The Latest Single from the Dirtbombs...

Above is our side of a split-single with Fucked Up that was released as part of our participation on the 2012 Bruise Cruise.

The song was recorded live at the Southpaw in Brooklyn at CMJ in 2007. It starts with a few seconds of silence with the idea of messing with the listener to turn up their stereo in confusion. You have been warned.

We ended the set with this piece and as we walked offstage someone, probably Troy, commented on how the whole thing sounded like something by Can. Thus came the inspiration behind the song title.

Here's what I wrote at the time of the performance on this very blog...

"The highlight of the show, the weekend and (in my opinion) the entire year was the way we ended “Theme From the Dirtbombs.” What usually descends into schloppy noise gunk somehow caught onto a wicked loop that we chewed on for near-on four solid minutes. I thought it kinda sounded like Can krautrock mixed with A-Frames atonality. I was playing my fucking balls off, hitting the drums as hard as I could after already playing for over an hour. It was a stuttered, Mitch Mitchell wannabe beat coupled with Mick’s effected, Mission of Burma guitar slashes and similar wickedness from Pat, Troy and Ko. The whole time we were locked in all I could think was “I can’t be the one to stop. I can’t be the one to fuck up.” It was SO-DAMN-INTENSE! And in the end, no one did either. While an internal test of wills, we were able to commence together and stumble offstage, wholly pooped. I felt a level of self-accomplishment that I’ve never really experienced before. We did an encore, but the show was made with that ending."

Repost. Download (hell, we ain't seeing any money from it). And most of all...share.

Thoughts Upon Viewing Detroit From an Undetermined Altitude...

(note: this piece originally appeared in a Detroit-based publication called Hablo and anyone who emails a photo of themselves holding a copy of the mag gets a prize. The theme of this inaugural issue was "the city")

I don't have time to die.

Almost as if it were taunting me, my 6-year-old PowerBook crashed on me four consecutive times after writing that sentence. When I was a child, I remember getting myself all worked up, frightened really, trying to wrap my head around the concept that there will be a point when I will cease to exist. These fits would almost exclusively happen at night while trying to lull myself to sleep. The cathexis of it all was unnerving. All I could think about was that someday my body will be in a box in the ground and I will have no control over it. Tangible being will be no more and I've got no evidence other than "hope" for an afterlife. This is absolutely the scariest fucking thing I can ever imagine.

Everything residing in my memory…high school locker combinations, unspoken sing-song rhymes created in the mind but never uttered , fleeting flag football moments captured like flickering 8mm films in my brain…all of these vaguely unimportant and somewhat indescribable things, if not documented in a tangible medium (whether a recording or a writing or perhaps a photograph) will wholly disappear. Upon deeper thought, no matter how many books you write or pictures you take, more of your life, your story, your everyday being will die with you than could ever possibly be left behind. While folks like Abraham Lincoln or Marilyn Monroe have been studied and written about ad nauseum, it seems we will only ever know or see portrayed a shell of the full existence they truly embodied. And these are people who lived pretty public lives. For someone as insignificant as myself who cares deeply about history, information and archiving, this is patently depressing.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about death and how I simultaneously feel, hope and fear that it will come unexpected. This evening I dropped my wife off for an evening with her girlfriends. I'd recently returned from the gym so was wearing a classily threadbare t-shirt, nouveau preppie plaid shorts and a Hockey Night in Canada hoodie. After saying goodbye to her and blowing a kiss, I lumbered into my 1998 Mercury Sable and made the short trip back home. I couldn't avoid thinking about what would happen if I were to be completely blindsided at an intersection and died. At 11pm on a Wednesday evening, this is not how I would hope to leave the mortal plane, but it is by all means possible. How…embarrassing that would be.

I'm left thinking of the death of Amhet Ertegun…the aesthete founder of Atlantic Records was backstage at a Rolling Stones concert in 2006, slipped and fell, suffered a closed-head injury and was gone not long after that. The series of events made me extremely cautious of where I stepped, but also nervously aware of the fact that I could go at any moment. If someone as smooth as Amhet could go in such a gauche way, what hope did I have? As much as I'd like to consider myself prepared, I'm not always dressed for the occasion. And I'd rather not draw out the process too much as it seems a little…needy.

