The latest example came to light, thanks to my friend Church, in the form of an editorial over at Flickcast. I suggest giving it a read before moving forward, it isn’t long.

Now, before I go further, let me deal with something up front. Are there women out there who are using the nerd card to try and get some fame and attention? Probably. Is that editorial, and all the other similar pieces that have been popping up these days, gross over generalizations that serve little purpose beyond painting their writers as bitter elitist people? Probably.

Off the top of my head, I see two fallacies at work in the above piece (and in the vast majority of similar rants).

1) The equating of nerddom with fandom, or at least using fandom as the measuring stick for nerdity.

To say that someone isn’t a nerd if they aren’t willing to miss family functions because watching some TV show is more important, or take time off work so they can sit in line waiting for some movie to come out, is to take an incredibly narrow definition of nerddom. It also takes a very old and antiquated view of nerddom. I’m not a nerd because I use On Demand, or have a Tivo? I’m not a nerd if I’ve cancelled my cable subscription because I can just torrent the shows I want to watch the next day? I’m not a nerd if I prefer to read a book on physics or mathematics instead of watch TV? What happens if I have to choose between going to a MC Frontalot show or watching Game of Thrones? Which option allows me to retain my nerd status?

2) The assumption that you are either a hardcore nerd or you aren’t a nerd at all.

I thought the whole point of being a nerd was that you didn’t fit into the easily definable categories that other people tried to push you in. Shoehorning all of society into this binary equation strikes me as very unnerdy.

Seriously though, there’s a huge gap in such a simplistic view of nerddom, namely what I refer to as the guerillas. The guerillas are folks who have chosen to hide their nerdity when in “polite” company, and only indulge in it when they are in certain safe and controlled environments. When they’re sure that Bob, the loudmouth from accounting, isn’t near by to see them. I hope we can all agree that this isn’t a new group in the nerd world and in fact this archetype has, in all likelihood, been around since the beginning.

As nerdity has gained in acceptance the guerillas among us have started to feel safer in expressing their true selves. Where previously they took care to ensure that they appeared to be normal average folk, now they are more willing to admit that they enjoy Star Wars/Trek or comic books or some other form of nerdy pass time. Perhaps they do it in moderation, but at least they are not quite so worried about what Bob is going to tell people.

Are there attractive young women out there who are simply pandering to the nerds in hopes of gaining fame and fortune? As I said, probably. On the other hand, has Hollywood always been a lot nerdier then we’ve been lead to believe by Entertainment Tonight and People Magazine? Definitely. The difference is, where before a fondness for video games or comic books would be seen as a liability, it can be an asset now. It sets them apart and gives their brand a hook.

So while there are surely some who are pandering, I’d be willing to bet money that a good chunk, if not most, are sincere in what they say. They’re just now more willing to say it.

You know what though, let’s take a minute here and assume I’m completely wrong. Let’s assume that the other side is right and the idea of the hot nerd girl is just a myth and they’re all faking it.

What do I say? God bless ‘em.

Let’s take a step back here.

By the very nature of our culture the young traditionally look towards the famous as role models and guides through life. They are the people most of us have longed to be at some point in our lives.

This means that there are young girls out there looking at these women and idolizing them. They want to be like these women. And the message they are getting (outside of some possibly nasty lessons about body image, but that’s a separate discussion) is that it’s OK to be a little nerdy. It’s OK for a young girl to play video games or read comic books. Whether the message is sincere or bullshit, that’s still the message that’s being put out there.

Now look me in the eye and tell me that’s a bad thing.

But, it’s a shallow message you say. To which I reply with some trite statement about mighty rivers starting out as tiny streams.

This is only the beginning. Let’s assume that they all are full of shit. That doesn’t automatically mean the next generation will be so full of shit. Or that the generation after that. The Sex Pistols were a bunch of scenesters who were formed by their manager with the expressed purpose of increasing sales at the fetish shop that said manager co-owned. But a good chunk of their fans didn’t get the memo that it was all a bunch of hypocritical crap. They took it seriously and they did some pretty amazing shit.

But it won’t last you say. They’ll just move onto the next fad a year or two from now and it won’t have any lasting potential. To which I tell you a story about Nirvana.

If you’re to young to know who Nirvana was, go hit Wikipedia. The point is that Nirvana broke and suddenly it was cool to be a punk. Except being a punk was now something very different then what it had meant before Nirvana broke. It was watered down and had it’s edges filed off. And in the end, after a couple of years it faded into something else, as such things are want to do. The majority stropped being punks and moved on to something else. As they left though, they left some shit behind. Here and there were groups of kids who’d dug a little deeper while the shit was going down. May be someone handed them a copy of Maximum Rock and Roll or a Black Flag album or they became intrigued by Kurt’s tattoo of K Record’s logo. Whatever. Why isn’t important, what’s important is that when the masses moved on to the next thing, they stayed.

