leftovers

For my recent 30th birthday, I received a gift for which I had pined for quite a long time - "Downside Up", the B-Sides and Rarities box set from Siouxsie and The Banshees. Apparently, I had mentioned this to my bandmates Amy and Brandon, and they had somehow remembered this and went out and purchased it for me, much to my surprise! As a result, I am now presenting my tribute to this great band, one who tried to reach out to me several time before finally taking hold. This is the story of how I fell in love with Siouxsie and her banshees. When I was first starting out in the world of musical obsession and pop record collecting, I would get all these different mail-order catalogs, magazines, flyers, etc, because I lived in the middle of Kansas, and the internet wasn't around yet. I had to mail order everything. And, being a farm kid with a budget of $30 a month, I wasn't able to order much of anything, so the big thrill was just looking through those pages and deci...

"Out in the Sandpile" is a game, of sorts, that my siblings and I used to "play" often when we were growing up on the farm near Paradise, Kansas. Originally, it started because my brother and I had these toy cattle trailers, which we would play with in a sandbox that my dad had built. Us country bumpkins called it a sandpile, even though it was a real sandbox. One day we turned the toy trailers upside down and decided we had build a town. Our young imaginations soared and soon, we were scavenging all over the farm and going through our toyboxes, looking for things we could add to the burgeoning city. My first character was named Kitty Kiffany, after my cat named Kiffany, and I decided he was a "pioneer" and the founder of the town. I'm not sure if the town had a name at this point. As time went on, the town spilled out of the sandpile and eventually took over what used to be an ice skating rink that my dad had built for us to use in the winterti...

One of my earliest memories about music is riding in my parent's big blue Chevy van as a very young child, and listening to my parents 8-track tapes. Those long-ago times are very vague and foggyin my mind, having almost been completely forgotten until a few years ago when I did some deep soul searching and tapped into them. I do recall a few of the artists represented in my folks' small collection of those infamous black cartridges. Blondie was a favorite of mine (and still is, to this day). Creedence Clearwater Revival - don't remember any of the songs off the top of my head, nor do I remember Anne Murray; although I did remember the artwork and recently bought that album on vinyl and didn't recognize any of the songs. I particularly remember "Betty Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes but I'm not completely sure whether this was on a soundtrack or something, or if my parents actually had a Kim Carnes 8-track album. Last is my most remembered artifact of the 8-trac...

I haven't been blogging lately, so what have I been doing, you may ask? Well, this past week was a whirlwind but a lot of the work I've been doing is fun work, so it's all good. First, my band is finishing the final touches on our new EP, "Sidesaddle Sweet Talk" which will be released at LA Pride (June 10th). There are some cool remixes, a new version of "Mustache Rides" (which would be the third studio recording of it) and two new songs that I'm really proud of and excited about. Both of these new songs were sort of just throw-aways to me, things I had done on the Korg a very long time ago that I didn't suspect would ever see the light of day. Luckily for me, I have two very talented bandmates who took these tracks, and wrote amazing lyrics and musical parts for and took them to a new level. One of the tracks, "Delay", was further enchanced by our producer, Hoagie, who elevated that song to completely new territory for us - and I c...

Yesterday was my parent’s 34 th wedding anniversary. They were married on April 19, 1973 and they actually eloped, which I always thought was such an exciting and romantic notion. I fondly remember back in high school when my brother, sister and I joined my folks on an anniversary trip back to Grand Island , Nebraska , where they had honeymooned. In true Devin fashion, about all I really remember from this trip was the mall! And of course my new shirt, which was a thick-striped polo with really bright jewel-tone colors. (I bought the shirt in Hays at KG Mens, but wore it on the trip.) So it’s fitting that last night I whipped up a new musical composition, a song titled “Symbols of Love.” It’s quite a hoot. I based it on a poem of the same title that was written by my grandma about a stuffed toy belonging to my (at the time) baby cousin Brian. It was published in a magazine called REM in 1974 accompanied by a photo of a sleeping boy, clutching a teddy bear. The po...

