South By

[my lester bangs moment on 6th street]

"South By" is what the cool kids call the South by Southwest music festival/conference, or so I'm told. I got back just over a week ago, and thought I'd share some pics/words about it. Most of what I'm posting here already appeared on Baltimore City Paper's NOISE blog, tho I've added some more photos. K's

For me, this year's South by Southwest festival (my first) came with a high risk of terminal illness. Over the course of the two or three days prior to getting on that 5:30 a.m. plane to Austin, every time I looked at the schedule of bands online, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

Eventually, my girlfriend, with whom I traveled to SXSW, and with whose friendly, boisterous Texan relatives I stayed, sent me this article, which is about how not to go insane when faced with so many really tempting options--for example, choosing your career, what to have for dinner, or whether or not you want to see TechN9ne, No Age, or Gil Mantera's Party Dream to close out Saturday night. That helped.

What we settled on was a roughly outlined plan to see a handful of bands that I had researched on MySpace, plus a few with legitimate buzz, based on a bunch of podcasts and SXSW survival guides gleaned from blogs, and a handful of bands that my girlfriend described as "pretty music," by which she meant bands that are less like the noisy punk bands I enjoy, and more like what would appear on the Six Feet Under soundtrack. Our rationale was, if we see enough of the over-hyped shows, but take in a few random ones as well, we'll be sure to have a good time, not miss out on some good stuff, and not spend our time seeing just one type of music or partying near one particular crew of people.

The plan worked. And I didn't have a heart attack. At least I was fine until I saw how many effing enchilada places and barbecue pits there were. Jesus Christ, Austin food is good.

[k in front of the texas state capital]

THURSDAY: We arrived at 11 a.m. in Austin, picked up at the airport by the first (of many) of my girlfriend's boisterous Texas relatives. We registered at the Convention Center; got press badges and large bags of useless crap, plus a pocket-sized schedule. We ate ribs and brisket at the Ironworks (see above), which were well-cooked, but not the meatiest of meats I've ever had--covered in thick, sweet, deep-South style sauce.

[vw]

That afternoon, we checked into the NPR VIP showcase party at Roux, because--well, because we're VIPs, of course---but also because Vampire Weekend, those reedy-voiced Columbia grads who love scarves, Afrobeat, and the Ramones, were headlining. The band was, in fact, unremarkable, and beyond a crazed look in the eyes of the bopping, smoking-jacketed bassist, its live show was like watching plants grow: entirely indistinguishable from the record. The openers were more impressive.

[bon iver]

Bon Iver, a three-man act led by bearded Wisconsinite Justin Vernon, played songs from For Emma, Forever Ago, a record whose story--he recorded the whole thing alone in a cabin in the woods! And got high and rode tractors all day when he wasn't jamming!--has outgrown the actual music on it, was surprisingly impressive. High vocal harmonies with a clear, icy sheen; strong folky shoegazer stage presence; even some stoner-rock outros that jolted the audience awake after all the prettiness. The ever dorky, ever hipster Swede Jens Lekman, surrounded by three blonde bombshells on cello, violin, and bongos--which added a strange, Warhol garage/ Project Runway type vibe to his show--played a few excellent songs from his upcoming album, Night Falls Over Kortedala.

[Jens Lekman]

Yeasayer, a Brooklyn band that I don't quite understand--is it trying to be TV On the Radio with native American music instead of soul?--sucked, and the Shout Out Louds were a little boring. We missed someone called A.A. Bondy because we went out for grilled avocado tacos at Torchy's on 6^th Street, which were delicious with the hot green salsa.

[green salsa]

That night it was Man Man, who played a packed outdoor show at Cedar Street Courtyard, with plenty of people hooting along with their weirdness, My Morning Jacket trying to be epic at the Austin Music Hall, and a guilty pleasure for me, Dallas's Old 97's rocking tracks from their forthcoming disk--which isn't that good--at Stubb's. Oh, and dinner was at the incomparable Enchiladas y Mas.

FRIDAY: I woke up full of meat and cheese. It isn't the first time, nor would it be the last of the weekend. The Boisterous Texans took us to Cisco's for some increíble huevos rancheros, and then it was off to Minnesota Public Radio's "The Current" showcase near Emo's on Red River Street. There, between annoyingly long sound checks and even more annoying intros by DJs from Public Radio Paradise, we heard a few tunes by M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, known collectively as She and Him, and I can report that not only is the Elf starlet also extremely cute in person, but her Carol King vocals are like peas and carrots with Him and his lazy, reverbed slide guitar.