May be this will all fade away and we’ll go back to the way things were. But we won’t go back alone. We’ll take with us groups of folks who we would have otherwise lost. People who would have previously fallen to peer pressure to follow the herd, but because a bunch of attractive (kinda) famous people talked about their supposed love of Star Trek or World of Warcraft on some late night talk show, they found their way into the fold.

That’s the worst case scenario here folks. Absolute worst case is that a bunch of kids are going to find their way into nerddom and decide they don’t want to leave when everyone else does.

Now, are you really going to stand there and tell me that indulging your insecurities and sense of entitlement is more important then letting some kid find themselves in nerddom?

Really?

So, for the next 26 weeks, once a week I’m going to write about band(s) whose name begins with that week’s letter. Sometimes it’ll be one band, other times it’ll be multiple bands. Sometimes it’ll be a newish band that I think you should check out. Sometimes it’ll me be reminiscing about bands I used to see when I was in college. The basic idea here is to give me a framework with in which to write about music, and to turn folks on to groups they may not have heard of before.

So, let’s begin with the letter A.

When I decided to do this project the first A band just popped in my head with out a moment’s thought. Not to surprising when you consider how much I’ve been listening to their last album, but let me back up first.

One of the great discoveries for me this year was the site Nine Bullets. Nine Bullets is a music blog that covers the backwoods of modern music so to speak. More specifically, this means genres like alt-country, southern rock, deep blues, and various styles of music that I affectionately refer to as hillbilly music. I first got into roots music back in the mid 90s when I followed a group out of CO called Leftover Salmon. I’ll get into it more when I hit the letter L, but Salmon were an amazing band back then (later Salmon doesn’t grab me as much as the old stuff, though I still suggest giving them a try). I’ve heard one person after another rave about one band or another’s live show. Be it Monsterface or the Potters or Scrub Club or whoever. And I sit there and I smile and I nod and I tell them they must be right that it was the most epic show ever. And while I’m doing this I remember dancing in the middle of the street in front of the court house in the middle of Virginia while Salmon played on a flatbed truck and the locals out numbered the freaks, but it was cool, cause everyone was dancing their feet off. Or that day fest in Charlottesville when Vince almost got himself arrested for sliding down the mud slide that had formed on the amphitheater’s hill while we all danced in the rain. Or… OK, sorry about that, I’ll stop now. Needless to say, I have a lot of fond memories that involve seeing Salmon. And then after Salmon came The Recipe and my several years as a founding member of The Recipe Family. In the meantime I indulged my musical sweet tooth in the new jamgrass scene and idly attempted to teach myself about bluegrass and old timey and other styles of music that was coming out of these mountains just to my west. I developed a mean crush on a beautiful mountain girl from West Virginia and realized to late that she was just waiting for me to say something about it.

In the end, things didn’t work out and I needed to put that life away for a little while and get some distance so I could deal with some things. I wouldn’t say I’m healed, but I’m a little better. At least this time I was completely brain dead when the cute city girl started dropping hints. And so I’ve been wondering back into some of my old haunts, or at least trying to. Sometimes when you leave a place for a long time the road back develops some twists and turns and isn’t as easy to follow. When it comes to roots music though, Nine Bullets has proved to be a hell of a good guide. The music has a little more bite then what I listened to back then, but I’m enjoying it like that. It’s a good indication that this isn’t just a nostalgia trip, but is something more real. Which makes it much easier to do things like drop $50 some odd dollars on albums simply cause NB said they rocked. Which brings us back to our first band of this project, American Aquarium.

I’ll be honest, my exposure to AA is pretty much just limited to their most recent album Small Town Hymns, which has really sunk it’s hooks into me. The songs on the album paint a picture of small town life that strikes me, as a kid who grew up in the burbs, as both desperate and honest. Desperate in the sense of trying to escape a life that seems almost fated. Honest in the way that folks who didn’t grow up in small towns always seem to look on small town life as being more honest then theirs.

Musically, the album is just the right mix of twang, Carolinian accents, and pop hooks to ensure that I’m going to love the album, even before I subconsciously start singing along to every sone whether I know the words or not.

For a taste of what you can expect, here a couple of videos I tracked down for you.

First up we’ve got a solo acoustic take of the track Reidsville, hands down one of my favorites on the album, done for Nine Bullets:

From there a full band track Hurricane:

There’s a bunch of other videos on YouTube if you’re interested, but they’re either for songs I don’t know or the sound is crap, so I’ll just leave us with two and call it a day.

So, that’s the first post in this little experiment. Only 25 more to go.

What ever the intended nature of the piece, it has left me thinking about a few things that I want to address in a couple of pieces.

The first such piece is about “the questions.”

- What is a nerd and/or geek?
- Are you a nerd and/or a geek?

These are the two questions, in one form or another, that have dominated nerd discussions over the past year or so. It has gotten to the point that a lot of us are pretty sick and tired of the questions and would be happy to see them never asked again.

Over the past couple of days though, since Z posted his essay, I’ve found myself thinking about these questions. Why are we so sick of them? On their own they’re actually really important questions. Ones that we should be constantly asking ourselves in self reflection. Why then have they developed such a negative stigma? My theory is that it has nothing to do with the questions themselves, but in the answers that we’ve received in response to them.

