Wednesday, September 30, 2009

INDEPENDENT ROCK IS A GOVERNEMENT CONSPIRACY DESIGNED TO DIRECTLY RECOLLECT THE STUDENT LOANS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS.


"I have no idea... I have no idea where I am. Where am I? This, this place is just, just blank. Its like the sweetest symphony played through a car horn on the edge of town where the gasoline runs off the tarmac and finds its way into a putting green. I have no idea, no idea, NO idea, NO IDEA, NO, IDEA, NO IDEA, NO IDEA. NO IDEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA."








SYMBOLISM AND RECURRING THEMES:
one - FUCK COPS
two - INDEPENDENCE
three - THE GHOST OF BRUCE WILLIS












I went to Nevada City sometime in the past. I think it was two weeks ago. All I have to do is click the upper right hand corner of my desktop to find out, but I'd rather keep on typing and just, like, rambling on and like talking about shit that happened, not this weekend but a couple weekends ago when I went to Nevada City and ate breakfast and stared at trees and roads and trees on roads, except whene we wemt t this tplace and dd I foujdn a suitcdfide and put itd aound myn nack loke a niusc..

I remember watching my friends swim in the foreground while a park ranger rushed some weekend warrior for cracking a Coors Light behind them. That happened. That is actually what happened. This is real life. NOBODY IS FUCKING AROUND.

Carlos and John got into a near fist fight about the future of swallows on private property. Christina considered the terrain to be "gay," and Sam and I drank whiskey at a post office at 4 in the morning. Sam also did this:


Sam looks like the Judge from "Blood Meridian." And just like the Judge's most famous scene in that book, Sam ordered a pornographic film right before dinner. Here is what a motel room full of people looks like when they're watching a pornographic adaptation of NBC's hit comedy "The Office." It was taken from the episode where Jim and Pam give each other rim jobs:

Actually, I was never sure if the "Jim" character was actually "Jim" or the guy that Steven Carrell plays. Either way, dude sure could reem a broad.

More shit happened in Nevada City. Carlos swam. I wrote this blog on a squirrels' chest, and John panned for gold. Eventually, after staring at each other for three hours in dead silence and absolute uncomfort, we came back to the soggy confines of our rented home of Oakland... WHERE I SAW FELL VOICES BLOW MY FUCKING EARDRUMS INTO THE NEXT HAMLETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.


Everybody head banged and hated their parents in unison. I saw a straight edge dude kick the shit out of some drunk asshole in a Budwisser shirt. Actually, THIS drunk asshole:

He kept running around at half mast, swinging his arms and ungracefully getting into the necks of dudes. If that had been me, I would have crouched in a corner and punched my dick for an hour before showing my face. Instead, he thought that jumping on Mike's drum kit was a better apology. I've never seen a burnout metal head play cannonball on human flesh and dig head first into drunken blast beats on someone else's kit. Then again, I've never seen the state of Idaho. Anything is possible if that's the case. Who knows what goes on there.






























UHHHHHHHHHHH.






























I couldn't hear the next day at work and almost got ran over by a caravan of studs at Aquatic Park. I don't have a picture of that.

Now, being aware that I have no idea of the sequence that these things happened in, you have to forgive me for putting things in that might not have happened in this exact order. I'm basically going by the timestamps of every email that says something like, "NO" or "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!." I understand what they mean and they are perfectly in sequence. YOU HAVE TO TRUST ME.

Sam blew a glass boot for his birthday and drank beer he didn't like out of it. I drew a couple pictures of the whole night. Here are what the scans looks like:























BUT.












Hoodstock 2009 was happening that night around the, dynamic, area of 24th and MLK in Oakland. I was somewhere else, but what I grabbed that there were an amazing amount of cop cars and home made microphones involved. ALLIGATOR CLIPS AND BILLY CLUB HITS.
NOBODY IS FUCKING AROUND.

The second day of Hoodstock was made up of dudes with acoustic guitars. The only cops involved for this day were those who liked songs about trees and cheating women.