[she and him, and him, and him]

Darondo--a septuagenarian soul singer from San Francisco who once opened for James Brown--was an absolute highlight of the festival. The rumor about him is that he was once a pimp, and his gross, sex-crazed persona does nothing to dispel it.

[gross old man, so much soul]

Toothless and wrinkled, he writhed around stage, his pelvis pumping wildly to grooves by Bay-area funk band Nino Moschella, singing songs such as "That's How I Got Over," and "Didn't I?" from his 2006 reissue collection. By the end of it he was on his knees, his narrow chest heaving, and it was awesome.

[i'm more important than billy bragg]

Billy Bragg's solo show--his ninth of the weekend--with its tiresome anti-war protest songs and platitudes about his self-proclaimed "Johnny Clash" style, was enough to drive us over to a park near the Convention Center for the "Aussie Barbecue," which was conveniently without barbecue, but had plenty of free dark beer. We caught the Panics, a decent straight-ahead punk-rock band, and browsed the trade show, which was full of recycled air and Guitar Hero displays.

Dinner at Paradise on 6^th Street was awful, but we filled up on cheap Shiner, watched a bit of the Big East Tournament, and went to that same parking garage where music editor Michael Byrne caught Blaq Starr, Diplo, etc. We got there in time to watch two hairy dudes, who were obviously on happy pills, rubbing their necks all over each other in between spastic dancing to Simian Mobile Disco. Then, after some three-piece suit with a list refused to let us into Nylon magazine's VIP party with the Death Set and Scottie B, we decided that it was time to go see some screamo at La Zona Rosa. Chiodos told the moms in the audience, "I don't give a fuck who's here tonight, because music is music"--and then howled into the mic until half the 13-year-olds there were round-housing and smacking each other. Paramore headlined the event, which was sponsored by mallrat rock t-shirt store Hot Topic, and despite the music, which was predictably giddy and fun and loud, impish lead singer Hayley Williams managed to offend me by giving a bunch of stupid stage speeches about how being a rock star "isn't about acting cool all the time," and that you have to work really hard on things like, oh, I dunno, dying your hair orange.

SATURDAY: This was a day for kings. After watching Australian folkster Chris Pickering play an excellent set of Dylanesque tunes outside of Whole Foods, the Filter magazine showcase at Cedar Street Courtyard was brilliant. We saw Castledoor, an Arcade Fire knockoff from Los Angeles that was actually a lot of fun, then gypsy punk Devotchka rocked some tubas and indie rockers Sea Wolf played another highlight set. Dinner was a serious burger at Dirty Martin's, and then onto the DirectTV Live show featuring Carbon/Silicon, the latest venture from Clash guitarist Mick Jones. For some reason, our press badges got us backstage access to this show, but there was no beer--we heard later that Mick doesn't really party--and we got kicked out of the band's trailer, where we were playing gin-rummy and watching the live feed of Liam Finn playing some autoharp rock next door. Jones and the boys were great--just a really crunching set of cool garage rock that included "War on Culture," and ended with an extended version of their fist-pumping single "The News."

[dirty's]

After that, it was all Austin music, all night. Patrice Pike, who we were told is "the next Janis Joplin," was no such thing at Antone's, where she played a set of mom-rock straight from the Ally McBeal soundtrack. But over at Habana Calle 6 Patio, however, we made up for it with a three excellent local bands: Lemurs, Brazos and White Denim. The latter was a definite treat. Featured February in Rolling Stone, the trio plays a type of spastic prog-punk with looped, melodic guitar lines, tortured blues vocals, and really charismatic, thunderclap drumming from Josh Block. If it sounds just a tad like I'm describing Baltimore's own Ponytail, it might be because they reminded me of one another, only White Denim has less chirping from its singers and more Oi band shouting. I couldn't hear much by the end of it.

Before we left the city, we had burgers at Hut's, terrible barbecue at County Line, delicious "Elvis Special" enchiladas at Chuy's, superior ice cream at Amy's, the best barbecue I've ever had at Coopers (in Llano), and misread the schedule for a Wye Oak radio appearance on Sunday. Now if I can just confirm that I don't have colon cancer.