The replies we tend see are dominated with checklists involving social status, societal awkwardness or isolation, a laundry list of approved interests and hobbies, and an underlining sense of obsessiveness that exceeds socially acceptable limits. These are answers that make sense, if the question was being asked 10 years ago.

Invariably, the answers that we receive to these questions is not what we are, but instead what we were. The kind of things that used to separate us from the “norms”. The thing is that the last 10 years have seen a monumental upheaval in how nerds interact with and relate to society as a whole. We now live in a world where we take it for granted that a new summer will be met by more then one attempt from Hollywood to mine our most cherished fandoms for the next big money grab. Where we have found ourselves intermingling with the norms in our collective obsessions with properties like Harry Potter, The Sopranos, Lost, and The Wire, among a plethora of other franchises. Where we have taught them the toolsets we developed in our slavish devotion to older properties like Monty Python or our desperate attempts to make sense of the Akira movie. And where they have begun to adapt these toolsets to their own separate obsessions.

These changes have created a situation where the old definitions of who and what we are now ring hollow. They are recited from memory because these are the responses time has taught us, but when we stop and really consider the question being asked, we find that we don’t really believe our answers anymore. This existential crisis has lead some to grasp tightly to the old ways and hold them up as a true path. One that must be followed with out mis-step if one dares to lay claim to the title of nerd or geek. Others respond to the crisis by declaring the death of us. A mournful bellow that the terms have lost all meaning and should be driven from our tongues is their cry. Still others ignore the reality of the situation and pretend that nothing has changed.

The problem with all of these responses is that they treat who we are as static things to be cast in amber and placed on a shelf for later observation. For a social group to survive though it must be allowed to grow and evolve, or else it will stagnate and die. So these reactions to the changes that we are undergoing are more then just attempts to hold back the hand of time, they are, in a very real sense, a death sentence for our very identity.

There is cause for hope though, as mentioned in Z’s piece.

Art has long held a place in society as the preferred method though which we can explain the unexplainable. Free of the chains of logic and the rules of discourse, art provides us the freedom to say things that we have no words for. While the past year has in many ways been defined by our inability to answer the questions, it has also provided the best answers we have to these questions. When you look at the art we have produced; from some of our best music yet, much of which comes from relative new comers; to amazing fan vids; to the temporary spaces we have created where we are free to redefine who and what we are; it is obvious that what we are is not what we were, but is evolving to something new and wonderful.

When history writes this chapter of our existence, the first decade of this century will likely be seen as a time of change for us. A time when we had to jettison what we used to be and redefine who we are. That same history will likely record a laundry list of embarrassing missteps and fruitless side quests, but it will also show that it was what we did, not what we said, which ultimately guided us through the transition.

Over all the weekend had it’s good and bad. Last Tuesday we did a team outing at work that involved going to an Orioles game in Baltimore. End of the night I’d had to much to drink and five or six smokes. With the hang over the next day, I skipped the salad and went back to the Chic-Filet. On the plus side though, by Wednesday night I was back on track.

Truth be told, I’m glad I did that. It felt reassuring to slip back into the old routine again and then just as quickly bounce out of it with no hesitations or regrets. Ok, yeah, I’m still jonesing for a smoke, but that’ll come in time (theoretically). I got into this, not to drop weight, but to get some good habits started that will make the remainder of my live on this spaceship a little easier and hopefully a little more fun. Screwing up and then watching the automatic course correction take over, it’s like seeing that the emotional and intellectual are both on the same page here. I don’t just seem to think this is a good idea, but now I have an indication that the rest of me’s bought in as well.

On the mental front, the week’s been a pretty big success. I’m still struggling to figure out how to integrate the Taoist ideas into my professional world. I have had several instances in the past week though where I just find myself smiling for no reason at all. Yesterday that was some full on, no fooling, teethy grinning going on. It felt good.

Cooking is coming along pretty well. King Pheenix turned me onto a site called, Spark People. I haven’t made much use out of it yet, except to grab some recipes for the slow cooker that I’m going to be trying out. Did a chicken dish tonight that was tasty as well.

I’ve also found myself listening to a lot more music lately. I think I’m going to redo the layout for my family room so that I can move my record player up there. This may not seem like much, but it’s actually a huge deal for me. I’m mentally in a better place when I have a steady diet of music in my life.

So, all and all, the week had a stumble, but it’s turned out pretty good. We’ll see what happens down the line, but the future’s looking pretty OK from here.

What I did find myself in the middle of was some much needed cleanup of some really buggy routines that honestly, I should have gotten to long before now. A couple of maintenance patches that have been sitting around for way to long, and an over due BIOS flash.

The maintenance patches (two of them to be exact), take the form of quitting smoking (again) and taking part in a RPG Fitness game that Hatter from Scrub Club put together. The idea here is that you gain HP for each pound you loose and for every X amount of HP you earn, you level up. End of the three months, who’s ever leveled the most, wins. You can also increase HP by doing things like taking your blood pressure, taking a fitness course, or going to see the doctor.

