Transcontinental Drift

A brief reiteration.  Superfluous, somewhat, in aim, but true and genuine.  The red pen of concision does have its merits.  Informationally speaking:

The route puts us in metal vehicles of varying size, shape, and velocity hurtling through the air on November 3rd from Los Angles (and Oakland, respectively) to Boston whereupon we will play, then head to Brooklyn, Bristol, and Wallingford (in that order).  For details, look to the right where all of our confirmed shows are always posted (just sometimes posted tardily).  We are playing with some wonderful bands (Loma Prieta, Caravels, Unrestrained amongst them) and suggest you come out to see them if what we do yawns you to sleep.

Fog has settled here in the South Bay of Los Angeles.  I am keeping a tight watch on my Norton Anthology of English Literature.  I am nursing the black and blue out of a weight-smashed ring finger.  I am listening endlessly to the new Feist record.  I am reading Divorcer by Gary Lutz.  I am contemplating the exciting products Vitriol is pondering (records, books, photography monographs).  I am realizing the value of love, of happiness, and the beauty of California.  I am rationing food and money, as are we all.  I am splurging on my heart.  I am apologizing for having gotten it wrong, and trying endlessly to get it more right in the future.  I am reading old inscriptions in my yearbooks from people I don’t remember that say things like, “Even though everything you say is ridiculous, you’re still pretty dope.”  Mostly, I am agreeing with Harry Crews:

Jesus fuck, people keep dying.  They are dying and dying and dying.  I have lived under towering power lines nearly all my life, and they say that people are dying.  It is cancer.  And everyone has AIDS.  And people cannot eat.  It is hard to push down on an accelerator nowadays without feeling like you are killing somebody, somewhere.  It is hard to eat lunch and not feel selfish, if you’re really honest about it.  And it is tough to tinker at song titles and feel like it matters.  I am more sure now than I have ever been that you can hate the known world without having a hollow heart.  That certain misanthropies do not preclude elation.  That the world does not have to be such a beautiful place for you to fall in love with it.

Anyway.  ”Bring them all back to life…“

Al / DANGERS

Dangers on the Right Side of the Map

Hey friend,

 

As mentioned elsewhere, albeit less clearly, we’re making a short trip to the East Coast.  Our friends from way back when in Unrestrained are playing their last show on November 5th and we’re kind enough to invite us out for it.  That ones in Bristol, Vermont at The Hub, but we’ll also be playing Boston (Nov. 3rd) at What We Talk About When We Talk About Us, Brooklyn on the 4th at XPO 929, and New Britain on the 6th at The House of Haas (this one’s a matinee at some uncivilized time like 1PM).  We happy to have this short trip out there, and wish we had a bit more time, but with luck we’ll keep up our pace make it back there again in 5 years (that’s a roundabout way of encouraging you to come out and say hi this time around).

 

Also, I don’t believe there’s ever been a time where we haven’t claimed it, but we’re writing some new stuff, again and at our typical leisurely pace.  We will do our best to appease all of our wonderful critics and supporters by making this record longer, slower, more confrontational, and less diverse than our last.  Thankfully we’ve got our trust-funds to back these efforts (how in the world did THAT criticism ever get started… we shower so we’re rich?  People think some funny things sometimes.)

 

Most importantly, find below the poster for the Unrestrained show, a fantastic picture featuring some dude in a Danglers “jumpa” with James Worthy (but yeah, eff the Lakers anyhow, and moreover, basketball is boring as hell, play a real sport), and check out the Tim Barry video… dude is better than most things of all kinds (www.timbarryrva.com).

 

Y’all be well,

 

Tim

Hey Kai: why don’t you just send us your email address instead of burying a comment in an unused blog page, you bacon-crisp fueled hunk of Welshish love. Help me out here.

Hey,

 

Most titles/subject lines I’ve ever used have served little purpose.  I just put them there because if I don’t, they’re empty.  This one does, so there.

 

Lest we forget that Chomsky is still the most relevant brain alive, I’ve linked (or tried to, my eSkills always leave much to be desired) a quick interview that he recently did with RT.  His concluding statement is that “it’s up to the people in the advanced industrial countries to compel their governments to go along with the world.”  Though this is hardly a new idea, it’s often an empty one, as a similar statement has been uttered far more frequently than a corresponding action has been implemented.  Transition into: let’s hear it for Occupy Wall Street.  However you may want to criticize the means, they’re certainly doing something.  One of the most tangible differences between Bush and Obama is that one guy mobilized millions of protesters with each shitty choice while the other elicits mainly yawns along with a few “grassroots” campaign donations to some tea-party butthole.  Yet recently people are pissed when they ought to be, which is a welcome change, and these people are doing something, which is more than most people are in any position to criticize.

 

Also, ZNet is about to roll out their social network-esque thing (I’d be more specific, but I’m not sure even they can).  I hate facebook and twitter more than most things, but there is an undeniable usefulness to being able to move any amount of information quickly (by what other means could I ramble as I am currently to a handful of people I don’t know).  So this is it!  The opportunity for all us radicals who just can’t live without the knowledge of exactly how and why-come our hundreds of friends are feeling at any given moment to do it without the accompanying sludge of Googlery and privacy invasion (or at least, less of it).  Projects like theirs take a good deal of time and effort, and will only thrive if we give them a shot.  I for one, will give it a shot (until someone finds me and complains about how I didn’t respond in a timely fashion to some mundane “sup, dude”, at which point I will crawl happily back under my rock).

 

In other news: We’re playing Boston on November 3rd, Brooklyn on November 4th, Bristol (in Vermont, I’m told) November 5th, and New Britain on the 6th.  Come say hi, or save the money and find us at Foodswings afterwards.  Also, sincere apologies to anyone who traveled decent distances to Within These Walls Fest.  There were a number of people who claimed to spend a good deal of time/money to come and support us and we cut our own set short.  We’ll try not to do that in the future.