On a rainy Monday, we were lent an SUV belonging to one of the Boisterous Texan relatives and we drove out to Llano, home of Cooper's, George W. Bush's favorite barbecue joint.



[the pit at cooper's]

We had coffee then some meat with the mayor of Llano, named Roger and a boyhood friend of K's dad, a Texas native and Austinite at heart. Then we drove back to Austin by way of Castell, home of the Leifeste clan, from whose loins K sprang, generations and generations ago. Basically every street was called "Leifeste Lane" or "Leifeste Court," and we got to see the crossing on the Llano River where K's G-G-G-Grandfather supposedly baptized the Injuns into good Methodists. Most of the ranches down there had Leifeste signs up too, that looked like this'n...



["i'm going west, texas teardops in my eyes..."]

At the Castell general store, we bought postcards and stamps, but none of the taxidermed chickens or mesh baseball caps that we should have. Oh well.



[general store in trailer]

The Trouble in Mt. Vernon

[monument square's pride, held captive]

Hombre, I know it's been like 6 months since I last rapped at ya, but things have been busier than Eliot Spitzer on a Saturday in Amsterdam around here. I'm living in Baltimore now, have started a new job as a development reporter at The Daily Record, a small business/legal newspaper downtown, and I've been running around like crazy doing freelance, moving in/out of houses, traveling (Austin, Kansas City).

I'm going to try to write more on this thing, especially because I don't think I do enough writing outside of my regular dayjob work, and also because Carey has been bugging me about it. So for starters, here's an observation with some current events and personal relevance.

There's trouble a-brewin' in Mt. Vernon. That is, for the unanointed, the Mt. Vernon section of Baltimore, a beautiful, historic neighborhood in central Baltimore with a ton of pretty old rowhouse mansions, restaurants, apartment buildings, and centered around Washington Square, a big public park that runs in four directions out from the circular intersection of Charles Street and Monument Place. In the middle, of course, is the famous statue of George Washington, perched on top of a 178-foot Doric column. The surrounding four-piece park is filled with green grassy space, benches, fountains, and generally elegantly-designed public space where people walk their dogs, wait for buses, eat picnics, read, etc. In the summer, the local college radio station, WTMD, puts on monthly outdoor concerts there. When it's warm, a lot of homeless people sleep there. Or spend all day there.



[see it in the distance?]

Anyway, a few weeks back, as part of the Beyond the Compass, Beyond the Square art project, a joint venture between MICA and the Walters Art Gallery, which is putting on a totally-sweet sounding exhibit all about MAPS, some MICA student put up a gold-painted fence all around all four public park sections, effectively barring entrance to regular park-goers.

This work of "art" has gotten a ridiculously hugely unnecessary amount of ink in the local media, and I don't really have strong feelings about it, because (a) it's only up until March 29th, (b) I think if the idea is to make people appreciate public space more than they already do, a less-used public space probably should have been selected, and (c) the weather's only been tolerable for about a week or so now, so no one is really using the park anyway, aside from the dogs and the bums.



[good fences make...]

But here's what's really astonishing: the retards who spend hours (and believe me, it's hours, because I asked them) protesting this project, on the grounds that it's "exclusionary," it's "rich-kid art," and that it's "shameful." Seriously, the other day, some guy was standing at the corner of Charles and Center streets during rush hour, which is a spot usually occupied by a guy dressed like and posing like the hooded torture victim at Abu Ghraib with a bunch of quaker peace protesters around him, holding a sign that said, "Shame on MICA and the Walters for this fence crap." People were actually honking as they drove by.




[fools gold]

So every day, when I walk from work to Washington Square to catch the Peabody/JHU shuttle home, I've been noticing the goings-on on Monument Place, and as much as I tried to resist it, the other day, I just had to talk to these fools. I mean, what are their lives like? Who has the time to daily protest an art project that has such miniscule impact on anybody's life? The conversation went something like this:

ME: So how many hours do spend out here, typically, per day?

GUY WITH SIGN: About an hour and a half, maybe two hours. As much time as I can, after work.

ME: And what does that mean, exactly, "Bad Art"?

GWS: Huh?