My current plan is to first focus on getting my sleep schedule back under control. While I’m doing that, I’m also switching over to cooking again instead of eating out. I’m still heading out for lunch, but the salads at Chicken Out are replacing the sandwiches at Chic-Filet. Once I have my sleep schedule back under control, I’ll start looking into breaking out the Wii Fit and get a work out routine going in the morning.

The BIOS flash is taking the form of rereading an old favorite of mine, The Tao of Pooh, by Benjamin Hoff. The book is an attempt to explain philosophical Taoism using the stories of Winnie the Pooh as examples. I first came across the book when it was given to me as a gift on my 18th birthday, along with All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten, by Robert Fulghum. The two books combined served as major mile markers in my life, separating my adolescent self from my young adult self.

I can’t remember when I last did a full reread of Pooh, but it has to have been over 10 years ago. Considering all of the changes that have happened in that time span, I’m actually kind of surprised I waited this long. I guess my navigation subsystems were more screwed up then I thought.

Rereading it now though has been kind of eye opening. For one, I knew this book had had a profound impact on shaping who I am, but I was not quite prepared to realize that it is, in many ways, the underlying foundation of my software design philosophies. How I gather requirements, how I prioritize those requirements, how I design a solution, all stem from ideas that I first encountered in this book. I wonder if that’s why I’ve been getting a little restless these days with my coding? Now that I’m just a coder and I’m separated from the client, I’ve lost that compass point. It also makes me wonder, exactly what would a Taoist ETL process look like? I’m going to have to think on that one.

For now I breath, smile, try not to fight unnecessary battles, and just try to enjoy life again. I can occasionally see glimpses of the man I used to be, but I’m not him anymore and I need to find out who I am now. Right now, that involves building new habits that don’t involve smoking and do involve healthy eating and more movement then in the past. It also involves finishing the Tao of Pooh and either picking up Kindergarten for a reread or something else to keep myself mindful of where my head is at.

As part of the RPG fitness thing, we had to pick a character class based on our goals for the next three months. I picked the Monk class since I was more concerned with my eating habits then anything else. Given everything else though, I think it fits.

Before getting into the guts of this though, there’s an idea that I want to float that’s been bouncing around in my head for awhile and that plays into this. For its 30+ year history, the personal computer has been tied to work. It was originally designed as a tool to be used in the office and it is still mainly seen as a tool to be used to do work. Whether that work is job related, school related, or even hobby related, computers are still primarily seen as a tool to be used for work. The idea that we can use computers to play music, to watch movies/TV, or to play video games; has only existed for the past handful of years and even then, people tend to view the ability to do work as a crucial component of what a computer is about.

Several years ago Alan Kay made the observation that the real revolution in printing was not undertaken by Gutenberg and his peers, but by the generations that came afterwards. Generations who took the printing press for granted and were not tied to the old ideas of what it meant to create a document. We’re starting to see the birth of this new view of computers now, but we are still beholden to the old ideas of what a computer is and what it is supposed to do.

I mention all of this because it appears to me that Apple gets this. And commenting on Apple’s products with out this understanding is missing the point of what Apple appears to be doing. While they have made some allowances to the old mindset of what a computer should be, they seem to have focused their strategy on the computer as a tool for entertainment. The best example of this is in the central role that the iTunes Store has taken in their offerings. Even beyond that though, compare the central role that MS Office has in the Microsoft list of offerings to the role that iWork has in the Apple set of offerings. Wednesday aside, one could be forgiven if they had forgotten that Apple even had an office suite. And the thing is, considering most of Apple’s success has come since this shift in strategy was taken, an argument can be easily made that Apple has hit on an idea that resonates with consumers.

—————-

The biggest issue I have with Wednesday’s announcement was that it confused the message. Apple has set themselves up as the company that builds computers that aren’t about work. It then tied one of the most anticipated product launches of its existence, with an announcement of a new version of iWork. This was a huge mistake. The key reason that tablets have never caught on is because they suck as work machines. By announcing a new version of iWork at the same time as the iPad, Apple has just reminded everyone that tablets suck at doing work. This was a huge blunder on Apple’s part. There should have been no mention at all of work during that announcement. They should have focused exclusively on content providers, 3rd party development, and overall experience. (the chair was a nice touch though)

—————-

A lot of comparisons have been made between the iPad and the iPhone. From a technical point of view this makes sense, but outside of that technical view, I’m not so sure. I’d actually be more inclined to compare it to the iPod, then the iPhone.

If you think back to when the iPod first came out, the most surprising thing about it was that it wasn’t that special. In the beginning it had two things of note about it. It was made by Apple, who had no history in this kind of market. And it was one of the most expensive players on the market. That was it.

