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2006:01:30:08:00. Monday. NO!: GARY TUNSTALL (#28, FEB 11 2005).
I've never been in the Army, but I've always imagined that it's something like going to Michigan Tech. In a remote, desolate place, you train yourself and wait for your orders, banding together to survive and remain human. The man with the 12-string guitar who plays chaplain to this ragged unit of engineers and hockey players is Gary Tunstall; the annual benefit show he plays during Tech's Winter Carnival has become a kind of pilgrimage for Chreaster Tech alums (have I taken this too far yet?). This past year, the crowd got so rambunctious that he actually had to stop playing at one point to let everybody know that they were totally blowing the sing-along rhythm with their craziness. This clip, of a classic-sounding major-key instrumental, illustrates perfectly the relationship Gary has with the students and alumni at Tech. Later in the week I'll post a couple of contrasting clips from a show he did in Appleton the following summer. What you'll see here is, if not totally unique, a rare atmosphere.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:26:08:00. Thursday. NO!: BRIEF CANDLES (#27, JAN 7 2006).
Whoever's responsible for putting three opening bands and a $5 cover on the Dials show -- whether the Dials themselves or the folks at High Noon -- has my thanks. The New Year's resolution that I never seem to pull off is to see more local bands on their own, rather than opening for out-of-towners, and this show gave me three Madison and Milwaukee acts to follow up on. Having limited space on the camera, I decided not record anything from His & Her Vanities or Screamin' Cyn-Cyn & the Pons (but wound up getting a one-minute song from the Pons anyway) since I figure I'll have plenty of opportunities to see them again soon, but made sure to get a song from Brief Candles, in from Milwaukee. They seemed like an odd choice to open for the Dials -- all shoegazey and with a singer who could double as a blond, female James Iha -- but I enjoyed their set nonetheless. There's a hard edge to the current crop of shoegaze nostalgists that I always found lacking in the likes of My Bloody Valentine and Galaxie 500. Taking cues from bands like Hum, Cave In, even the Smashing Pumpkins, Brief Candles has that edge, the Life and Times has that edge. Their stage presence is a little odd, what with the singer putting on a big mope while the rest of the band goes crazy, but it worked for me. They have an EP out now, and a full-length coming later this year, maybe one to look forward to.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:25:14:46. Wednesday. RUSS FEINGOLD AND THE EXECUTIVE. I've long maintained that Governors beat Senators in Presidential contests not just because Senators often have complicated records to explain, but because legislators and executives speak differently. Legislators have to be able to talk in specifics to justify their jobs -- what legislation they would propose or support, why, etc. -- whereas executive candidates can speak in more general terms and allow their responses to the legislature to fill in the gaps. This is why John Kerry lost, I think -- he allowed Karl Rove to bait him into acting like a Senator instead of a President on the campaign trail. The exception to this rule is Russ Feingold. I've had this inkling for a while -- it's why he has my tentative support for the 2008 nomination -- and it was solidified during his debate last year with Tim Michels. Feingold is not just more rhetorically skilled than Michels, as evidenced by his ninja-like takedown of Michels for having not actually read the PATRIOT Act, he spoke in more general terms, in more colloquial terms and in more congenial terms. Throughout the debate, as he sat at across the table from the poor newbie he was annihilating, Feingold had a broad, earnest smile on his face. It's part of the real, personal charm that's helped keep him popular far away from his home base on the west side of Madison. Feingold knows how Senators lose elections, even Senatorial ones sometimes, and he knows how to go the other way. I wasn't sure that actually meant anything until now, though. It turns out that, since entering the Senate in 1993, Feingold has never opposed a Supreme Court nominee:
While the seven other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had all voted against one or more Republican nominees for the high court, Feingold had, until Tuesday, voted to confirm every Supreme Court nominee, Republican or Democrat, to come before the panel.
I was annoyed by Feingold's votes to confirm John Roberts, but in light of this information and his committee vote against Sam Alito, I'm starting to see a picture of a man who values the power of the executive in a way most of his colleagues -- including John "Tap My Phone, Tap My Computer, Tap My Ass, Just Don't Let The Terrorists Get Me!" Cornyn -- don't. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. Feingold is a career legislator, but he's made his way without using legislators' tactics -- his first Senate campaign featuring a list of non-legislative promises written on his garage door and an ad in which he received an endorsement from Elvis. The last legislator to run for President with that kind of style was John Kennedy. He was also the last President to enter office from a legislative job. National security issues will make federal experience extremely salient in 2008, and Feingold's characteristics may be just right to turn his candidacy into the perfect storm. Now if we can just get these moronic Democratic primary voters to see that.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:23:08:00. Monday. NO!: GOMEZ (#26, APR 27 2005).