ME: Your sign says, "Help, I'm Being Held Captive by Bad Art." What is "bad art"?

GWS: It's art like this.

ME: No, I know you don't like the fence. But what makes art good or bad?

GWS: It has, you know, a bad aesthetic.

ME: What does that mean? What's a "bad aesthetic"? How is it different from a "good aesthetic"?

GWS: It's just, you know, my opinion.

There was this loud-mouth guy with his t-shirt tucked in and a cowboy hat walking around, yelling "As far as I'm concerned, this fence is vandalism!" over and over again and taking pictures of the guy with the sign. As I walked away from these two jokers, I heard the sign guy laugh and say, "It's funny to me how seriously people take this." And I thought, yeah, you're right, because I'm the guy who spends two hours in a sandwich, and not the one who just asked you what you mean by your protest. Oh wait, I'm not. That's you.

Some people. Just look at this blemish on the fine, fine, Washington Square landscape....



[first meth]

Faith in the Furnace

[harriet chapel, late 19th century]

"During those troubled years, a young man who would play a significant role at Catoctin, Ernest McGill, was preparing to enter the priesthood..."

- Elizabeth Y. Anderson, Faith in the Furnace

When I first moved to Thurmont for the summer to write, and everyone started asking me what I was working on, what I was writing about, I often told them that it was the beginnings of a novel based on what I imagine as the life of my great Uncle Wake (John Wakefield McGill), between the ages of 20 and 30, when he was a young man and a schoolteacher in Maryland. Wakey died last December, while I was in India, and I didn't get to be at his wake (yes, the wake for Wake), so I missed out on a lot of the ribald stories about his life, and I've been content for the last few months to wander, entranced, around his house, the Wild Rose Lodge, read his old papers and postcards, look at the oil portrait of him as a young man by former MICA professor Stanislav Rembski, and let my imagination do the work.

One of the more interesting responses to my plan for the summer came from Roy, who said something along the lines of, "So, you wanna be one of those regional writers?" -- not exactly disdainful, but it made me wonder if something was wrong with the fact that I'm not writing about New York or Chicago or Paris.

But the honest truth of it is, my family has a long, important history in this region, and in the state of Maryland as whole, and if I end up as the Voice of the Catoctins, I think I'd be happy with that. And I've taken some time to study it since I've been here. The story I'm telling you all today, kids, is about Catoctin Furnace, the tiny hamlet about 3 miles down the road from Thurmont, and some photos 'n historical snooping I did there.


















[the machinery at catoctin furnace]

Catoctin Furnace is the place where two illustrious clans, the McPhersons (my middle name is McPherson) and the McGills, came together. This happened when my Great-Great-Grandfather, an Episcopal Priest named Rev. Ernest McGill, married Mary Buchanan McPherson, the daughter of Dr. William S. McPherson, the company physician for Catoctin Iron Works, the company that owned one of the biggest blast furnaces in the state. He was a University of Maryland Med School grad and made $600 a year to treat the ailments and injuries of the black slaves, and later the Eastern European immigrants, who churned out pig iron at Catoctin Furnace.

The furnace itself, had been around since 1774, and had changed ownership several times, but it was John Brien, a Northern Irish rake who charmed the daughter of Col. John McPherson, a distant ancestor of mine, who really whipped the place into shape around 1820, when he bought it. At the time, he was living at the McPherson family mansion, which is known as Auburn, and has been in the McPherson family since shortly after it was built in 1805. It is still, in fact, owned by the Maryland McPhersons, but there are no more male heirs to the property. I recently met Mr. Gardiner, the current owner, at church in Catoctin Furnace, and he promised to show me around the place, which is a historic landmark, sometime soon. It's on your left, and almost visible from Rte. 15 as you drive towards Thurmont from Frederick, and it once looked like this:















[auburn, the mcpherson mansion, in lithograph]

Paul, Roy, Matty So Phatty, and I took a hike recently from the site of the ruin of Catoctin Furnace all the way around the Catoctin Mountain Trail, through the national park, to Cat Rock, about 6 miles in all, and a beautiful hike. The furnace site currently looks like this:

















[the fiery furnace]

and inside:

















[cathedral to iron]

Historians at Hopkins tell me that iron produced at Catoctin Furnace was used to fight off the bloody Brits, in the form of cannonballs for the Continental Army's 16-pounders, and to whop some Confederate ass at the Battle of Hampton Roads by providing the plates for the first-ever American iron-clad warship, the USS Monitor.