For as long as I can remember, I've always had an overwhelming sense of Pride and Protectiveness of my hometown, Paradise Kansas . Even as a very young child, I was extremely interested in the history of the town, and I was always saddened by the dwindling population. I dreamed of time-traveling back to the hey-day of the town, imagining what it would have been like back in the early 1900's when pioneers optimistically built their homes, stores and businesses there hoping that the town would blossom into a city. I tried to picture what it was like when my dad was a teenager there, and Paradise had its own high school and the students would drag Main Street on weekend nights or my uncle Ronnie's band would play downtown. By the time I came around, Paradise was little more than "a wide spot in the road," as my mom used to say. There was never much to do there, but I still always found plenty to fascinate me within the modest town limits. Perhaps the most fun acti...

OK I am ready to continue my Twin Peaks blog series. First things first, I need to clear up some errors from my previous blog. After reading it, my mom back in Kansas called me and "let me know" that her and my dad did not, as I said, lose interest in the show after the third episode (which featured the dream sequence). In fact, mom assertains that her and dad did continue to watch every episode in the first season and many in the second season. This is true. I replied that while they did perhaps watch they weren't as interested in it as I was. Obviously that can't be argued, but I guess I should have given my folks more credit. They did follow it more closely than anyone else parents I knew at the time. Now that that's cleared up, let's move on. I've thought about it often over the past 15 year or so, trying to figure out what it was about Twin Peaks that transfixed me so. First of all, I had never been a big "TV" person before Peaks. I...

This is my "Twin Peaks" edition of my How I Fell In Love With: series, but I wanted to give it a different title. "In The Trees" was the title of the Twin Peaks fanzine that I published for several issues back in late 1991 (if memory serves), around the time that the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me was released. By that point, I was a certified peaksfreak. I carried my official Twin Peaks residence card, issued by The Twin Peaks Gazette. I lived on Enthwistle but I don't recall my "address." I could talk endlessly about the show and trivia related to it, and often I did (whenever someone would listen). Let's back up though, shall we. April 5, 1990. I was a seventh grader at Paradise Middle School, living on a farm in rural western Kansas. For some reason that night, my dad was eagerly awaiting the premiere of a new television show, which was really odd for my dad. Usually he paid little attention to television unless it was sports or J...

I had a very vivid dream last night. I woke up (in the dream, not from it) and I was in my bedroom back in the farmhouse outside of Paradise; the bedroom I had in eighth grade (my brother and I switched rooms for that year, our last on the farm). It was early in the morning, everyone in the house was asleep, though I didn't know at the time who was in the house, and it was completely dark with just a hint of moonlight peaking in through my window. I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator and took out a cookie. It was like one of those sugar cookies with the thick sugary frosting that Val and Judy from Abigail's Attic got me hooked on; the ones they always have at the grocery store decorated for whatever holiday it's nearest. I had one cookie and remembered, feeling guilty, that I was on the South Beach diet (which I am). I turned to go back to bed, but decided I really wanted one more. I ended up having at least three, at one point aimlessly going through ca...

{This blog entry was titled "Power Blogging, Yay!" but afterwards I ended up adding more to the entry and thus retitling it} I only have 10 minutes to type this blog so I thought I'd challenge myself and see how coherent and grammatically correct I could make this in a short amount of time. I wanted to just talk a little about my obsessions; at any given point I am always obsessing about at least three things. Often these things are familiar subjects that I have been obsessing over on and off for most of my life. Example: the first thing I am obsessing about currently is my hometown, Paradise Kansas. In May, my brother and I are going home for my sister's graduation from Law School, and we are bringing our significant others with us. Now Dylan, my boyfriend, has already been to Paradise as well as Hays (where I attended high school and college), but Brandon has not been out there for years and so neither has his partner. I love showing Paradise off to people who have ...