But oh the random loose ends! Who would assemble the CD shelf I'd picked up earlier in the evening? Who would email that MP3 I promised to a friend? These are things that at one time, before death, I was clearly the best-qualified candidate for these jobs. With me gone, how will these bozos ever figure anything out? Who would understand or comprehend the significance of boxes of random, disparate shit I have accumulated in my 29 years, as I've explained the filing/classification system to absolutely no one? Old war movies warned men to have their affairs in order before heading into the shit overseas and that seems pragmatic, but how are regular people (ie, everyone I know) busy living modern lives, supposed to accomplish that? A will can only do so much, and if you've got no real money or assets, what does it really achieve?

What can I do to prepare? Lately I've been trying to attack every pesky errand or task with vigor. I won't put it off because I can't trust it will get done were I gone. Tomorrow is already jam packed replacing the fuse for my dashboard display light. Emails that usually linger in the inbox for days while I conjure up the perfectly laconic response are now confronted head-on, day-of even. And the more I do this, the more it seems I have time to do other things I want to do, like writing this or listening to music, two former givens that are now considered high luxuries.

Even still, there are still nights where my mind fixates on the concept of no longer existing. I do the math based on life expectancy for males and try to figure out where exactly significant fractions (1/3, 1/2) of my total days will land. I wonder how much my wife would cry. As someone so crazily interested in every last thing encompassing my life, the cruel reality of not truly being able to quantify the ending of it is such a smack in the face.

In spite of this, all I can really do is to try and block it out of my mind and make known the truly transcendent moments. Flying back to Detroit from Nashville, solo, for my wedding. Feeling guilty for splurging on a First Class ticket. The flight path takes us further north than I would think necessary. Looking out my window I feel as if we're on top of Belle Isle. With some effort I can spot the top of a house where I slept and spent much time. There will be no reason for me to ever stay there again, but in that one moment, all the time spanned in that brick enclosure, that building that someday will be gone just like all of us, the time spent there and the memories accrued emboldened my consciousness as if I'd inhaled the bouquet of unimaginable flowers, my mind pollinated by the infusion. The feeling wasn't happiness or sadness; it was simply a heretofore never-experienced realization, as if my brain had discovered an entirely new and original sensation that had not existed prior to my aerial sight of that row house.

To be able to express that above, to burn it into these pages here and survive for eons, coupled with the catharsis of pouring out these morbid meanderings has already sated my mind. Thinking back to when I was a scared, confused child, that peace of mind was all I was ever looking for anyway.

"Things We Left in the Fire" in new issue of Boat Magazine

Issue Two - See it Through from Boat Studio on Vimeo.

Boat Magazine is a new magazine that sets up shop in a specific city and focuses each individual issue on that particular city. Issue one was Sarajevo and featured work by Dave Eggers. Issue two settled in Detroit and features writing by Jeffrey Eugenides and myself, Ben Blackwell. I am pretty damn stoked to type that sentence, if you were wondering.

As for my article, here's what Erin (one of the fine folks behind Boat) had to say about it:

"And in the second issue of Boat Magazine we have an article called ‘Things We Left in the Fire’ by Ben Blackwell. He talks about how his mom’s house caught fire in Detroit and the difficulty he had sorting through the things that were there. He mentions the impressions of his feet in the cement sidewalk as a little baby and the baseball cards he left in the attic. It’s amazing how, years on, he can still remember the things that he left behind."

(I was known by my initials for the first eight years of my life. The impression was done when I was four months old)

I know I briefly touched on the subject of the house fire here on the blog a couple of years back, but this piece focuses more so on the aftermath of the incident and the utter confusion it brought about. Please buy many copies here...

http://www.boat-mag.com/?page_id=512

The Interesting Intersection of Sports and Music...

It's taken me awhile to come to terms with the veritable distance between the worlds of sports and music. I don't need to be reminded that Detroit Lions Mel Farr and Lem Barney sang backing vocals on Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" (and that Gaye actually tried out for the Lions) or that Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott (both San Francisco 49er's at the time) sang backing vocals on Huey Lewis' "Hip to Be Square" with equally as successful results. It's more complicated than that (and yes, I know Lewis also had an album titled Sports).

As a precocious pre-teen, I saw absolutely no difference in the inherent coolness of Sportscenter hosts like Craig Kilborn or guitarists like Kurt Cobain. They were both, in their own way, edgy, ironic, subversive and mind-expanding to a kid like me traipsing easily through the path of middle school.

While I've spoken a lot about my thoughts on Cobain, it's worth noting that I wanted to be a sportscaster way before I ever wanted to play music. Kilborn, along with other hosts like Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann, seemed to love what they were doing and make it look effortless. As an adolescent, it was clear to me that I could do that. And it seemed way more achievable or attainable than being a musician.