But by the time when my G-G-Gramps, old Reverend Ernie McGill arrived at the Furnace to be rector of Harriet Chapel, the local Episcopal church, the glory days were over...

















[dani with photo portrait of rev. ernest mcgill, september 2007]

Elizabeth Y. Anderson, a parishioner at Harriet Chapel and author of local history Faith in the Furnace, has this to say about it:

"The decade of the 1880s brought the most startling change in the life at Catoctin since the iron furnace began production more than a century earlier. The United States as a rapidly expanding nation was particularly dependent on rail transportation. A vast network of railroads crisscrossing the country demanded thousands of miles of steel rails and bridges... In 1873, Andrew Carnegie, a pioneer in railroading, entered the steel manufacturing business with the construction near Pittsburgh of the biggest steel mill in the world, the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works. Utilizing the improved Bessemer process, Carnegie's company dominated rail manufacture. In addition to Pittsburgh, vast steel enterprises were consolidated in the South, the Midwest and the Western Mountain Region. Proximity to raw materials, improved technology and reduced shipping costs made it impossible for small independent furnaces to compete with these corporate giants..."

It was the beginning of the end for Catoctin Furnace, and the operation finally closed in 1903. So in a twisted way, my being from Steeler country means that my direct ancestors, the beneficiaries of modern steel production in Pittsburgh mills, ruined the livelihoods of my less modern ancestors, the McPherson-McGills of late-10th century Western Maryland. Whooooaaa....

This is a creepy old rusty old iron wreath, hung out a split-trunked tree in the woods near Catoctin Furnace. Like something out of the Blair Witch Project. Or maybe just the work of some sauced old Maryland moonshiners...






















[well i go to some hollow, and set up my still...]

And this is the steeple of Harriet Chapel, the little church across the road from the Iron Works. I'm told that the Rev. Ernest McGill used to ride in horse and buggy between three churches: Harriet Chapel, St. Stephens in Thurmont, and St. John's in Walkersville, delivering a eucharist mass and a sermon at each one, every Sunday. And that he never recycled material. And, he could shoot under 75 on a par-4 golf course, and he got a 1580 on his SATs.

















[open the doors, see all the people...]

But the most important tale from the Rec. McGill era, and possibly from all of Catoctin Furnace history, is the story of the Ransom Wreck, about which, now that I know about it, I intend to write a killer train-wreck ballad about it, which will effectively make me not just a regional writer, but a regional song-writer, as well. Wait a second... am I a regional blogger, too?






















[train-wreck in 3 parts]

You can read some really incredible eye-witness accounts of what happened in the Ransom Wreck here, as well as see some sweet pictures in addition to the one I posted above, but the story goes, quite basically, like this.

When Catoctin Furnace shut down its iron-making operations in 1903, a bunch of the workers were forced to seek work on the rods, doing day labor for the Western Maryland Railway as "floaters" -- clearing wrecks, making repairs, and doing various other odd railroad jobs. A crew of these floaters from northern Frederick County, on a team organized by a man called "Foreman Wade," were sent to repair a wreck near Baltimore at Mt. Hope, on Wednesday June 14th, 1905. Three days later, when they had finished their contract work, they made for the station to take the No. 5 train, out of Hillen Station, Baltimore, to the Catoctins. It was filled mostly with day laborers bound for their homes in the Western Maryland resort towns, and as the baggage car allotted to Foreman Wade's men was full, most of them sat on the bumpers between the cars, watching the ground pass by beneath their feet and trying not to fall asleep and fall off onto the tracks.

Further west, at Gorsuch, a heavily-loaded freight train was waiting on the siding with instructions to let three west-bound trains pass it by before it got back on the tracks and continued its east-bound journey. The Union Bridge Accomodation and the Blue Mountain Express went by, and then for some reason, the freighter forgot about the third train and moved back onto the track, continuing on its way. The third train was, of course, the high-speed passenger No. 5 train. The two locomotives collided head-on near the Patapsco River crossing. All of the crewmen, except one foreman who jumped, were killed, and Foreman Wade's day laborers met a particularly gruesome and fiery fate because they were sitting between cars. Most of their bodies were burned almost beyond recognition.