Surprising fact: There are rabid Gomez fans in or around Madison. Shocking, I know. I hadn't paid Gomez much attention myself in about five years -- so little attention, in fact, that I screwed up the title card for this clip. When I Googled the lyrics, I mistakenly read "Detroit Swing 66 (In Our Gun)" as the complete title of the song, rather than the song and the album it's from. Whoops. Anyway, these rabid fans. We got pretty decent seats, even though it seemed like we were kind of far back in the line before the doors opened. But right in front of us were these people who just went nuts when Gomez came out, who danced and high-fived each other throughout the set. The intro to every song was a new moment of awakening bliss for them. I'll admit that, while I enjoyed the set, I enjoyed quietly mocking them more.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:22:15:03. Sunday. TEA LEAVES. One of the raps against Bill Clinton in the popular press was that his administration put a lot of energy into reading and following polls. This never made much sense to me -- it seems like, in a representative democracy, elected officials ought to be taking their constituents' opinions into account as much as possible. And while polls aren't perfect, I've never seen anybody take issue with a particular poll's methodology when the results favored their side. I suspect that what was actually going on was an application of the big strong leader myth, most recently on display following Brownie's removal from New Orleans, when Chris Matthews demanded that the burly and virile Dick Cheney send a real man to take care of things. The pundit class wanted somebody who just didn't give a shit about the public and was going to do whatever he wanted anyway. They frame it as a question about "principles," but it's not as if Clinton was coming out for Coke one day and Pepsi the next. Since Clinton left office, the Democratic Party has fallen prey to every negative narrative the press has to offer about him, including the portrayal of him as a finger-in-the-wind waffler. Now, instead of getting their perceptions of public opinion from polling data, they simply let Republicans and the Beltway pundit class tell them what's what. Molly Ivins gets to the heart of this:
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people think the war in Iraq is a mistake and we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) favor raising the minimum wage. The majority (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) want to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) think we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) think big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. Whom are you afraid of? Even if reading polls is not a perfect way to run a campaign or a government, it is a damn sight better than not reading polls. Howard Dean understands this. State-level Dems like Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer understand this. Even certain liberal pundits understand this, and I might be convinced that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi kind of get it, too. The rest of the national leadership of the Democratic Party doesn't. The people running the DCCC and DSCC don't. Joes Biden and Lieberman don't. This is why I almost certainly won't vote for Herb Kohl this year, to be honest. One of things that I hope blogs are mature enough to accomplish this year is to create a shadow network that can operate apart from the party's power structure -- a group of people able to exchange information on a national level and act as opinion-leaders in their own districts. In order to rival the existing power structure, though, everything's going to have to be working efficiently and together, in a focused way. One issue -- winning on strength.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:20:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE DIALS (#25, JAN 7 2006).
I wish I had more to say about the Dials' set for each of these videos, but there weren't that many spectacular moments to write about. I did like their matching outfits, so I guess that's something. But really, I want to talk about Screamin' Cyn-Cyn & the Pons' set in the third opening slot. Wow. Even though I've been in Madison for three and a half years, I hadn't really known anything about them before seeing their show. Their act, kind of Hedwig + Tenacious D + Short Music For Short People, is a revelation of insanity. I want to make a point of seeing them again soon, if only to get video of the main Pon galloping around on his hobby horse, hopefully with the dress still on. For what it's worth, you can see him and Screamin' Cyn-Cyn herself in the foreground of this last Dials clip.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:18:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE DIALS (#24, JAN 7 2006).
