Category: update

We Are Back! I’m going to use this spot for a day-by-day summary of the trip. I’ll be doing updates, providing links to bands and photos, and editing as I go, so bear with me. Zappanale (the Europeans that we met say zappa-naal, while the americans seem to say zappa-naal-eee, go figure) was everything that I thought it could be, but to be honest it surpassed my expectations. I connected with so many fantastic musicians and fans, was humbled to be allowed share the bill and the stage with these wondeful and talented people, and saw Frank Zappa’s spirit in so many things. I’ll get right down to it with the next post.

That’s right! Doctor Dark,Connecticut’s best kept secret, will be travelling to Bad Doberan, Germany to expose themselves to a legion of music fans at the 16th annual Zappanale Festival. It runs from 8/5-8/7, features a lot of bands, and is a massive gathering dedicated to the life and music of Frank Zappa. Just being at the festival is enough of a reason to go. The organizers have invited the band to reprise their 2003 appearance. I am going to make an effort to post updates of the festival and our travels in the friendly confines of Germany and it’s neighboring environs. All I can tell you is this: it is going to be a hoot!

Featured Acts: NDR Bigband; Bogus Pomp; Guru Guru; Napolean Murphy Brock; Ike Willis; Paul Green School of Rock; a Bruce Bickford Film Party; The Grand Wazoo; Low Budget Orchestra; and more… See the Zappanale page and the Zappanale 16 Program link for the full listing.

So it finally happened: somebody with legal authority finally figured out that record labels were paying programming directors and other radio station employees for airtime. Who woulda thunk it? NY Attorney General Eliot Spitzer just got a $10M USD settlement out of SonyMusic Group for “payola”. The big bopper had nothing on the resources that a multinational empire like SONY can throw at a radio market.

This might be the worst kept dirty little secret in the history of the music bidnezz. Big record labels can’t take the chance that the crap they are tying to market will sell on its own merits. People might want to hear other, better, music. Or program directors might say “this song sucks, play ti at 2am-5am”. That is what they get paid by their employer to do.

The thing that really gets me is that while the record industry is blind to the effects of their market manipulation while they are constantly crying about piracy and sharing killing their bottom line. Maybe the fact that they are force-feeding subpar music to radio audiences has somethign to do with it. The bottom line may well be that their product sucks, is overly formulaic, devoid of real emotional content, and not something that the average consumer wants to lay out their hard earned money to own. BTW, you don’t own it. You are actually entering into a tangled legal web when you purchase music.

While this is a “good” thing in the short term, and some money will get channeled to music education programs as a result, I wouldn’t start expecting to see too much in the way of a sea-change in commercial radio.

Doctor Dark, in a quartet form, made the trip to Buffalo, NY for the weekend to play a gig with Zappa-philes Voice of Cheez. We were “hospitalitized” by the lovely and talented Kilissa Cissoko. After our 7 hour, 400+ mile road trip she hooked us up with some amazing “gumbo variations” with rice, and we got a bit of downtime before heading to Nietzsche’s for the gig. Nietzsche’s is a really great venue that I would love to have as my neighborhood hang. The folks there were the best, and major props to Kenny the soundguy for his patience and his bitchin’ coffee. Thanks, Kenny. And not least… “Hats Off” to PJ the doorman!

We had a pretty complete case of road trip exhaustion but gave it our all, and hope that the Beefheart freaks that stayed had a good time. We got a chance to listen to the board tape and it went a lot better than we thought. 1000 miles in the bag and we made some friends and heard VOC really kick ass on our favorite FZ music. These guys are *good*, really good.

I don’t know if anybody took pics. We had our hands full just making the road trip and didn’t manage to bring a camera. If you have any photographic evidence, send it along to us at doctordark@snet.net

Drummer/Percussionista Stephen Chillemi and I are playing at the Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, CT for a night of all duo acts. Steve will be on drum kit and I will be playing bass and looping, making funny noises…

Currently the lineup is the Sawtelles (without me), Lys Guillorn/Ryan Blessey, a band from Middletown/Weslyan (name?), and us. Should be a hoot! Friday 4/29 @ 8pm.

The Buttonwood Tree

Look for pics after the weekend

Well, we got a little action on Johnny “Handout” Rowland, and his guilty plea last week, As usual he loved burying his crimes in things like rah rah statements about all the “good” he has done, and things like slow news days and holidays. His Christmas surprise of 3,000 layoffs comes to mind. But to think that this chump didn’t get a handout from his fratboy in chief pal in the White House is to be naive. How do you figure that the Federal prosecutors have enough evidence to take his chiefs of staff (Ellef and Alibozek), Peter Ellef’s Son, and William Tomasso to trial, but somehow they take Rowland at his word that he was a patsy. Disgusting. I have a lot of respect for people like Nora Dannehy of the Fed, but I can’t believe that this was what they wanted.

I hope that the new year sees some way for the Stare of Connecticut to recoup some of the tens of millions of dollars wasted by John Rowland and his cabal of incompetents.

Go point one at the Democratic legislators in the 11 states that managed to get measures on the ballot banning gay marriage. If there was no strategist at the DNC that didn’t see this trap and move to stop it, then the entire staff should resign, en masse. My feelings are that the banning of gay unions (marriage is a religious institution, unions are a personal choice) is a setback for personal freedom in the land of the free, and can be framed as a simple gender discrimination issue. In fact I can’t think of another time in the modern (post-slavery, post-suffrage) era where a presidential candiaite ran on a platform of stripping citizens of rights and got popular support. The fact is that these referenda mobilized more bushies to go to the polls than any stump speech or campaign trail promise. Shame on the political weaklings that allowed this to pass.