In the summer of 1991, my family was planning a move. We didn't know where to yet, at the beginning of the summer, but my parents had decided to look for jobs in other towns and we were selling the farm equipment. Over the course of the past year, we had all decided together we wanted to move to a bigger town, and the two that were closest were Hays and Salina. Hays was about 40 miles Northwest of us, and we were all very familiar with the town because we went shopping there almost every week. Both my parents had been taking college classes there and we often went with them on weeknights and stayed at my grandma Irene's apartment, watching TV and ordering Domino's Pizza. I loved to look out her window and watch the traffic (or what I considered to be traffic back at that naive stage in my life) go by on 27th street. Salina, on the other hand, was about an hour and fifteen minutes east on I-70. Salina was considerably bigger than Hays, and we knew almost nothing about it. We...

It was one week ago today that I stumbled across some information on the internet that caught my eye: Logo, MTV's Gay cable channel, was to have a launch party somewhere in Los Angeles on Thursday, March 8. The only details I had were that the band Dangerous Muse would be DJ'ing at the event, as well as the legendary Erasure. Being gay and in a band, I knew this would not only be an opportunity of a lifetime to meet lots of cool people, but I was also pretty sure it was going to be a really fun time. Over a year ago, I subscribed to cable mainly because I wanted to be able to watch Logo. And watch it, I have! It's usually the first channel I turn to, and I've followed several of it's documentary and reality series, re-watched some of the first gay films I ever saw way back in the 90's, and have discovered some great new music because of their "NewNowNext" program as well as "The Click List" countdown. Of course, after seeing so many great vid...

Things are exciting right now. After last week, which was one of my worst and most difficult in recent memory, I guess things could only go up. I am starting a diet today (South Beach) and I know that it's the right time because I'm actually really into it. I have dieted a lot in my life, and sometimes it works; usually it doesn't. I know by now that the difference is how badly I want to do it. I have to be completely ready to do it, and right now I am. It helped a lot that I weighed myself this morning and was shocked by the number that popped up on the scale. Also, I completely indulged this past weekend with regards to junk food and alcohol, so honestly right now the idea of a diet feels refreshing. This weekend, my band went down to San Diego Indie Music Festival where we were performing on the "mature audiences stage." Having had mixed luck in San Diego, and knowing that festivals in general can be really iffy, I think we were all expecting the worst. We were...

As many of you readers know, I am a huge fan of Tiffany. Yes, that Tiffany, the red-haired teen singer from the 80's who hit big with her covers of "I Think We're Alone Now" and "I Saw Him Standing There," as well as her own song "Could've Been." I fell in love with her way back at the tender age of 10 (yes, she will be featured in my "How I Fell in Love With:" blog series eventually) and I have followed her career through the ups and downs. In 2000, she released an amazing and critically-acclaimed album called "The Color of Silence" which revitalized many of her life-long fans (many of us belong to the "True To Tiffany" Yahoo Group) and won many new ones. She began touring constantly and I have been lucky enough to see her live many times now. Following that album and the many hurdles that came with it, she released a dance album most recently called "Dust Off and Dance" and is now set to release two alb...

It was an exciting and productive weekend, and I think I made the most of the extra day (President's Day was Monday). On Friday night, Brandon, Marc and Ben came over and walked down to the $3 theatre with Dylan and I to see Borat. Everyone but Brandon had already seen it once before but we were all excited to see it again. Afterwards, everyone was pretty tired but I wanted something to eat so I walked to 7-11. While I was walking, I called my friend Myles who told me he was going to the Palms because Keoki was DJ'ing there. Even though it was already after 1am I decided to walk down and meeting him, and I'm glad I did cause I actually had a great time, and it was the first chance I'd gotten to hear Keoki spin. (Most people know how obsessed I was with the book and movie "Party Monster" which Keoki was a big part of). The next day, Dylan and I met Brandon out in Malibu at Hoagie's home, aka Seamonster Sounds, to begin work on Food Drinks Music, the third a...

