweaty flip flops and firmly held her ground.

“A gaggle refers to two ducks or more and I said “narcos” not “nachos" listen up you twit.

The essence of life is water and it has six points.

This period started with a moon that consisted of thirteen phases, but everything natural is cursed.

Jakarta, just a dive bar in a world full of five star hotels.

Vibrations that synchronize with chaos collide with life in its essence but avoid language.

He scowled like a neanderthal who was disappointed in how his ice sculpture turned out.

“The neanderthals art had been preserved , they are either buried in snow or they melted, they were fond of the ice sculpture.”

And that is how you skin a cat.

“Definitely, only next time, tell me before you take your pants off, a suttle warning is all I ask – something as simple as ‘I’m going to take my pants off’ would suffice.”

I am all the days that you choose to ignore, remember my footprints

He had a calendar from 1988, but no toothpaste

The eye watching you is just a faded memory of bad breath before the hurricane struck home

The monkey jumped up into the window from which it had entered, looked both ways, and made off with the banana loot.

Despite being cozy with big business your XXXXXX is bleeding like a virgin killed on her wedding day

Her XXXXX dripped like butter rolling down a hot biscuit.

Look at me with spite in a large hat and I will only see the shadows of the sun that once pierced my eyes.

The floor had two inches of water covering it from wall-to-wall and the dog wondered who overfilled his water bowl.

Mistake my laughter as rolling thunder and you misunderstand the tears that fell with colorful leaves.

She wished someone loved her like a teddy bear with a missing button.

He was one more smooch away from becoming the Bob Barker of old-lady-cheek-action.

Gamble with money, Gamble with love, but don’t gamble with a man and his gun.

He had the whit of Mark Twain and the humbleness of Samuel Clemmons.

I am glad that all your personalities don’t have names.

Powdered wigs are what separate the gay from the extraordinarily gay elite.

The knot is apart of the collective confusion

He tapped his hand on the top of the podium, as if playing just one note on a church organ.

You had a bloody glove in your back pocket when they arrested you, that doesn’t strike me as a “winnable case”

The free and just trial ended the moment you walked into my kitchen looking over your shoulder with a smile covered in every woman's lipstick that you have brushed past

why can’t we just hot air balloon our trash away. Oh, we had it hot air ballooned - Problem solved.

Nothing more, nothing less than every mediocre moment swallowed into a hot air balloon and carried into the next town for a soft landing

He pulled the string like a hot air balloon conductor.

Boredom pounded into her fist as it held her head in a permanent position of attention

Courage was futile at this point, he didn’t need it, either poor the gasoline on yourself or go home.

Fire is the most important element to have on your person when leaving home.

Light up Nevada and crawl back to the bad company that continues to walk towards death valley

He flexed his soft pretzel arms and winked at her like he weighed a million pounds - laughter poured form her mouth, she always fell for the charming dope.

Wrapping his arms around her like a soft pretzel they both filled themselves with the wheat of the land during the full the moon.

Grab that beer and chug like your going to jail in 5 minutes.

Jail is an illusion felt by the insecure

He tied some bedsheets together and got the hell out of there. He’d never been humped by a mental patient before.

In the 1920’s women were sent to the mental institutes for speaking, acting, and being the revolution that was always brewing within the womb of society.

A dumpy meatball plopped on his plate, she didn’t want hers, and thus is the burden of a ball of meat which no one wants.

The meatball=industrial complex that takes creativity and Individualization away from every community that it pollutes

He had juxtaposed and jabberwocky’d enough for one evening, sometime you have to know when to fold’em and so he left the wine bar – prior planning prevents poor performance, he always followed the five p postulate, especially when indulging himself in spirits and jazz.

Never again would circles feel lonely, they had dashes a plenty.

6! = 720

6X5X4X3X2=720

His origami was confusing, but something told her that goose had flair.

Interesting Saturday night, welcome to my world, penguins walk faster when it gets cold outside.

THAT WAS THE END OF THE SESSION. A ROCKIN BLUES BAND BROKE DOWN THEIR LAST SONG. THE POET, ME and SUDHIR SANG ALONG TO THE PIANO MAN WHO PLAYED US SOME STEVIE WONDER "Lean on me....when you're not strong..." CLASSIC

SASKATOON

With a surgeons touch, Morton adjusted his glasses and gazed into the old mans forehead which resembled that of a manatees’. Preoccupied by the trajectory of his sloping dome, he had difficulty concentrating on the conversation. Morton wondered if this man was good at chess, while simultaneously, he became inappropriately tempted to pet his checkerboard sized brow. He watched with content the mans renegade eyebrow hairs that twitched with the speed of a shotguns recoil. The isolated black and white whiskers were completely on their own in this world. He came to attention and zoned-in to the end of the mans fleeting speech.

“So this is where you can help us young man. Would you like to assist our voyage?” A voyage, I thought my job was to fetch your car. The patrons would create small talk with Morton from time to time. Often he was treated like a simpleton who had just been born. It is quite deflating when the people you provide a service to just assume you are a dope. Morton believed a uniform must be avoided at all costs, however, the back of his jacket read MVP VALET.

Morton responded with the closest phrase we have in the English language to Chinese, “How so?” he spoke it with a perfect Mandarin dialect. “I don’t really know anything about sailing, sir. Are you looking for some type of first mate? Or something of the sort?” Morton didn’t have much experience speaking with the elderly or boating colloquial for that matter, however, something told him the phrase ‘first mate’ was appropriate. At first thought, Morton had no interest in helping a group of grouchy old folks sail across the ocean. He was not a patient person. The idea of answering to the demands of the elderly and being treated like a tether-ball was not all that tempting to him.