This isn’t a situation that is that much different then the iPad. On paper there is no reason to own an iPad. It doesn’t do anything, beyond some bells and whistles, that can’t already be accomplished with either a laptop or a mobile computer, both of which are products that Apple makes.

When you look at the success of the iPod there are two major factors that come up.

1) The iPod had an interface that is intuitive and easy to use, when many mp3 players could be somewhat kludgy and cumbersome to use. This was the companies initial selling point. You could pick up an iPod, and with a few clicks and twists of the dial, you were listening to what you wanted to listen to.

2) Then came the iTunes music store, and Apple changed the way the average person bought music. They weren’t the first to use this model, but they refined it and they had the clout to bring the major content owners to the table when they didn’t want to.

Now the iPad has something that the iPod didn’t. It has the hype that goes along with having that Apple logo. Early adopters won’t be an issue, but the prolonged growth that the iPad will need to escape the AppleTV gravity well will require Apple providing something unique in the product that helps to define it in the minds of consumers. As I said, currently there is no reason to buy an iPad. Apple needs to create that need.

—————-

In someways I see the iPad as the current embodiment of Apple’s move from seeing computers as tools for work, to seeing them as tools for entertainment. As I see it, it is the ultimate casual computer. The computer you reach for when you want to surf the web, read casual emails, watch videos, or casually game. Where I tend to view laptops or desktops living in an office of sorts (whether that is a physical office, or a dinning room table/kitchen counter that doubles as an office when you want to pretend you’re not the kind of person who has an office). The iPad I see more as living on a coffee table or night stand or where ever the hell you left it the last time you used it. It’ll be interesting to see if it actually plays out that way or not.

First up was Nerdapalooza. To say this fest was amazing feels like a horrible understatement. A revelation? Yeah, that sounds about right. If you are interested at all in geeky/nerdy music, consider it a moral imperative to hit this fest. The longer you wait, the harder you’ll kick yourself that you waited so long. I’m already jonesing hard for next year.

Right about the time that I was finally clearing my head from NP, it was time to start getting my shit together for Floydfest. Floydfest is a modern representation of a scene that I was fully immersed in at the end of the 90s. I wondered off for a number of years, but I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to get back into this scene for the last year or two. Floydfest wasn’t my ticket back, but it was a welcome reminder of why I loved this scene so deeply. A beautiful reminder of how much raw magic can exist in music that comes from the heart. I wasn’t in the best place when this fest started, but after the first set, I felt like I was home.

Unfortunately, after getting rained on several times during the fest, I came home with a cold. By the time I kicked that, MD was in the middle of August, my arch nemesis. August and I do not get a long during the best of times. For those who’ve never experienced a mid atlantic August before, it is oppressively hot and muggy, full of days where breathing unfiltered air is literally hazardous to your health. This summer luckily has been pretty mild, but I’ve still been fighting a horrible mood for most of the month. Its that time of year when I’m just not happy with much of anything.

I came home from NP with a renewed sense of urgency to listen to geeky/nerdy music. I heard so much great shit that weekend that I wanted to just soak it all up and get caught up on all the crap I’ve missed. Floydfest kind of derailed me when I came home with over a dozen CDs (one of the best things about volunteering at the merch tent? Getting comped CDs when the bands do well). I’m trying to get back in the groove though, and here are a couple of the things that I’ve been picking through. A lot of this stuff is old news to folks who are up to speed, but I need to get back into writing so I’ll start here.

First up, while there was a ton of great sets at NP, one of the ones that just came out of left field and grabbed me was the Scrub Club showcase. Its kind of odd, because it wasn’t one of the sets that grabbed me right then and there, but it was one of the sets that I’ve found myself thinking about the most since. So, when I finally got back on track, they were one of the first places I hit. I’m still making my way through their catalog (all of which is free by the way), but there’s some pretty good shit here. Considering the cost, I recommend checking them out. Especially check out Doc Awkward’s Next Gen EP which is just insanely good. Awk was probably the biggest breakout star of NP, and this EP shows exactly why.

Speaking of Scrub Club, they’re running a beauty pageant style competition right now to find the next Scrub Club member. The first challenge involved each artist writing a brand new track that show cased who they were and what they’re about. The tracks can be found here. Each artist has their own thread and there’s some damn good talent there. Also of interest to new MCs, each track is critiqued by the judges. I’m not an MC myself, but I imagine those threads could be a treasure trove of good advice. I need to give the tracks a few more listens before I officially pick my favorite (not to mention check out other tracks from them), but at the moment I’m going to go with MC Diabeats, since she’s local. I do feel compelled to say that 3rr0r got fucking robbed! He wasn’t the best, but in my mind, he wasn’t the guy that should’ve been cut. I’ll keep my mouth shut on who I thought should have been cut though. To each their own, and its Scrub Club’s ball, so I’ll let them play the game as they want.

