Chuck Heston died!

Sigh. I was never a fan of Heston’s politics — the exact opposite, actually — but dude, he was fucking Moses.

I met Heston in high school. He was supporting the governor of Wyoming’s re-election campaign. i was writing about it for my high school newspaper. Dude was a total right-wing fascist.

But afterwards, when I was getting his autograph, I said “Mr. Heston, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”

He glared at me — damn dirty punk that I was. “Yes?”

“What, precisely is in Soylent Green?”

He grinned, a genuine grin.

“It’s PEOPLE!” he shouted, and walked away.

Yay!

I had been seriously sweating the vocal recording part of the album – I can’t afford a studio and my house is just not an optimal place to record.

Luckily, Miss Melissa Marth of the Big Friendly Corporation has graciously agreed to let me use her new soundproofed studio / rehearsal space!

So I’ll probably start on that next weekend. Also, I’ve been working on an idea for a video for “Scarecrow” that, if I can pull it off, will be amazing. (I already have a plan for the video for “Scatterlings + Refugees” that I think is a cool idea. And you can be part of it. Really!)

Recent Neologisms

Douchelganger – Your douchebag twin. Someone who looks exactly like you, except they have frosted tips on their hair and they wear oversized Versace shades and Volcom shirts and they have sleeve tattoos with stars on their elbows and they call everybody “bra”. May be located anywhere in the world, but most often found in Southern California, the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, and the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas.

Bromance – When two straight men meet and instantly bond, usually over something like video games or cars. (Ex.: “Dude, Bill and Mike are having a total bromance over Shoot ‘Em Up.”)

Gyrotrash – Those creepy Eastern European dudes with visible body hair and inappropriate suits who hang out at clubs trying to pick up girls half their age. Usually the scions of discount furniture or illegal weapons fortunes.

The Album Title: Your Thoughts

Okay, so I’ve been going on the assumption that I was going to call the album Travelogues. But the more I think about it, that makes it sound like something of a concept album, which it’s not. It also sounds like some sort of world-music thing, which it kind of is, but not really at all.

So I’ve been thinking about retitling the album Architectures And Empires, after a line from “When You Get Here” (“Architecture and empire / Nothing’s built to last”). It’s a grandiose title, but fuck it — it’s a grandiose album. And personally, I’d be more likely to pick up an album called Architectures And Empires by a band called Red State Soundsystem than an album called Travelogues.

What do you think? Tell me in the comments.

A Terrible Beauty Is Born

I just finished the first draft of a Cthulhu comic script I’ve been working on with my buddy Josh Wagner (whose comic book Fiction Clemens is appearing this month, and you need to go buy it, or I’ll totally kick your ass). It’s the first real piece of fiction I’ve finished in a long time. It’s an 8-pager, a short story we’re submitting to an anthology of Cthulhu stories, but I like it.

It’s called “Spindletop”, it takes place in the mid-1920s, and it’s about WWI, the oil boom in Texas, vengeance and Elder Gods. It opens with a paraphrased quote from Tom Waits and it ends with Yeats:

He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song; He, too, has resiged his part In the casual comedy; He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly: A terrible beauty is born.

And there are at least two jokes about milkshakes in it. And a mummified man with a party hat to cover the gunshot wound in his head. Fun stuff.

The supporting characters are two Texas Rangers who belong to a very special branch of the outfit. They are the main characters in a mini series (and, hopefully, continuing series) that Wagner and I are developing.

I don’t know if it’ll get approved for the anthology we’re sending it to; if not, I’ll post the final draft here so you can see it, at least.

Hard Decision

I’ve been really thinking a lot about the album and the direction I’m going with it. I love electronic music, but I’ve been deeply dissatisfied with the way the songs have been coming out. They’re just too cold and mechanistic, you know?

So I’ve decided to re-record the album again. This time, though, it’s all going to be acoustic instruments — specifically, the sort of instruments used in Appalachian folk music. Steel guitars, fiddles, washboards…I’ve even found plans on the Net to build my own washtub bass. All the songs will be the same, but the arrangements and feel will be totally different.

Because of this, the title I was using — Travelogues — is no longer appropriate, as the album no longer will really contain the elements of world and other non-American sounds I’ve been working with.

Instead, the new title will be The Red State Soundsystem Jug Band And Tent Chautaqua Presents: The Many Moods Of Big Josh Ellis. The cover will be an homage to the classic art of the album He Thinks He’s Ray Stevens, by Ray Stevens:

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In fact, I’ve also made a short music video of the new version of “Berlin Floor Show”, which you can watch below.

I hope all of you will stick with me through this musical transition.

Message Tape–Pixel– Better Living Through Design

Over at her excellent design blog Better Living Through Design, my old, old friend Kris Bernard posts about pixel message tape for custom LED-style ticker messages. Basically, you mark out the white “LEDs” with a Sharpie to write messages.

I’d hook mine up to a looping motorized spindle and put it in my window, so anybody who drove by saw the words YOU’VE GOT A PUNK ASS rolling by at them endlessly.

Yes I would.