Factory Daze

To say things have been mental would be an understatement. It's a quiet Friday night at MOGworld. Irene's at work. Nephew is in bed reading. With some of the guys we had a shit meal tonight at the DOMINO of restaurants: Friend of A Farmer (Danny's great idea). When I say DOMINO, I mean the movie (see earlier entries). After that we saw RUSH HOUR 3, which is shit. And your hero? Well, my mind is in a million places, floating in places I've been as of late (San Diego, Los Angeles, Montreal), places I'm at (New York), and places I will be in the next few weeks (MA, Tokyo, Los Angeles yet again and then New Mexico). House guests, mostly Bradishes, non stop. All good, little drama. However, the quietest time of my year has suddenly become the busiest, hence the lack of updates. Forgive me.

Right now my mind is in my grandmother's home city of Manchester as we mourn the loss of Tony Wilson, who gave us so much and shaped the minds of so many with the bands he brought to the world. We'd be a very different MOGpac without this man's influence on our young ears. I couldn't even try to get into how gutted I am about this. I admired the man tremendously. Genius is a word often thrown about here (usually in regards to Danny) but Tony Wilson truly was. I used to yell at the very reserved Jeff Tinman how Tony Wilson was what every indie label head should strive to be. Fortunately, there is a great movie immortalizing him. He truly put Manchester on the musical map and always put the music ahead of himself, even when he was infintely more interesting than a lot of the music. However, I think the second Tony got to heaven (if he got to heaven), Ian Curtis told him he was still a cunt and Rob Gretton probably tried to beat the shit out of him. Now's the time for New Order to cut the kiddie shit out. Enough.

Earlier this week, Mom Bradish watched the nephew while Irene and I caught up with Club Superstar to check out Muse at Madison Square Garden. I never in a million years would have thought this band would fill the Garden, but goddamn, they did it. And not only that, Matt got us the tix (while we were in Italy) and scored the very limited GA spot). Being a hundred feet from the band in a non sardine enviornment made for an awesome experionce. What a concert. They're one of those bands that need to play in larger venues. It makes more sense the bigger the venue is, plus EVERY stage gimmick ever, which pleased Matt to no end. Balloons, lasers, confetti, smoke, everything except pyro (Ash alert). Matt Bellamy is a guitar demon. Possessed. Easily my gig of the year (at least that I can think of right now) simply because it was flawless, huge, energetic, diverse, and fierce. Well done, lads.

Then I met up with Brandt last night to check out Coulter, a Morrissey inspired band out of Seattle, who have gotten some rotation on the Ipod as of late. They found us on Myspace and have one great track called SENORITA, which even Peter Saintface loves. I tried to check them out in LA a few weeks ago but got in too late, so B and I went to Don Hills to see what it was all about. And it wasn't too bad. There were about 6 other people there, some of them with their shirts tucked in. They have some good tunes, he's a decent singer, but the live show is, well, lacking. It's the main guy, Coulter himself, on guitars and vocals and some tall bald dude playing bass. And that's it, and that is also what kept it from being truly exciting. I wanted to see how a full band would pull these songs off. Instead there is too much on backing tracks and while the video projections try to make up for the fact that there's no band (even the early aggression gigs had a larger line up), it doesn't quite do it. Did I like it? Yes. Did it make me miss the vastly superior Smith's inspired awesomeness of Saintface? Goddamn right it did, but it certainly didn't suck. And ironically enough, I came home to a lovely Email from Saintface himself, who I miss desparately. Soon, my friend.

I get a few more days in NYC before heading to Ash's nuptials in MA next weekend. Then I get a day to send nephew back to Montreal before heading off to Tokyo for about 4-5 days. From there, it's off to LA, where I will turn 35 somewhere on a studio lot telling some exec they lack imagination. How long I will be in LA is anyone's guess. See you in September maybe. October a movie starts. Anyway, this is quick update to say hi. I hope you are all well. Read me soon.

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