One of those cool little moments at NP came the last night, after the festival ended when I got a chance to just hang out and shoot the shit with a bunch of different folks (according to some notes I scribbled, the crowd included MC_Loki, Starf, 3rr0r, killsaly, and a couple of other folks). At one point, Loki was passing around a set of headphones and letting people check out a track that he was working on with MC Diabeats. The mix was rough and the vocals were a little off, but I remember digging the track. Well, it seems the track has been finished up and Loki threw it out on the Scrub Club boards. You can find the track here. The idea is a concept EP focusing on Vampire: The Masquerade. The whole thing is supposed to drop at some point in Sept. Given the opening single, I’m more then a little curious about what’s to come.

OK, this post is getting fucking long. I’ll wrap this up then with one last link. Its the most obvious one, but there’s a reason I’m putting it up. Go check out the new RhymeTorrents site. This sub board has all of the articles that were on the main page, which means it has links to all the albums and EPs that the site has announced. The reason that I’m mentioning this is because while I was reading this thread, which I need to fucking study later, I came across a comment from Super Dragon X. He was talking about how he’d wondered away from the boards for awhile and when he came back he was shocked at what he found. His gist was that the difference between the music being put out now, compared to what was put out just two or three years ago, is just fucking nuts. Everyone’s stepped up their game, and the scene is drawing in some new talent that is just flat out amazing. If you picked up one of the first two or three RT comps and went ‘eh’ and wondered off, give this scene another shot. There’s still room to grow and evolve, but where before a handful of good artists drowned in a sea of shit that didn’t even rate as mediocre, the new community is one where quality work is much much easier to find and pick up on.

OK, that’s it. Hopefully I can get back to writing more shit.

So, Friday is the start of Nerdapalooza 2009. If you aren’t up on this fest, give the link a read and if there’s any chance you can make it over to Orlando by Saturday, I recommend it.

So after hearing about all the fun that Z had last year, I’ve decided to make the trip south myself to get in on the action. My original plans had me hanging out with Z for the weekend, but sadly life has gotten in the way and Z had to bail. Now that my plans to follow Z around like a lost puppy and leach on his nerd fame have been scrubbed I figured my next best option was to organize a little gathering.

Actually, I threw the idea out on Twitter earlier today and got a couple of nibbles and some serious encouragement from @freakapotimus, so I figured what the hell, lets see if we can pull this one off.

So here’s the situation.

The meet will occur on Saturday from 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM in or near the pool side bar. If it is raining, then we’ll do it in or near the Coral Key Lounge (the bar inside). This will allow those who wish to swim the chance to do that, and the rest (i.e. me) to at least, hopefully, get our drink on. The time will hopefully give those who want to hit all the music a chance to meet before the show starts, while still giving the late risers a chance to take part before things get going.

Of course, while it might be fun to watch all of you try to find each other during the allotted time with no help, let’s make it easy for you. This is what you’re looking for… me.

I’m not an easy guy to miss. 6’2″, about 300 lb., short brown hair, glasses, and answer to the name Matt. I’ve had a couple of people look at me and automatically assume that I used to play linebacker in high school (I didn’t, but I kind of have that linebacker gone to pot thing going on). I’ll be wearing either blue jeans or cargo shorts. I’ll also be wearing a t-shirt that says “geek” on the front (see shirt here). I promise to be at the above spot by 11 and promise to stick around until at least 1. If its sunny, I’ll be at the pool, in the general area of where ever the liquor is. If it’s raining, then I’ll be inside, in the general area of where ever the liquor is.

If you think you’d be interested in joining in on this little meet and greet, leave a comment below letting me know that you’re up for it and may be an idea of what you look like so I can keep an eye open for you. You may also want to follow me on twitter. I’ll make sure I post any updates to that feed, including while I’m at the fest. While I’ll be posting though, unless you can DM me, I’m probably not going to see anything you send to me on Twitter. I have a normal phone, so I’m just getting texts.

OK, I think that’s it. If you have any questions, let me know. My plane doesn’t leave until Friday night, so I’ll check back at this site until at least 5 PM EST on Friday. If the hotel has free wi-fi, then I’ll see about checking on things in my room.

If you’re familiar with Joe Prichard at all, it is probably as the front man, and primary songwriter, of the Morgantown, WV outfit The Recipe. Through out the mid to late 90s, The Recipe were the musical equivalent of that ball from Katamari Damacy, scooping up new fans every where they played. The band’s sound was a mix of traditional Appalachian mountain music and Joe’s unrepentant love of the Beatles and 60s brit pop. While usually lumped in with the jamband scene, the group eschewed long jams in favor of songs that were instantly in your head, easy to sing along with, and, most importantly, damn fun to dance around to. It was this mix which was at the center of the Recipe phenomenon.

Unfortunately, while the 90s were very good to the band, this decade was less so. Shortly after the decade started the band lost female vocalist Kristen Wolverton, whose larger then life personality was a big part of the Recipe identity. They quickly rebounded from this though by picking up Julie Edlow to fill Kristen’s slot and began the process of rebuilding their momentum. Before they could really get themselves back on track though, the band stumbled with a long series of line-up changes, owing in large part to their relentless touring schedule. The band limped along for a couple more years, eventually cutting back on touring, before finally calling it quits in ’07 with Joe as the sole original member left in the group. The band still occasionally plays now and then and still puts on their Recipe Family Cookout festival at Nelson Ledges in OH, but no longer tours.