Probably the weirdest thing about the Dials' set was the break right before "Sick Times," conveniently included on this clip. They had been cruising along, doing minimal banter but not being distant, then just suddenly stopped. It seemed like they were waiting for somebody to retune or something, telling stories about how, in Stevens Point, they had to fill for like 12 minutes and tell jokes about "The Manchurian Candidate," except, nobody was fixing anything. Maybe you can see something in the video that I missed, but it seems like they just wanted to do some banter but had no material.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:17:17:08. Tuesday. BREAK BOOKS. When school is in session I don't get to read to consume, only to examine. So during semester break, I try to read a book or two that has little or nothing to do with communications research, political science, new media anthropology, etc. This year I read these:
Franken is a full-fledged political actor these days; my guess is that we've seen the last of him as a pure comedian. He is in many ways the face and voice of the liberal grassroots, and if he doesn't run for Senate in 2008 I'll shit my pants. Viewed as just another Al Franken book, The Truth is enjoyable but unexciting. Viewed as a campaign book, it's groundbreaking.
Foer tries too hard at times to make Oskar's behavior idiosyncratic, occasionally dipping into an obvious picture of an adult inventing a child. Otherwise, though, Extremely Loud is an incredibly moving portrait of several generations of a family often afraid to live. I haven't read anything quite like it in years, maybe since I first read J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day For Bananafish." I've got Foer's first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, on hold at the library, along with Max Barry's Company, so hopefully I'll be able to find some time in the next few weeks for a little more recreational reading.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:16:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE DIALS (#23, JAN 7 2006).
I was going to wait until I'd run everything from 2005 to start the 2006 clips, but I just can't hold them back anymore -- this week, it's three clips from the Dials' show on January 7! I had this show marked on the calendar for what seemed like months, and eventually I couldn't even remember why it was there. Mostly it was the four bands for $5 factor, I think; I'd listened to the songs on the Dials' site, and they were good, but not life-changing. The live show was really a blast, though. The third opener, Screamin' Cyn-Cyn & the Pons, nearly stole the show with their tongue-in-butt-cheek drag-punk extravaganza, but the Dials did a great job following them up with a lot of playful sexiness and guitar-grrl swagger.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:13:22:00. Friday. REGGIE.
We got a new cockatiel today. His name is Reggie, he's about 16 years old and he came to us from a friend of a friend who can't keep a bird around their new baby for some reason. I wanted to change his name to Elmo (to go with Zöe) but he seems pretty set with what he's got. He's never had another bird around, and it's clear that he now wants to nail Zöe in the worst way. She doesn't loathe him the way she did Franny at first, but she is kind of leary. We'll see how it goes.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:12:08:00. Thursday. NO!: CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH (#22, SEP 25 2005).
OV-er-RAT-ed! *clap* *clap* *clap clap clap* Aw, I'm just kidding around, hipsters. (But not really.) Yeah, come on, these guys aren't the Talking Heads or any of the other folks they're being compared to. I went to see their show because, hey, who knows, maybe they're amazing live, or maybe they're going to become a big-time arena band in 2006. Turns out they're not amazing live, and if you don't think their songs are great, they're downright boring. To be honest, their openers, the Super Eights of Madison and Canasta of Chicago, were a lot more entertaining. But, well, if you like 'em, you like 'em. Enjoy! (And OK, I'll cop to this being one of two songs on their record that I like.)
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:11:17:59. Wednesday. ATTACK OF THE MAD(TOWN) BOMBER. Madison is under attack by what appears to be a serial bomber.
Authorities are investigating three suspicious items found around downtown Madison on Wednesday.
Police said that two suspicious items removed from Madison's sewer system aren't related to an investigation into a string of pipe bombs found in a parking ramp in recent weeks. At a late afternoon press conference, police spokesman Mike Hanson said that two of the items were uncovered by a bomb squad in the sewer system about a block from the state Capitol. The objects were removed at the intersection of Webster and Main streets. These two objects were described as resembling piping, WISC-TV reported. So, there's that.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:09:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE HOLD STEADY (#21, MAY 28 2005).
I recently discovered that I had a second video from that acoustic Hold Steady set -- and it's another non-album track! This one is even sparer than the last, just a couple minutes of vocals and guitar strum, slotting in nicely to the panorama created by Separation Sunday. It's also not the greatest visual display ever captured, mostly because of the hipster in front of me who kept swaying through my shot. Oh well, you get what you pay for, I guess.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:06:08:00. Friday. NO!: MURDER BY DEATH (#20, NOV 5 2005).