Of the 26 kiled, 16 were from the Emmitsburg/Thurmont/Catoctin Furnace area, and Great-Great-Gramps Reverend Ernest buried seven of them at Harriet Chapel. The community was devastated, and Reverend McGill died almost exactly a year later, at age 50. I like to think it was a broken heart.






















[st. francis mourning the lost, catoctin rectory in the background]

I took a trip last Sunday with KB, JMc, and RA to Harriet Chapel for Sunday services, and to see the stained-glass windows dedicated to my great-great-grandfather and mother.

Here's the church's cornerstone:

















[179 years and counting...]

and the interior of the chapel...

















[harriet chapel, september 2007]

The sycamore tree on the front lawn between the chapel and the rectory, we are told, is the second oldest in Maryland. No one seemed to know where the first is.






















[r.a. at h.c.]

And finally, the windows. This is Mary Buchanan McPherson McGill, a fine, right-minded woman if there ever was one, pointed out by KB...






















[not actually m.b. mcgill. a saint, in fact]


















[dedication]

And a saint dedicated to the Rev. Ernest...






















[in memoriam]

And finally, in memory of the orphaned children of the Ransom Wreck, because all memorials of tragic events have at least something to do with patriotism and American dignity, but also, and equally significantly, because there was an ill aviary in the Catoctin Mountain Park trailhead area that Matty So Phatty, Paul, Roy, and I discovered on our hike near Catoctin Furnace, here's a photo of our national bird...

















[slept funny on my neck...]

Goodnight, and God Bless America.

What a Playa Eat

[delicioso]

I'm happy to report that, as you all should know by now, the Steelers humiliated another offense today -- the San Francisco 40-whiners -- to complete the first 3-0 start since 1992, the first year of the tenure of legendary coach Bill "Taher of Paher" Cowher. The score was 37-16. I coulda been there. I was offered tickets. But it turns out I had made plans already to visit an historic church near Thurmont (yeah, I know...).

But y'know, it probably wasn't a great idea anyway, because I've got about 8,000 wds due tomorrow on a big freelance project, anyway. So I wanted to show yinz guys (see above) what a high-rolla like me eats up here in Batchelorland to (a) cheer myself up and (b) steel myself for a long night of writing.

That's a huge (at least 2/3 of a pound, I'm guessing) Worcestershire sauce-tanged burger with English cheddar cheese and fried onions on top. and then a zucchini-based ratatouille paprikash that I improvised out of some green squash my mom brought me at the baptism of The General, scads of garlic, onions & tomaters and some fiery spices. See everyone? Eating my vegetables!

The Thurmont Sessions

[get in touch with god; turn your radio on...]

It's finally up on the internet! A "myspace" page for the Thurmont Sessions!

Check it here: www.myspace.com/thethurmontsessions

[mad scientist at work]

[you can have this old world, but give me jesus]

What am I talking about? I'm talking about a couple of weeks ago, when all the folks who regularly attend COUNTRY MUSIC NIGHT at 310 W. 30th street (well, not all, but most), plus Matty so Phatty, my dad, my mom, my dog, and two half-naked French physicists came up to Thurmont and we laid down some tracks in the Lodge.

[my baby, the devil and me]

In addition, we totally maxed out the levels, and Waa-Waa-Wee-Waa'd all night long.

[oh, father, father... (and mother, mother)...]

["liquor," she said, and lick 'er i did...]

[i saw the light]

The tracks on the "myspace" page are "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," "Sally Gooden," "Give Me Jesus," and "My Baby, The Devil and Me" -- that latter being one of Dani's, and the only original on there. There are, however, 13 more tracks on CD, and if you want a copy of the full CD, shoot me an email and I can either e-mail the files to you or if you help us out, brother, spare a dime, we'll toss you a hardcopy with the beautiful color liner notes.

[no help from the americain]

remember, it's www.myspace.com/thethurmontsessions

TAKE A LISTEN!

and just for kicks, here are some other, non music-related images from the weekend...

[i love pie, i love puddin'...]

[oh, butter]

[wal-mart wardrobe]

[bill, on crust duty]

[ian as smoke-master... in more ways than one! zing!]

[burnt to perfection]

[hey, old blue, you're a good dog, you]

[in the morning, when i rise]