This is a photo of the "Ranch House" (see previous blog) that was sent in to me by my cousin Travis. This photo was taken right after the second floor bedroom addition was completed. ( correction: it was actually taken after the flood, hence the overgrown weeds and lack of cars in the driveway. Thanks, Travis for the info!) You can see parts of the original house behind the addition. This is the South side of the house, and technically this would be considered the "back" side. Around front, facing north, is a porch that spans the entire width of the house and a more "formal" looking door which leads into the foyer which, on the left, has a staircase going up to the second floor hallway, and on the right opens into the formal living room. Of course, back in rural Kansas, folks rarely utilize the front door of a house, opting instead to enter through the backdoor. I don't know what it is that has created this phemonemon. I know the house I grew up in w...

I am working on taking two poems my Grandma Irene wrote, which I have set to my own music, and recording it. The song is called "Recurring Dreams" and it's an eerie coincidence that I have been having a recurring dream of my own lately. The dream doesn't actually repeat itself completely, but the situation is always the same and there are similar elements in each one, with one part of it always occurring in each dream. The situation is that I am living in the "ranch house" which is the house my mom's sister's family lived in for a short time right before she (Sharon) and my uncle Gene divorced. It's a huge, turn-of-the century home that had been in Gene's family since it was built. It is a giant cube, with a basement, a main floor, upstairs, and a very large attic on top. There was also a more recent addition on one side of the house that included a large family room, bathroom and utility room. Later, a bedroom was added on top of that...

My college years were not a time where I discovered a lot of new music. With the internet going from a strange mystery to a daily addiction all within my freshman year, I was spending a lot of time researching the bands and artists I had been listening to since childhood, discovering new facts about them and even some unknown albums. I remember sitting in the computer lab in Tomanek Hall at Fort Hays State University and discovering that Tiffany had an album released in Asia called "Dreams Never Die" that I knew nothing about, and that the Thompson Twins had gone on to form a new band called Babble which had put out an album called "The Stone." So, with all this excitement and the fact that I was pretty much completely busy with school and work during this time, it's no wonder that I mainly stuck with what I knew throughout this period. A few notable exceptions of bands that I discovered while in college include Garbage, Whale, and the band that I'm going t...

I have been shamed into blogging today, since both my brother and sister have already done so. I realize I have written considerably less lately than I had been doing previously; I guess I was "on a roll" so to speak for a short while and now I'm back to my usual sporadic ways. This weekend was full of ups and downs, the biggest down being that I attended the memorial service of my coworker who died tragically in a motorcycle accident on January 25. I had only known him for a few months but I got along with him very well, and I was with him just before it happened. The service was very emotional and difficult for everyone involved. He was only 34 and by all accounts was a very carefree, gentle, happy and optimistic person. We need more people like him in the world, not less. Since moving to Los Angeles, I've known five people close to me who have passed on. Both my fathers parents, my friend Rex, Robert (who was Dylan's mom's boyfriend), and now Alex. ...

This past weekend was a busy one, and was capped off by a Sunday trip to Malibu's Seamonster Studios, where my band Shitting Glitter is putting the finishing touches on some b-sides for our forthcoming single and preparing our plans for recording "Food Drinks Music" - our third full length album. The recording this day mainly involved Brandon's guitar parts for the b-side entitled "Delay" which was an old demo that had been kicking around for a couple of years. I thought it would make a nice addition to the "Slut Buffet" remix single so we dusted it off and are finishing it to sound pretty great. While Brandon spent hours perfecting his guitar riffs, I spent my time shovelling dirt from the hillside driveway that leads down to the home/studio of Hoagie, our friend and co-producer. Over the past few years, dirt has slid down the side of the hill and covered a foot or two of the inside edge of the drive and I wanted to help out since Hoagie always...