At some point, Murder By Death must've become Myspace superstars. That's the only thing that explains the turnout at this show -- the crowd was literally packed to the door in Union South's cafeteria-turned-concert-hall. Their brand of death metal meets rockabilly meets a funeral dirge doesn't strike me as having the market potential of, say, "My Humps." But whatever, lots and lots of kids came out for them. I saw Murder By Death about a year and a half ago, third of four bands opening for Thursday. They were completely mismatched on that bill. They were pretty good -- good enough that I didn't mind waiting through them for Piebald, whom I was really there to see. This time out they weren't so great. Maybe it's because I couldn't see them very well, maybe it's the cafeteria acoustics, maybe it's that I liked their opener, the Life and Times, a lot more. The MBD set was OK, and they played a decent selection of new, old and really old songs, but the whole thing seemed a little staid.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:01:05:13:04. Thursday. WORDS MEAN THINGS. When I was in seventh- or eighth-grade social studies, we learned all about the American Revolution, then called simply "The Revolutionary War." Of course, when I say "all," I don't really mean "all" -- I mean we learned the broad strokes of history, the stories that provide the mythic geneology for our dysfunctional national family. We learned, for example, that we had the Articles of Confederation before we had the Constitution, but we didn't really learn about why the switch was necessary or that ten guys, nine of whom you've never heard of, were President of the United States during that period.* But we learned about the Continental Congresses, the Constitutional Convention, various battles with the British, the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, the Tea Act. But what we were really being taught, looking back, was the drama wrought by men like Nathan Hale and Patrick Henry. Henry, as has been noted around the left blogosphere this week, famously demanded, "Give me liberty or give me death!"** Kos's direct reference to the deriliction of American character shown by conservatives since The Day Everything In The History Of The World Changed Forever And Ever Including The Pee Contents Of Our Collective Undies has sparked a minor firestorm among right bloggers, who have responded to everything except the substance of his charge. Conservatives are scared out of their minds, and they don't give a tinker's damn about the freedoms that Henry fought for over the course of two decades. They want a King. They want to give up their Constitutional rights -- except the ones codified in the Second Amendment, because, hey, they might have to shoot a terrorist someday! These people are now being faced with the uncomfortable reality that words mean things. "Liberty" is not a void into which you may toss an NRA membership card, a Toby Keith CD and a dozen warrantless domestic wiretap transcripts. When Henry stirred the Virginia House of Burgesses to war, it was not over a meaningless concept designed to put political opponents on the defensive. "Liberty" meant self-determination and freedom from tyranny -- freedom of body and mind from the aggression of a corrupt government. When people in the reality-based community point out that their scare-pee has soaked their liberties, they have to implicitly acknowledge that that's true. This is the first step not just to reclaiming our country, but to reclaiming the language of national decency -- "freedom," "democracy," "justice." These words, too, mean things that for too long the Phobocons have kept hogtied in a basement at NSA headquarters. As for Nathan Hale, we learned that, before being hanged by the British for espionage during the war, he declared, "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country." "Sacrifice" is the other one we need to reclaim, because for most Phobocons, this terrorism gambit has been the biggest exercise ever in what the French might call le sacrifice des autres.*** Noted fearmonger Jonah Goldberg can't fight in the war that he thinks is so vital and that he champions so tirelessly because, well, he's out of shape and he has a kid and anyway, he can do much more for the war effort by screaming into the echo chamber through his computer and eating Cheetos all day. Goldberg and his Phobocon cohort all have but one life to give for their country, and for the ideals that it used to represent; the tragedy is that they don't give it, and they never will. * The one you've heard of was the seventh President of the United States in Congress Assembled -- John Hancock. ** He was given neither at the time, but took his liberty by force. In 1799, he was given death anyway. *** They probably don't call it that, though.
2006:01:03:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: TROUBLED HUBBLE (#19, MAR 23 2005).
I went to see this show because I'd been enthralled by the demo version of Making Beds in a Burning House that had been floating around the Internet since late 2004, but I had no idea it would be the first and only time I saw Troubled Hubble. What makes it such a tragedy is that they had such great live presence, and such great rapport with the audience. I wish I could've recorded more of this show, but this one song was enough to fill up the memory card I had at the time. Unfortunately, it'll probably be a while before another band comes along doing what they did.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra |
Al Franken's 
A review quote on the back of Jonathan Foer's 
