leftovers

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen Twin Peaks: The Return yet, and plan on it, you may not want to read this entire blog! I am probably going to be writing a lot more about this as time goes by, but for now I just feel the need to put a stake in the ground. Twin Peaks is gone. Again. Back in 8th grade, I had become so obsessed with Twin Peaks, that it was almost like I myself had found a portal to another dimension and got sucked up into it. I "lived" in Twin Peaks. No really, I had an ID card (from the official fan club) and everything that included my Twin Peaks address! I watched each new episode religiously, and whenever possible would record the broadcast onto a VHS tape so I could watch it again and again. I even weirdly started keeping a notebook where I tracked how many scenes each character appeared in. Why? Who knows, it made only slightly more sense to me than the show itself! My favorite characters initially were Nadine Hurley, the red-haired housewif...

Last week, I turned 40. This was something that younger versions of me dreaded, but luckily the current version is totally cool with. I do remember when I moved to LA, at the tender age of 22 years, I told myself that if I wasn't a "rich, famous musician" by the time I was 27, I was going to leave LA and just concentrate on having a regular career. Apparently, at that time, I thought 27 was old... and 40 must have been ancient. Turning 30 was a little rough for me, but my thirties ended up being a great decade, and I honestly can't say that I was left wanting for anything, other than that career as a rich, famous musician, of course. The great thing was that I realized the fame and money didn't matter near as much as family, friendship, and happiness; all of which I had plenty of in that ten year span. I remember my parents turning 40 and how we made fun of them for being 'over the hill,' and taunting them with the phrase "lordy, lordy, l...

With one of their best singles in years ("Long Time") out now, and a fantastic new video for recent single "Fun", Blondie is in top form in anticipation of their forthcoming album "Pollinator." So I decided to look back at all their studio albums, which have all played such a big part in the soundtrack to my life. This one was tough and although I followed my new system to rank the albums, I found that it didn't yield completely accurate results. Because Blondie have so many albums, many with over 13 songs on them, over the course of so many years, it's not always easy to remember a song just by the title. So I had the dilemma of either going back and re-listening to all the songs I didn't remember, or just going ahead and ranking any song I didn't remember a 1. I decided to proceed using the latter method, but this ended up with a ranking that I just didn't agree with. With Blondie albums, to me I think the artwork and packaging, as ...

I love it when you unknowingly misunderstand something, and later realizing the truth. Today I had one of these moments when, for whatever reason, I remembered a song that used to truly give me the creeps. The ditty in question is "Take Some Petrol Darling," the closing track from the Sugarcubes' 1988 debut album "Life's Too Good." The song is definitely an oddity, as it's almost more of a long tone poem than an actual song. Apparently it is considered a "hidden track" as its name was not included on the original tracklisting, although I'm pretty sure it was included in the American version, at least on the actual cassette tape. As I said, this song always gave me the heebie-jeebies and I never knew what it was about The song is very dark sounding, with some gothic-type bass and drums, some spooky guitar and organ, atonal rumblings from Einar and whisper-singing from Bjork. I thought that I heard Bjork singing "Doctor Benson is ...

As I was walking to work, I passed by a house on a corner which had a couple of "Yes on S" signs. For those who don't know, Measure S is a terribly misguided ballot initiative to curb what some people perceive as "overdevelopment." While most anyone involved in city planning here in Los Angeles will agree that the planning and zoning process needs to be updated and fixed, this reactionary and excessive measure is "a childish middle finger to city hall" - those are the LA Times words. After I passed the house and groaned to myself, I saw a lady walking two dogs. Normally, I would have smiled and said hi. But today, paranoid that the lady might be the Measure S supporting resident of the house, I simply ignored her and kept walking. Immediately it struck me how not nice I was being - regardless of what her political beliefs are, she is kind of my neighbor. But this is what politics in this country have come to. Things are so black and white now, that t...

The year was 2002. My favorite band, The Human League, was part of a retro concert package in the UK (the Here and Now Tour) which included many other 80s bands. One of them I had never heard of, but was getting rave reviews from my overseas friends who were able to attend. The band was Altered Images and they were best known for a song called "Happy Birthday," which I didn't think I had ever heard before. I was record shopping at Aron's in Hollywood one weekend while they were having a parking lot sale. At this time, I was DJing two nights a week at Gold 9, so I was buying a lot of albums, especially when I could find them for cheap! I found Altered Images "Bite" at this sale and shortly thereafter began to play it quite a bit in my apartment, where I had my turntables set up as kind of my own little nightclub. I was immediately drawn to lead singer Clare Grogan's voice, and the lush pop of "Don't Talk To Me About Love." From...