“Well, you’d have to help with that too, I suppose, but we’d be more than happy to provide you with a cabin if you would be willing to paint our portraits as we make our way along the trip. The bartender told us you are quite the painter! We’re not interested in photos. We’d like something more nostalgic, something with meaning. We need an artists eye – just a few works in total. I think it might work out for both of us.”

“Ok, I see,” the conversation changed tempo and Morton uttered a phrase with a harmonious ring, “So I’d be responsible for capturing the moment as it were?”

“Yes, it would be a rather worth-while experience don’t you think?”

Morton imagined grandness - the pearly white marble floor kind of grandness. The vision of a paycheck and a crystal tip-jar embedded in his head. The rent was due on his apartment. Morton worked everyday of his life walking on cement, yet when faced with an important life decision, he starred at that very same cement beneath his feet for wisdom. What does a postman do on his day off - goes for a walk. Give him the answer concrete. Lend him your strength. The manatee head came back into focus.

“We would compensate you for your time. No problem, as lets keep this a secret between you, me, and the wall. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble with your boss.”

“I might be interested in such a proposal. The people who exited before you, are those the people who will be on the ship? If you don’t mind me asking?” he was too enthused to act manly about it – he didn’t care who the people were, as he asked out of politeness, speaking with the tooting prowess of an eighteenth-century fife.

“Yes, it was the most interesting of dinner chats! That is the hope and if you’d agree it would be a pleasure to have you.”

Grandness. The sun, the wind, he could feel it before he saw it. He wouldn’t trade this gig for the world. This was his chance to hit the three at the buzzer. Walk on the moon. Deep sea dive. Jump from a plane. The type of special you get only every so often as you age. He envisioned his very own corner of the deck with a paintbrush in his palm. He would passionately paint their wrinkles all the way to London.

“We know you might have to take some time and we’d be willing to take care of you, of course.”

Splendid. Morton T. Smiley figuratively rendered a beautiful blossom from the tippy-top of his prickly cactus head. He clutched to the note with the mans phone number, “We will be in touch,” and he slid the paper into his pocket. Morton gave the old man a quasi-serious two-finger salute as he drove away. An opportunity had arisen to leave his current life behind. This was exactly how the artist wanted advertisement in the paper should have read. The more he thought about it, he might just never come back. The rules had changed and Morton was excited. He would cast away his z’s and trade them for s’s. That was his first step toward becoming European. He had to get organised.

We are a species which collects, and often we rationalize keeping items which have little or no value because of the fear of not having at all. A disease that gets worse with age; parting is such sweet sorrow forty-year old arm chair. Morton was not comfortable having an estate sale and exposing his neighbors to his trinkets. That night, Morton T. Smiley threw his possessions in the dumpster behind his apartment. The only witness to his madness was a streetlight.

Arevaderche toaster. Adios couch. Sayonara silverware. Like moving day on a college campus, Morton just permanently lightened his load. He would keep his clothes, and of course his supplies and finished works. Half-heartedly, he kept a picture of Lena, but everything else would go. This was the destruction derby of cleaning house scenarios. He flung his possessions into the street, onto the curb and into the trash; he tossed them high in the air and watched them crash. With each thump and bang Morton reclaimed his liberty and the kings armada could not stop him. He grasped the hand-me-down lime green vacuum cleaner in one hand, gritted his teeth, and three-six teed himself to reach maximum centripetal power. He smashed the vacuum into the side of the dumpster and then tomahawked the remains into the bowels of the container. Enjoy your stay in Saskatoon.

He had left his things behind, but their journey would continue. All of our physical possessions have an afterlife. Nothing disappears for good. Machines can crush and presses can compact, water falls from the sky only to condense and return as fog, but essentially everything just idles in the meantime and waits to alter further, completely indifferent on the path of transformation. Energy was created from a fingertip long ago with the wisdom to know it would never have to work again. A gentle push into eternity, a truly altruistic gesture - give the discarded a fighting chance. We think it ends, but it does not. Wipe the tears away and sleep well tonight sweet darling, for the only thing on this planet which begins and ends is consciousness.

When Morton was finished, he crossed his arms and looked at the stuff in the living room which he had spared from death. He needed a place to store these items of meaning. Morton would call his friend in the morning. Tyler, who at the time was living in a barn in Vermont, was the post-flood Noah’s Ark equivalent of available storage space. Morton should have been able to scrape some sort of car together by this period in his life, however, he could never afford to fix his own check engine light, nor a cars for that matter. Lena would never let him drive the pick-up truck (probably a good decision). He was a long brisk walk away from the rent-a-car center. Morton would take the bus instead. After he rode his bike, to catch a bus, and drove his rented car back to his apartment, he realized he had entered into unchartered territory in commuting efforts and was still over three hours from Warren Vermont.

His car was packed with his belongings and the accelerator pedal awaited his right foot. Before Morton closed the red door to his apartment for the last time, he gave the space inside one last look and thought about all that had happened inside those walls. It was sad, but something told him it needed to happen. It was one of the best periods of his life – Morton T. Smiley wouldn’t have traded it for anything. He knew what it meant and he knew what it did not. As the door shut behind him, so had an era of his life that he loved. Like a swans neck, it had become slippery and steep at the end, but he was hopeful. He permanently left his key on the counter and put his faith in a new one. A rented key which might leave him destitute and spackled with failure, a collector of dead-end maps, and possibly homeless, but ultimately he felt he needed to take that risk. Grandness. Elvis had left the building.

The old mans forehead which resembled that of a manatees



He permanently left his key on the counter and put his faith in a new one. A rented key which might leave him destitute and spackled with failure, a collector of dead-end maps, and possibly homeless, but ultimately he felt he needed to take that risk. Grandness.