Be pleasant,

 

Tim

 

 

Not-so-gorgeous brains

Dear Nile Theater lightly-carpeted cement floor,

Unfortunately, you proved a poor hostess for the likes of my skull and its formerly-but-now-not-so gorgeous brains.  I applaud you, though, on your well-executed ability to extract a concussion from my life.  Only twice have I been privy to such feats of folly; once when I was five and fell off of some outdoor railing onto a set of brick steps at my grandparents’ old house, and another time whilst snowboarding in Heavenly on the CA side after I caught an edge near the bottom of the slope which sent the rail of my rented K2 snowboard hurtling into my 13-year-old cranium.  It neither scenario, nor yesterday’s as it turned out, was I rushed to the hospital to run CAT/PET scans, and yet, somehow, I feel as though such a trip may well have proven beneficial.  Something inside tells me that there may be some wiring knocked loose.  Such facts would explain a lot.  A lot.

But.  Within These Walls Festival was well-worth the drive and heat and contusions.  We are humbled by those of you that took the time to meet and greet us, and especially to those of you that flew such far distances to see our slipshod act perform.  I’ve been told (though, in all honesty, I have a hard time recollecting) that I mis-worded some notions of ours up on stage regarding homophobia, and for that I now attempt atonement: our band is notoriously against homophobia and hope, collectively, that you yourself do more to bring us closer to the future wherein we all sit back and have a laugh over our current-and-shameful prevailing opinion of homosexual love and its practices.  I’m sure I said other dumb things, to which: see the aforementioned lightly-carpeted floor.  Sincere thanks to Michelle and Emily at Mantooth Group for putting the entire shindig together, to all our old friend (Hi, Danny!) that we saw, and especially to Cory for picking my KO’d ass off the ground.

We also played a show in Pomona.  It was siq.  La Bella played.  They were tight.  So was Media Blitz and Seahaven.  Here’s what our set looked like:

 

Now what?  Well.  Sit back and relax.  Do other, more important shit with (y)our lives.  We had a long talk on the way back from Mesa and we’ve got some good ideas to attempt to shake out of our brains.  Nothing solid, yet, other than some shows with the ever-elusive Graf Orlock in December, so we’ll stay mum until things are solidified.  But, good things.  Brave things.  Better things.  Until then, GO BUY SOME OF OUR NEW MERCH.

Love,

Al

San Diego Canceled

Since no one could find a venue for our show in San Diego, we have had to cancel it. Apologies to anyone that had made plans to come out. We have the bands ready to play, just no space to get a show done at.

Alas.

Still come out to Casa Jimenez in Pomona tonight. We’ll be rocking like mad scientists.

al / dangers

Ashes fall and [we're] rising up again

Buenas noches, motherfuckers.  I’m feeling like an asshole tonight.  Mostly I’m fixated upon the breaking up of the Atletico Madrid goal scoring machinery on the forward line.  My ability to enjoy Kun Aguero and Forlan on their own right is dwindling and I’m constantly yearning for a return to their partnership.  There’s some consolation in the fact of Real’s loss to Lavante, I suppose, but any involvement there requires me having to witness with mine own eyes the horrific facial hair that Casillas is sporting these days.  Alas.

Today’s saving grace comes from the likes of Sir Thomas More and his nifty Utopia, a book I should have long-ago read but am only now completing in preparation for further academic pursuits.  What most I’m struck with (and this is a characteristic that accompanies most “great” literature, so far as I’m concerned) is the manner in which passages written nearly five-hundred years ago scream so formidably of the present day hocus pocus we are made to suffer through.  I present to you Exhibit A:

“…I don’t see how you can ever get any real justice or prosperity, so long as there’s private property, and everything’s judged in terms of money – unless you consider it just for the worst sort of people to have the best living conditions, or unless you’re prepared to call a country prosperous, in which all the wealth is owned by a tiny minority – who aren’t entirely happy even so, while everyone else is simply miserable.”

Ah.  Yes.  Disparity.  Pittance.  Daily sloshing through the tribulations of back-breaking, groveling, unemployment, and cleaning the marble floors of the rich for a fast food lunch.  Ahem.

In order to productively enact a momentary escape from the yawnings of our current daily lives, though, we are prepared to offer unto you three live performances whereat you can fully immerse yourselves in our songs and ugly mugs.  The info is as follows:

Thursday September 22

Pomona, CA @ Casa Jimenez (280 W. 3rd Street)

w/ Seahaven, La Bella, and Media Blitz

 

Friday September 23

San Diego, CA @ TBA

w/ Seahaven, Grievers

 

Saturday September 24

Mesa, AZ @ The Nile Theater 

w/ Stretch Arm Strong, et al things Within These Walls

 

And, in other, better, more-pleasant-to-your-ears news, I offer you this song, which is quite surely my favorite song of this year:

Al

…it’s been so long…

…and we miss you.

Come say hi.  This Friday at The Smell.  We’ll all be there, with hugs and handshakes.  I’ll even pretend not to hate L.A. so much (though I do… I truly do).

FYF Presents:
Friday, September 2nd
Touche Amore
Dangers
Joyce Manor
+ special guest
$5 / 9pm / all ages

There’s a chance that the special guest will cause 3 of us (James exluded) to poop our collective pants with rainbows and heart bubbles (as the marines say: semper ubi sub ubi), so let’s just keep all our fingers crossed and pretend we’re hoping for the same thing (we’re likely not).

Also: check back for further updates soon.  We’ve got some new merch to post and will be playing Within These Walls Fest on September 24th, with likely shows in L.A. and San Diego the 22nd and 23rd respectively.

See you on Friday, huh?

All be well,

Tim