Just Play the Damn Song is Joe’s first album since officially dissolving The Recipe, and it’s an interesting continuation of his career as a song writer. While The Recipe’s sound was a mix of Appalachia and England, it tended to skew more towards Appalachia, especially later on in its life. With his first solo album, Joe seems to be pushing the mix in the other direction. There is little of the fast breaks and flat picking that one might expect from a song writer who grew up in WV. Instead there’s more of a roots rock feel that is informed by 60s pop and a definite Beatles influence. Since the album is a Joe Prichard solo affair, instead of the work of a fixed band, the arrangements are allowed to shift to what the song needs, though they tend to focus on guitars, bass, and drums, with a little keys and percussion here and there as accents. Smartly Joe’s kept one of the best things about the Recipe sound though, its focus on the rhythm. While the Appalachia:England mix has changed, Joe is still writing great songs that aren’t just easy to dance to, but almost compel you to move.

While the album changes the formula a bit, Joe isn’t making a total break from his past. The album features a handful of tracks that debuted as Recipe songs, a couple of which were even recorded by The Recipe, but the new takes, while echoing their original versions and being the closest Joe comes to mimicking the Recipe sound, also seem to have something a bit different about them.

The result of all of this is a very strong first effort that puts Joe’s song writing up front. Given Joe’s history, it probably would have been easy for him to put together an album that included some great pickers and really celebrated the Appalachian sound. Instead, Joe is standing alone on this album for better or worse. If you like this album, you will want to pay attention to Joe’s work. If not, then may be this isn’t for you, as crazy as I may think you are.

The underlying sense I get from this album is that of a song writer, faced with having to stand on his own in the wake of his band’s break up, returning to his roots and rediscovering why it is he’s doing this. I’m not sure how much of this is me having gotten to know Joe years ago, but I just get the feeling that he’s having a lot of fun with this album. Listening to some of these songs, I can almost picture that grin of his.

The Recipe were never a band that tried to be anything that they weren’t. They played the music they liked, free of pretension. For me, that was always the most obvious expression of their Appalachian roots. They were part of a tradition that saw music as a part of life. A reason for people to come together and enjoy themselves. They were not a band that was concerned with being rock stars, just paying the rent and the bills. Joe’s mixed up the formula with his first solo album, but that central drive, not of stardom, but of just playing music people will enjoy, is still obvious.

I would especially recommend this album to fans of the Wizard Rock group The Remus Lupins. The sound is a little fuller, with a more roots rock flavor to it, but there are more then a few similarities between the two groups, owing in large part to both band’s obvious debt to the Beatles. For non WRockers, I’d recommend this to anyone with a fondness for late 60s, very early 70s, roots rock music. The Band or The Byrds, might be good touch stones, but with a more meaty sound.

While they aren’t the best representations of the fleshed out versions of the songs you’ll hear on the album, here are two video clips of Joe doing two songs from the album live.

Down With Hollywood

Get Back Down

The initial idea for this mix was to do two mixes, each about 45 minutes in length (the length of one side of a 90 minute tape). The first would be labeled Saturday Night and have some fun tracks to move around to. The second would be labeled Sunday morning, and would be kind of a modern riff on the programming that they used to have on Sunday’s on the DC NPR station WAMU. Before the station slipped into copy cat NPR land, Sunday’s were dedicated to mountain music. A mix of country fried gospel, old school Country and Western, and a whole bunch of string band music thrown in for good measure. It was a great way to start off a nice relaxed Sunday. And the perfect music to sooth that little hang over that served to remind you of the depravity of the night before. Alas, I could just never get Sunday to come together like I wanted, and I’m still casually working on that one. So, you only get Saturday Night, and while there’s a little religion in this mix, you’re pretty much on your own for saving your soul.

Saturday Night (a love note to the rhythm section)- a mix from free-geek.
(note: The link to the file is at the bottom of that page, under the ad, if the download doesn’t work for you, try again later. If someone knows of a better free service, please let me know)

Hello Bonjour – Michael Franti & Spearhead – Yell Fire!
Franti’s an artist who typically takes repeated listens before I can really get into his tracks. And even then, there’s some tracks I love and others that strike me as just OK. Backed by none other then Sly & Robbie, one of the most famous and respected rhythm sections in reggae, I knew this track was going to be fun. And it delivers in spades. I dare you to stand still while listening to this track. And since it’s at the beginning of the mix, you can easily hit rewind over and over again.

Chop ‘Em Down – Matisyahu – Live at Stubb’s
When Matisyahu first popped up he was a bit of a novelty. A Hasidic Jew singing reggae? Surely this was some kind of joke. This live version of Chop ‘Em Down shows why no one thinks he’s a joke anymore and if you still think he’s a novelty, you’ve obviously not heard him. Where Franti brought the politics that so commonly peppers reggae tunes, Matisyahu brings the religion that is just as important.

