Young Fresh Fellows - New Record and CD release show

After such an obvious lapse between posts, reality has smacked on the forehead: it looks like I'll probably have time to update ye olde blog only when I have music news related directly to my personal work. My hopes of maintaining a constantly-updated, award-winning music blog have now been relegated to the much more practical realm of: one giant press release of and about me!

I guess this is my way of saying: don't come to Scrimshaw looking for the latest breaking news in the music world. I set my sights too high and wanted to bring you a blog of quality and substance, but these days all I really have time to do is keep a small journal of my recent jobs. Life has a way of interrupting even the best laid blog drafts. And I wanted to tell it to you straight.

So, speaking of music news (*coughs*), I have a new piece in Seattle Weekly about the Young Fresh Fellows. This a Seattle based group that's been on the scene for over 25 years, a band that skirted the punk scene of the early '80s, rode out the grunge invasion and provided a good deal of context for tons of area bands. They have a new album out - their first in almost 10 years - and it was produced by Robyn Hitchcock. There's a good story here! Read all about it: Not So Young, Still Fresh.

Bill Callahan - New Album and Interview

I recently sat down with singer-songwriter Bill Callahan - via a friendly email - to talk about his new album, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle. He's a very intriguing personality, introspective and prolific - for years he recorded under the moniker Smog - and is considered by many to be an unsung pioneer of the early 90's lo-fi sound.

This is his second release as Bill Callahan. It's a beautiful, cohesive record. Read more about it here: Bill Callahan: Interview.

Happy Record Store Day!

What better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than looking through the titles at your local record store? I'm not talking Tower Records or Walmart, people. I'm talking about your locally owned, independent record store - the Lakeshore Record Exchanges, Record Archives, Sonic Booms, Amoebas, M Theory(s), and Easy Streets (to name a few) of the world!

Buy some music today - like an old fashioned cd or record (remember those?) - help boost the economy, and support your local music shop!

Might be easy for you if you altered your state of mind and shopped your heart out like Mos Def here: Mos Def shopping at Amoeba.

Record stores rock! Happy shopping!

Down in flames...

One of the first - among many - to go was Resonance, a highly-esteemed quarterly print music magazine I interned for. Then No Depression, another well-respected Seattle rag went from print to online to - as of February - a user forum only, signaling no real journalism or paid writers. Now, say good bye to Blender. This news comes in the wake of the passing of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, a daily that had been a Northwest publishing establishment since 1864.

Kyla Fairchild, co-publisher of No Depression (who I was seated two rows behind on the plane back from Austin) posted a very thorough explanation of what's happening in the print world right now called "The Cold Hard Facts." It's worth reading if any of this snowballing and troubling news is of interest to you.

February 9th's episode of Jon Stewart's Daily Show touches on these issues also. Walter Issacson wrote an article for Time Magazine called, "How to Save Your Newspaper," and in his interview with Stewart he says, "[We] have to get away from the notion that good reporting has to be given away for free on the internet...we have to get to some system where some journalists are getting paid."

Something like this needs to happen, and happen soon if we are to be become informed exclusively through the internet. The old business model - provide a service, then get paid for it - has changed entirely because of the internet, and we've gotten used to getting everything free. But there's truly a hidden cost to "free" online stuff, and we have to restructure the way we think about online content. Free equals free. As it has been for ages, you have to pay for quality. As newspapers dwindle and magazines go under, this will undoubtedly only become more and more obvious.

To see the interview with Walter Issacson, go here.

Back from SXSW

Hello everyone. As most of you know, I've recently returned from Austin, Texas where I was covering the South by Southwest music festival. I had the time of my life and despite all the music, beer and general goings-on, somehow managed to send off an assignment a day for Prefixmag.com.

If you'd like to live vicariously through me and my coveted press badge, here's a map, starting at day 1.

SXSW Missive: Day 1
SXSW Missive: Day 2
SXSW Missive: Day 3
SXSW Missive: Day 4
SXSW Missive: Final Thoughts

At the prompting of Quincy Jones at his keynote speech, I visited his website to sign a petition to install a Secretary of the Arts. I was startled to find Prefix mentioned twice there, in quoted excerpts from my Day 2 missive. You can read all about it and watch a video of the amazing Alfredo Rodriguez here: 3.23 SXSW Recap.

I hope you all have some time to read through the series, comment if you like and get an idea of what it was all about.

SXSW - Showcasin' Cheat Sheet

I leave for Austin tomorrow and am happy to report that the list I compiled of every day party you never wanted to know about at South by Southwest is up at Prefix. You can read it here: 2009 SXSW Showcasin' Cheat Sheet.

Looks like it will be 70's and 80's this week - a nice change from the cold, rainy Pacific Northwest.

From Wednesday on, you can keep up with my Texas shenanigans at Prefixmag.com where I'll be posting a daily blog entry. I'll try to link Scrimshaw with the daily Prefix posts, but can't say for sure if I'll be able to pull that off. They say attending SXSW is like swimming in a pool of free beer - not the best conditions for staying on task, but a hell of a lot of fun. Whether it's here or at Prefix, I'll be keeping you posted.

SXSW 2009: 10 Bands to Watch

I'm sorry it's taken me this long to get back to Scrimshaw. I've been scouring press releases and doing a lot of research and scheduling in preparation for South by Southwest. One of my contributions just went up on Prefix - it's a list of 10 bands on the rise. You can read it here: 10 Bands to Watch.

I've compiled a giant document with all the minutiae of just about every day party in Austin - that will be up shortly, too, and I'll send a link along.

More news to come soon, honest!