(a recent visit to http://www.sportscenteraltar.com/phrases/extract.asp has me belly-laughing reminded of all the brilliant catch-phrases these guys came up with)

I also want to relay the story of a little bit Kilborn once did. It went something like this (I am paraphrasing)...

"Everyone remembers getting their first baseball mitt. For most folks your dad bought it for you, maybe some of you it was your mom. For me it was the older man who lived down the street who lived by himself and didn't have a wife or kids. He just really enjoyed giving presents to the kids in the neighborhood."

When the White Stripes debuted on national television on The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn in July 2001 I happened to run into him in the hallway. Neither Jack or Meg or anyone else in the crew would end up even meeting the guy. I told him what a big fan I was and also repeated the story above. "Oh yeah, I remember that...we got a lot of angry phone calls about that one."

But for me, by the time I hit high school, it felt like I could play/enjoy sports or be really into rock and roll. Those two paths, in my opinion, failed to intersect at any point. While seemingly benign, Kurt Cobain's excoriation of so-called "jocks" in interviews and more-specifically the book Come As You Are was all the indication I needed that the "rocks" weren't hip to that scene, in spite of any inroads made with MTV's annual Rock'n'Jock softball challenge.

(side note: current Milwaukee Brewer Prince Fielder caught the final out of one of these Rock'n'Jock games. I played against Prince in PAL -Police Athletic League- baseball around this same time and remember thinking he wasn't anything special. Clearly my scouting skills have a ways to go)

(side note 2: a live quote from Cobain seems to sum it up succinctly: "I spent all of my life trying to stay away from sports and here I am in a sporting arena.")

Luckily for me, as my interest and skill in sports waned, my interest and involvement in music increased. The prime illustration of this point is that while I played soccer for all four years in high school, I actually skipped my final game (against Lutheran East High School…I believe a fight broke out) in order to rehearse with the band I'd just joined, Hell's Belles.

Sports had become too competitive, too serious and too draining. I never was a fan of conditioning or off-season work and at my high school, that shit was taken very seriously. I played baseball my freshman year, but felt that because I didn't play on the right travel team (travel baseball, an insidious world of backstabbing and intensity I wish upon no one) or wasn't one of the Italian buddies of the coach that I was kept from playing while I had legitimate skills. The situation reeked of politics and punk rock couldn't have been further from that structure.

So the subsequent years entailed my general disregard for anything remotely athletic coupled with the absolute zealous fervor consuming all things garage, rock, and roll. It was only once I hit the vague maturity of 25 or so that I realized the worlds of sports and music are not mutually exclusive.

Things like Stephen Malkmus referencing Bobby Abreu's legendary 2005 Home Run Derby showing in the liner notes to a Pavement reissue. That seemed...odd to me. Like something that just wasn't done. Or curiously noticing that folks in the band Weird War being SUPER into NBA basketball and even being in a fantasy league with guys from the Walkmen, a band who took it a step further and even sponsored a youth basketball team for a season (still one of the coolest things I've ever heard a band doing).

Or any number of the writings of Chuck Klosterman, whether it be subtle nuances in his writings about music/pop culture or his outright coverage of things like the Super Bowl or Final Four. I'd even referenced here before Klosterman tackling the topic of football strategy in Eating the Dinosaur that actually fascinated me in a way that only records or musical esoterica ever had.

This all manifests itself exquisitely in a piece Klosterman wrote titled "Three-Man Weave."

I will not even attempt to try and describe this thrilling piece and instead say that if you trust me at all, even the tiniest bit, you should read it.

It was with this piece I became aware of the website Grantland.com, a site owned by ESPN but seemingly tailor-made for someone like myself who enjoys sports but is patently put off by the tone and approach offered by ESPN, it's eight off-shoot channels and all-around sports coverage in general.

(my interest in Grantland also been buoyed by the recent successes achieved by the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions, as hometown connections always make it a little easier for me to be interested in just about anything)

Grantland takes on sports and sporting without the traditional tone or demeanor and almost comes off as a less-snobby Pitchfork for the sports world. And while I sincerely despise Pitchfork and its "taste" I avidly read the site as it is essentially Indie Rock News where I can catch up on the latest tourdates, releases, gossip and bullshit. For informing me factually, Pitchfork cannot lose. For informing me taste-wise, Pitchfork perpetually loses.

At this point, I am reading Grantland as often as I read Pitchfork and it feels exciting.