What a clusterfuck this year has been, ammirite? But you have to think, we're just entering the age of hyperinformation-shitstorms and I don't see the years getting less intense in the near future. We all know within minutes when our favorite celebrity or artist dies, and while some of us mourn for the actual person and their family, many more of us mourn because it's a part of our youth dying, one of our treasured memories. Like most of my friends, 2016 was just a terrible year in many ways. But when I started composing this year's top 10 list, my tenth here on this blog, I looked to last year's for context. I discovered that I got to see my three top favorite songs of last year performed live in really excellent situations. I got to see Human League perform, in Glasgow, three songs I had never seen them do, and got to talk to them about those songs afterward. And, there was the small matter of "Mixed Signals," the album my band released in July, shortly...

Tomorrow at 6:20 p.m. I will be leaving this continent and traveling by air to Europe, to the little windswept island they call England! I am so excited to be returning to London, my favorite of all cities (that I have been to)! This trip is my third to the U.K., and as such there will be some old traditions and new discoveries. As with my previous two visits, I will be seeing my favorite band - The Human League - live in concert. In 2003, my first journey, I rode a bus up to Sheffield to see them play City Hall in their hometown. I was fortunate enough to go back in 2012, and got to see them twice; once at Brighton Dome, and back in London at Royal Albert Hall. This time, I will be flying up to Glasgow to see and stay with my friend David. He and I will be going to see them perform at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, and afterward his boyfriend is joining us at Hard Rock Cafe for a late show of Jo Callis, a former member of Human League who wrote or co-wrote some of their most memor...

It's been almost a week since the election, and my self-imposed Facebook exile is about to come to an end. I've actually really enjoyed being away from it all, and frankly, I am not looking forward to returning. However, I have several pages that I manage as part of my job, as well as my band's page, and I need an active account in order to administer these. I'm still trying to decide if there are additional measures I would like to take upon my return, such as increased security settings, unfriending/blocking certain people, and removing previous content from my page. To refresh those who may not have seen my previous blog post, or do not follow me on other social media (I'm on Twitter, Google+ and Instagram still!), I just had to take a break from FAKEBOOK and all the fake news articles shared there, as well as the corresponding reactions and all the emotions related to this horrible election. Also, I haven't felt like "connecting" to people, or ...

I never wanted to have to write this blog post and I don't really even want to do it, but I feel that I must to mark today and remember this awful feeling. The election results from last night have shocked, angered, and hurt me. But most of all, they broke my heart. My entire life, I have always proudly been an optimist. I have always striven to see the good in everyone, and in every situation. I have always felt that things would work out OK. Even when I have had my heart broken before, I have rebounded quickly and forgiven those who have hurt me. Today, I do not feel like forgiving, or moving on. I feel like I no longer have any faith left. I feel like I want to blame everyone, and that I don't want to trust anyone. I don't feel like I want to be connected to this society anymore. It is an awful feeling. I am running out of fingers to point and places to blame, but today on the top of my list is social media. I have been such a fan of social media, apparently to the...

I'm not one to complain about living in Los Angeles. I have been here now for over 16 years, and while at time I daydream about moving somewhere else, for the most part I am perfectly happy here. However, there are certain things we Angelenos love to complain about, and when you get down to it, what we're really complaining almost all comes down to how spoiled we are. Here's the top 10 things that suck about life in the city of Angels! 10. Traffic. Yeah a lot of people would put this at the top of their list. But if you're fortunate enough to be driving a car in Los Angeles, you're already doing better than millions of other people. You are located in a city of dreams, full of potential, with possible fortune around every corner. And you have somewhere to go! Someone wants to see you! So quit bitching and leave the house early enough to get where you're going on time, get a book on tape, learn a foreign language, or call your mom (hands free, on speaker phone...

This is a picture of a little playground, located at 111 E. 4th Street in Hays, Kansas. 17 years ago, there was a house here, and that house was all decorated for Halloween, with pumpkins on the porch and all kinds of skeletons, spiderwebs and such inside. It was the house that my brother and I lived in, and it would be our last Halloween living in Kansas. It is so strange to look now and see that it's all gone. I've lived in quite a few houses during my lifetime, and most of them are still standing somehow. This house was pretty special though, as my brother and I lived here our last two years in Kansas, while I was graduating from college, and so many good times were had here. Seeing it now, it's like my place in Hays has been erased. Not that I ever want to go back, but now it's almost as if I was never there.

I started working on what would become "Mixed Signals" back in 2011, right after I released my debut. In fact, by the end of summer that year, I had a CD-R that I listened to in the car that had most of the album demoed. And then I changed my mind. Myles had asked why I wasn't recording live drums. I tried to explain that I didn't know how to record or mix drums. And then, I met Jarod and asked him to join the band and had to find something for him to do. So we wrote new songs that would utilize all five of us, and we figured out ways to record drums, find our harmonies, and sound like a band together. Finally, five years after "It's Never the Way You Imagine It," we are releasing the first true Traitors album. In keeping with tradition , I'll first include that original track list of what I was calling "Art Damage." 1. Angels in Paradise 2. Lover + Lass 3. Quickie 4. Cocksure 5. Here's the Thing 6. Meet Me in Atlantis ...