Miguel and Rosie played songs with Gram that were about cities and non-cites:


Ryan James played songs that made me hate America for its perfect teeth and dirty hair:

And Saigon Market maintained Fort Weirdo, with its head in the clouds and its back against the wall of a rehabilitation center. I do have pictures of this:


Bill manhandled some asshole who was chopping bike locks. Good job. I would have helped, but I was too busy flipping off newspaper kiosks and taking pictures of it.

But aside frooomm thhaaaaattttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

CAT ARMAGEDDON IS THE REAL LIFE.

AMERICA'S FACTORIES AND INDUSTRIAL CENTERS ARE STRONG AND DIVERSE.

THE FINAL EPISODE OF GUIDING LIGHT AIRED LAST FRIDAY TO FIVE PEOPLE IN THE EMERGENCY ROOM OF ALTA BATES HOSPITAL IN BERKELEY.
















wait.

















GET HEALTHY.

GET HEALTHY.

GET HEALTHY.

GELT HELTY.

GET HIFEE.

GERT HUBREY.

GONE HEARTY.

GOD HELPING.

GOD WILLING.


GOD DAMNIT.

































B. Hamilton put out a cd known as "Because the laundry room is the only place god can't see me and steal my ideas." That communist known as Jonah Strauss is currently remixing 6 of the jams so that people, you, can actually hear it when it plays through your parent's desktop speakers. Adam Myatt mastered all of it, Miss Pip knew what was right, The Late, Great, Ryan James wrote about drunk women in dresses, Jefferson of Brea beats the shit out of shit. Email him at bananahamilton@gmail.com if you want him to mail you a copy, or download it for free and get on living.

www.myspace.com/bhamiltoncityilivein
bhamilton.bandcamp.com

-B. Hamilton, PhD.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Wait, you said this bottle of Windex was a buck-fifty-nine. You can't just print labels for something and then change it when I get to the register.

Oh my, what an exciting week to be upright with a brain. I can't remember shit right now, but I see flashes of tractor wielding meth heads, broken teeth in the bathroom sink, laundry room idiocy, and a shopping cart with two loaves of bread and a soiled copy of "Home and Garden." Ok, think you moron. Make it all fit into a perfect folder. THINK YOU FUCKING IDIOT! THINKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK...






Ok, now I remember.

Monday:
On Monday I dropped off Pipkin's gear and caught her room mate playing the banjo in a bathing suit on her roof. I was all like, "hey, that's a pretty strange getup for 'banjy pickin', have you mastered the claw-hammer technique?" and she was all, "nah, I'm just killing time before work," and then I was all, "hey, it smells like weed in here," and then she was all, "hey man, have you ever heard of that Jewish guy who plays reggae?," and I was like, "Sublime?" and then she was all like...

After 40 minutes of wildly inconsistent conversation related to white guys playing Jamaican music, I got a phone call in response to an interview I went on last week at Ice Man's work. Turns out they didn't see the holes in the soles of my boots and decided to give me the position. It is for a lab in Berkeley that does research for a new generation of batteries. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement upon getting hired because of my grassroots affiliation with the only legitimate government on this stinking, profit-obsessed marble called earth: China. I hope to use this position to pay for parking tickets and a flight back to China. Do work.

After that I made Tandoori Chicken and threatened to blow Ali up with an M-5000. She seemed pretty into it:



Tuesday:
I watched all five "Saw" movies and helped out at the old folks home on Lakeshore.

Wednesday:
Got together with the Awful Lot boys and continued working on new shit. We're setting up a show at Mosswood Park at 40th and Broadway in Oakland on August 23rd. BBQ Bill is going to BBQ all the members of the Arcade Fire. They have been locked in my closet since Valentine's Day. It was an extraordinary plot involving a burning American flag as bait, and a couple animatronic dopple-gangers to fulfill their touring duties. Robots have more personality than Canadians. Fuck all non-believers.