The overall feeling I'm left with amidst all of this is that sports and rock and roll do co-exist in much of the same atmosphere. What Cobain got wrong was his blanket accusations of "jocks", ie, athletes. The problem does not reside within the athlete, it lies within the jock-mentality, which surprisingly, many athletes do not have. That jock, bully, overly-competitive attitude is wholly gross in just about every facet of culture except (sometimes) in sports. In any other environment, you'd just look like a right dick.

Again, for one of the best things I've read in quite some time, check out "Three-Man Weave" here. I do not recommend very often and do not do so lightly.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6625899/three-man-weave

A Brief Exercise in Self-Humility...

Start the video at 1:30 if you're patient, 3:10 if you like music.

This footage was shot on July 4th, 2003 at the Magic Stick. It was a glorious day in Detroit rock history. Young Soul Rebels record store (now only existing in memories and a fair amount of t-shirts across the globe) had their grand opening a few doors down from the Stick and I was proud to be their first paying customer, $1 for a 1 1/4" badge of the San Francisco punk band Crime.

Later that day the Dirtbombs would play a wind-besieged set at the TasteFest in the New Center area that marked Ko's first-ever appearance as an actual member of the band.

To top the evening off was the Young Soul Rebel's launch party. I don't remember the specifics of how it all came about, but I know that Brian Muldoon and I, affectionately known as the Science Farm, had been enlisted to play. I'd brought my own amp. Not long before we were supposed to play Jack arrived. I don't know if we asked him to play or he asked us if he could. Regardless, all three parties agreed to the idea of covering "Louie, Louie."

The big bad "secret" about the whole thing is that I then didn't know how to play guitar. Still don't. I've no idea what chords are called or what key things are in. I just try to play what it sounds like and usually fail miserably. So to involve Jack in the whole thing made me feel a little guilty.

(after the fact Brian said we probably should've just done "Looking at You" by the MC5 and I couldn't agree more)

At 4:02 I let Jack take a verse and just make stupid noise on my guitar the entire time. I'm totally acting like a dipshit.

At 4:36 see Marty Morris of the Cyril Lords and SSM be so kind as to pick-up and re-set the mic stand I'd so callously dropped to the floor.

At 4:41, please help me understand why I am wearing such baggy jeans. I would say this time would be the skinniest in my adult life, but that's still no excuse. Why did I choose to eat away my babyface?

At 5:20, I pay respect to the Cramps

At 5:46 I've eschewed the guitar and it's clear that my singing is not my strong suit either

At 6:17 "Thanks for nothing"

Brian starts an original song at 6:25 that was basically titled "I Could Be Jesus Christ and You'd Just Ask Me For a Glass of Ice"

Brian told me afterwards that he couldn't hear a damn thing. All things considered, he does an impressive job of keeping up.

At 8:41, I must admit, that guitar swinging is kinda impressive

At 9:20 another original song, "Nails in My Brain" (inspired by the Mistreaters' "Santa Stole My Baby") Brian loved this one

10:39 "Dirt" by the Stooges. My goal was just hitting guitar strings with the right timing, I didn't really notice or care what notes they made.

12:00 slamming the neck of the guitar into the mic stand...pretty cool

12:59 Marty Morris offers me his PBR. I pour it out over the neck of my guitar and toss it behind me. What a dick.

The video cuts out at 13:25 and it's probably for the best. Brian always said his goal was to be in a band that would clear rooms and I think we just about accomplished that.

There's other videos of Brian and I playing together (including a 20+ minute version of "Sister Ray" and probably the Rock City Festival where we played an unusual number of songs with the digits 6 and 9 in the title) but the only copies of those are probably buried in my mom's basement or lodged in the wall of a burned out house on the east side of Detroit.

Still, there's something to be said about being 21 years old and absolutely fearless.

The Curious Case of History Repeating Itself in Detroit Rock and Roll…

As I look at Detroit rock and roll records more and more, the things all seem to blend together. At first I thought it was simply my brain being oversaturated with the stuff. But upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn't me...that a lot of this stuff really does repeat.

Let's start early with the Detroit Lion, John Lee Hooker, and his "I'm in the Mood" from 1951 as heard here:

Sixteen years later the MC5 would crib the lyrics of "I'm in the Mood" for their blistering song "I Just Don't Know"

And twenty-five years after that, the Gories cribbed the riff of "I Just Don't Know" for their own "48 Hours" (side note: this song was a reaction to Crypt Records honcho Tim Warren and his request that the band record more material for what would end up being their "Outta Here" album. The yelling on this is generally meant to get the message across that no album should take more than two days (48 hours) to record. The drawn out "dunh-dunh-dunh" combo manages to repeat twenty-one times, intended to serve as a twenty-one gun salute to the then-recently deceased Rob Tyner, lead singer of the MC5)

While a repeat in song titling alone, I think that Scott Campbell's "I'm Saving Myself for Angela Cartwright" from 1986 coupled with Mick Collins' and the Dirtbombs "I'm Saving Myself for Nichelle Nichols #3" were pretty cute together, even if otherwise unrelated.