33 RPM – John Brown’s Body – Spirits All Around Us
After the politics of Franti, and the religion of Matisyahu, it seemed only fitting to close out the reggae portion of this mix (or Act 1 as I like to think of it), by turning inward with this JBB track about the healing power of throwing on the headphones and loosing yourself in your favorite music. Plus, the bass hook in this track is just mesmerizing. If the rest of the song was crap, that bass line would keep me coming back. The fact that the rest of the track is equally as strong just makes it that much better.

No Clothes On – All Mighty Senators – Raw Power Live
Opening up the second act of this little play, you need a track that really makes a mark. I decided to go with the Baltimore, MD institution known as the All Mighty Senators. Fronted by Baltimore’s own super hero Landis Expandis, AMS have been gigging since the mid to late 80s. No Clothes On is an older track that gives you a taste of what a Senators show can be, but don’t be fooled, this is a band that must be seen to be believed.

Hey Good Lookin – The Bomb Squad – Sophistafunk
After the Senators I was tempted to pull out one the Bomb Squads scorching high energy funk tracks. Instead though, I decided to throw in a little curve ball action by going with this more low key number. The old bump and sway is still there though and this is a great track off the band’s first album, back when they were still fronted by the great Jen Durkin.

Stop The Bus – Grace Potter and the Nocturnals – This Is Somewhere
Of course, going with the low key Bomb Squad track also gave me a nice set up to move the mix into Act 3, the bluesy act. Here we have the wonderful Grace Potter and the Nocturnals with a track off their second album. I’ve got to say that there are some tracks on this album that don’t really grab me, but that’s in part because the tracks that do grab me do it just so damn well that “good” just seems like an insult. Stop The Bus is a great example of this, with a great bass line that locks the track down and gives it the slink that it needs to underline Grace’s lyrics.

Drop Down Mama – The North Mississippi Allstars – Shake Hands With Shorty
This was probably the hardest track to place on the entire mix. I knew I wanted a NMA track on the album, but which one!? NMA is one of those bands that look so good on paper, you’re sure they aren’t going to have anything where it counts. A power-trio lineup that includes two of Jim Dickinson‘s sons, and that used to include Duwayne Burnside, son of famed blues man, RL Burnside, on second guitar. The fact that they play so well that you forget all of that, is just short of amazing. Drop Down Mama is an electric jook joint number that gets your toe tapping about 3 seconds after it got your ass shaking. Another track that I dare you stand still to. And seriously, if you ever get the chance to see these guys live. For the love of god, do it! You’ll thank me later.

I Need More Love – Robert Randolph & The Family Band – Unclassified
If Drop Down Mama is the jook joint on a Saturday night, Randolph is church on Sunday morning. That is if Sly Stone was the preacher. Slide guitarist Randolph originally came to his instrument via the sacred steel musical tradition that’s associated with the House of God church. I’m not even going to pretend I’m familiar with that tradition, but there is a definite ecstatic joyful noise to the man’s music. As mentioned earlier, the most obvious touch stone for the Randolph is Sly Stone and the Family Stone (nope, I don’t think the name thing is just a coincidence). I Need More Love is a pretty solid introduction to the man’s music; funky, fun, positive and sure to put a smile on your face almost as wide as Randolph’s.

That’s What Love Will Make You Do – Little Milton – Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration
Since I decided to impose upon myself the old 45 minute time limit that has defined so many mix tapes, I ran into one of the hardest decisions there is. What is going to be the last song you pick for inclusion in the mix? While this isn’t the last song per say, it was the last one I picked. It needed to fit into the over all vibe of the tape, and had to be the right length. To long, and I’ll miss the time restraint. To short, and you end up leaving a ton of dead air on the tape. Luckily, when I picked through my iTunes catalog I noticed a collection I’d downloaded off eMusic of old tracks from the venerable Stax Records. And sure enough, Little Milton doing the classic That’s What Love Will Make You Do, filled the void perfectly. It has enough swing to sit along side Robert Randolph and hold its own, but it also has enough blues to remind us that we’re still in the bluesy third act of this little mix. Beyond that, its a great take on a great song that was released on a great label. What the hell more do you want then that?

One Step Closer To You – Michael Franti & Spearhead – Yell Fire!
I know it is a sin of mix tapes to include two tracks from one artist. And I know that two tracks from the same album makes it even worse. That said, I thought there was a nice symmetry to ending as we began. And after the third act, I thought this track might offer a nice counter point. Sometimes after being blown away by a hot band at a club, something nice and chill just hits you perfectly. For me, and how I was envisioning this little mix, One Step Closer hits the mark, both in vibe and message.

So that’s it folks. 10 tracks of fun. I hope you enjoyed it and came away with some new tips on groups/albums that you want to check out. As I said above, if you dig this and would like to hear more, leave a comment below. I have been accused of having widely eclectic tastes in music, so who knows what the next mix will end up like.