Thursday:
BBQ Bill, Scully, Adam, and Myself took that dance up the 101 toward Guerneville to record at In The Pocket studios. In the Pocket is basically the place musicians talk about when they are fucked up on booze or weed and having insane delusions about getting money to record. Here is a composite of every conversation I've ever heard that went along those lines:

"Mannnnn (five "n's"), when I get a bunch of money to record I'm going to like, spend a bunch of money on, like, this cabin in the middle of a forrest where I can, like, fuck around with synthesizers and, like, record the synthesizers, and, like, take the synthesizers outside and record them while playing in a tree, and like, mic the tree with that one microphone Frank Sinatra use to sing to bitches with, and like, overdub a bunch of tree sounds, and like, a coyote, NO, like, three coyotes, and maybe a cow mooing! FUCK! Can you think of one record that has three coyotes and a cow, and like, a bunch of trees? Oh, oh, oh, and the synthesizer in the tree. And like I'll get all this weed and shroo..."

After that it mostly turns into how they'd blow all the record companies money on drugs and bitches.

Aside from burn out hypotheticals, it lived up to all my expectations of an idyllic recording studio in regards to available gear and environmental comfort.



Adam suggested I record guitar on the front porch for additional ambience and so he could replace snare hits with bullfrogs chirping. I was all like, "hey man, maybe we should use a real snare," and he kept screaming about a write up James and Evander got in the East Bay Express and how everything he touches is, and I quote, "FUCKING GOLD HAMILTON! EVERYTHING I DO IS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLDDDDDDDDDD." Homeboy was hitting the coffee pot pretty hard at that point. Nonetheless, everything went great after a few minor delays on the way up and we may now consider ourselves two tracks richer. Every time I was at my sweatiest and most mountain-man-like, I saw Adam with a Camera, snapping away. Expect photos and gold hits. Good job, us.


Friday:

I got sloppy at the Mind Gaze Hut and listened to two chicks in line for the bathroom yap about Italian furniture. I was going to intervene with a description about this rad bean bag I had when I was nine, but one of them walked away and the other was kind off spaced out, like there was a pack of imaginary butterflies floating around her head, telling her uplifting jokes about shit hippies think is cool. Devandraaaaaaaaa... mystic of the underground... Devandraaaaaaaa... cult-i-vator of bean sprouts... Devandraaaaaaaaaaaaaa... got an arts degree in frisbee... DEVANDRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I enjoy loud amplifiers.

Saturday:
YOU FUCKING KNOW ITTTTTTTTTTT:



LAUNDRY TIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Sam asked me why I do all of my music nonsense in the laundry room. I told him it was only place god couldn't see me and steal my ideas. He told me that was why he owned a crossbow.

Sunday:
I'm going to eat chili at Ice Man's house and wash the stank out of my uniform for my first day at work tomorrow. Get wet.

-B. Hamilton
www.myspace.com/theawfullotmusic (The Awful Lot)
www.myspace.com/northernosoutherly (no's)
www.myspace.com/recordedmusic (Land)

Saturday, July 25, 2009

FREEDOM.

"...And in the end the world reformed and swept all nonbelievers back into the ocean. There they prayed for mercy and begged until god showed true strength and welcomed back his children."

This is this past week filtered through a haze of asphalt, blood and manic heights. Get wet or get out of my sphere.

Last Monday:
Travis, BBQ Bill and Myself were pulled over in the hoop due to, unknown to me, an expired license. Instead of letting another person drive it two blocks away to the Mind Gaze Hut, they towed the hoop and left me stranded with my guitar and amplifier. BULLSHIT. The following days were spent on my knees, making threats to no one specifically, and screaming at bureaucrats and other low level technicians of our glorious republic.

First, the DMV


Then, the CHP


I racked up two pleads of, "sir, will you please calm down" during this period. In the end, I got kicked deeper in debt and pushed further toward absolute insanity. Ultimately I drove away with the hoop, blaring Thin Lizzy and pushing that bitch to extremes. Driving is freedom. Don't ever fuck with my freedom. DON'T EVER FUCK WITH MY FREEDOM.