(autographed!)

(not0graphed)

While we're on a Mick Collins roll here, let's not forget his publishing company name, one of the best in the biz if you ask me, South of 8 Mile Music (as visible in the scan above). While a clever way to declare Collins native Detroit status, one can't help but wonder if this was not a calculated response to Guido Marasco (of GM Studios in East Detroit, a suburb of the city and not a neighborhood) and his pub de guerre Nine Mile Music. The studios were located on Nine Mile Road after all.

(uh, Mysteriants? are you seriants?)

You want some more Mick gems? How about the title of the most recent Dirtbombs album:

(originally titled "Technocracy")

For comparison, how about this EP by Wendy Case's pre-Paybacks outfit Ten High:

(originally titled "We Call Soda 'Pop'")

But I've given Mick enough shit for a lifetime so let me start putting myself under the microscope. My record label, Cass Records, is not the first label to use that title. Check it out:

(b-side is anti-hippy garage protest song "Unworthy Americans" this was the only record released on the imprint, a subsidiary of Ecorse's Revival label)

If that's not enough, there was ANOTHER label called Cass from a seemingly undetermined time:

(no one knows nothing except Debra did two more singles on the label. Any help?)

I wish I could claim that being my only personal lift, but the more-obvious (and intended) backstory behind my label art as seen below...

was that I was royally inspired by the Italy design below. I was never trying to steal...I was sincerely paying homage. I was just lucky that there was actually a statue of the obscure Michigan politician I happened to want to depict on my label. Had I chosen the name Woodward Records not only would I be equally as unoriginal, I'd also have one lousy cartoon to work from.

Dave Buick once told me that the reasoning behind the "Lo-Fi Renaissance" tag-line was that when he was searching for images of Michelangelo's David sculpture to use on the label, he kept on running into it being referenced to as an example of the "high Renaissance" period. So he flipped the script.

But it's also possible that the label name on some of the records by the Colors (pre-Dirtbombs Pat Pantano) label Poe Records may have been an influence...

(quoth Pantano "speak of this nevermore")

Seeing as we've depicted a Hentchmen label above, let's talk about a great song by the Mutants called "So American" (pay attention to the first two words of the song AND their delivery)

The Mutants "So American" 1978 by cassdetroit

And now for the Hentchmen's 1994 jam "Chicks and Cars"

The Hentchmen "Chicks and Cars" by cassdetroit

Again in the label department, how about the Inkster label Mutt? Home to many a desirable soul singles and even an LP by a legitimate practioner of witchcraft!

(a better song title/band name combo has never existed)

And now for Rocket 455's own label, home to their debut single...

(some copies with free rocket launcher!)

And about ten years later, Eric Silvenis of D-Wrecked-Hit Records started doing weird one-off singles with one-off label names too, like...

This label actually gets triple points because it is also a take on Northern Records out of Detroit, (going back as far as 1959 and owned/operated by the female Johnnie Mae Matthews) and steals the idea of the letter "A" encased in a star from Astra Records...

(shoulda been called the Aqua-Nets, amirite?)

Hell, even band NAMES can conflict with each other, check out this power pop band from 1980

(if I have to explain this one to you just leave right now)

In the end, I really don't know how/why/if most of these artists were truly cognizant of the lineage of their forebears or not. A lot of times people just have the same good ideas completely independent/ignorant of others who'd had those exact same ideas. The best example of that I can give is below, as I know for a FACT that the first record cover was completely unknown to the folks behind the second one...

(audition? for what? it's your record James)

Feel free to post your own additions to the list in the comments, as well as critiques, tips (the money kind), advice for troubled teens and recipes for cooking kale.

Motor City Yearning #7

I didn't say it in the podcast, but I just really wanted to say here that Ted Lucas' "Plain and Sane and Simple Melody" is one of the most beautiful songs I have heard in a long time. I know all the words and sing them to myself quite often. I strongly urge you folks to check out the Ted Lucas album. It's so soft and soothing and generally easy...I've yet to find someone who hasn't fallen for it. Do yourself the favor. You will not be disappointed.

Motor city yearning 7 by cassdetroit