Last Saturday:
Hung out with John and Sam in the city. They ended up fighting in the street for reasons I'm still not quite sure of. John got mad because Sam knocked out his earring and sent it flying into the gutter. Sam got a gash on his forehead. John's girlfriend, Christina, sat in the car and texted hawt d00dz. I stared into the sky and waited for God's Hammer to crush us all out of pure jealousy. Fuck non-believers. Jesus is coming.




Wednesday:
The Awful Lot played with Dirt Dress, Grand Lake, and Big, Round at the Stork Club. Sam, John, and Johnny Corpseyburton wore corpse paint to celebrate freedom; Not our nation's freedom from the British, but freedom from societies' mother fuckers. Here is a picture of Johnny exhibiting FREEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.



Here is my play by play. For video and a more descriptive example of the night, go to Adam's blog.


The Awful Lot sounded like shit. My strap fell off on the first note of the first song, Travis found pain killers, Max's mustache was telling him to shred, and Bill bled all over a borrowed tom.

Dirt Dress was a good rock and roll band from LA. I played with them before in San Luis Obispo when I played with Grand Lake. I remember liking them, but I can't remember much about San Luis Obispo except for sun, white people, and beer. The bass player is from Fullerton, I'm from Anaheim, so we talked about the 91 freeway and burritos, or whatever the fuck is down there.


Grand Lake was good. They bought delay pedals and sing through them now. I heard Caleb say something about "adult contemporary music." "Song for Louise" is a great song. They shouldn't have kicked Erika out. Caleb blocked me on Facebook and Twitter the following day. Bummerrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Big, Round fit the midnight mood nicely. Evan tucked his shirt into his jeans and played a trumpet. I wanted to get up on his cowboy ass and show him how the west was won. BBQ Bill's screaming was louder than a trumpet. Hometurf advantageeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Friday:
Ali and I went to Indus Village on University and San Pablo in Berkeley so that Ali could meet another "Ali" but with a different pronunciation of her name. Its the best Pakistani joint in the Beast Bay and one of my favorite restaurants in the world I live in. Go there and get the Palak Ghosht. Don't worry about the Yelp reviews that yap about cockroaches in their take away Tika Masala. Those idiots deserve bugs in their food for not enjoying the ambiance of giant, multi-colored chairs and four Salvadorians blaring banda music from the kitchen.

After that we went to Mama Buzz and watched Tall Grass and Shiny Things cover the spectrum of lust. Macy cut his hair again. He doesn't know how good he's got it. Sam would trade a testicle for that flowing mane of sunshine.

(DELETED PICTURE OF SAM'S TESTICLE)



BBQ Bill tore shit up on Johnny's Lucite Ludwig kit. He needs to get a real kit of his own so he can bleed on his own snare for once instead of pouring his plasma on some other dudes skinz. If he didn't eat ribs everyday then he could probably afford it. However, DON'T EVER FUCK WITH HIS FREEDOM.

Today is Saturday, July the 25th:
I'm back in the laundry room feelin' good and clean. I've been revising a series of Land songs that I hope will be re-recorded with James and Evander as part of the current recordings. I want to drive down to Anaheim in the upcoming weeks to record with Jefferson Song, the wunderkind drummer of Land who grew up running around Philippine cities only to come to Anaheim at the age of 15 and beat the fuck out of a kit. We use to get hopped up on coffee and weed and spend all night in my father's machine shop making the music that we wanted to hear. No thought of an industry based around suburban kids with guitars, no need for merchandise or business tactics, and no pandering to contemporaries. Just bass amplifiers, down-tuned guitars, my buzzing DL-4, a penchant for the surreal and, of course, big, repetitive beats. It would be a shame if nothing tangible came from that period. I am ready to destroy again. Fuck all non-believers. Jesus is coming.


It feels like summer again in Oakland. I've got a good woman, good friends. I'm finally going to be out of debt by the end of summer. I'm purging every idea I've been holding on to for the past few months. I'm going to play with Pipkin again. I've got a good interview on Tuesday morning at Ice Man's work. Sam is moving back into the neighborhood come August 15th. Order has been destroyed again and insanity will once again hold sway. Feelin' good. DON'T EVER FUCK WITH MY FREEDOM.

-B. Hamilton