I am in my house, which is empty save for a few clothes, two suitcases, some CDs, and my stereo. And a futon, where or who it came from I don't know, but I vacuumed the dust off and it will be my bed here until I leave.
Ok, there's still a piano and an organ and a huge tape machine but they are going soon. It's all going soon. Including the house. I had housecleaners come really clean the place top to bottom, it's looking better than it has in years, the inside finally looking tidy enough to match the organically neat garden. I have moved my characteristic clutter into a storage space, it looks pretty hellish but I hope to weed some of that stuff out soon. I have a LOT of memorabilia, posters, press clippings, etc. it filled boxes and boxes. Funny that I can't find my platinum record award for 'Reality Bites'. I found a gold record award for sales of REM's 'Up' album in Germany tho'. And tons of other stuff.
They cleaned out all the ahses from my fireplace so now I can't use it. I had a few fires in the last week knowing it would be the last time. I'm moving my wine into a wine storage place (anyone want to buy my wine fridge? $100 and it's yours--email me at this website. It's a small one, like 36 bottles. A little bit bigger than a hotel minibar or dorm fridge). I gave my mountain bike to my next door neighbors, and I put my bed and many other things in the driveway with a 'Free' sign on them this afternoon, the bed and quite a few things have already gone. I went to Goodwill a hundred times. I filled about 600 cubic feet no problem at my storage place. The front seat of my car has a stack of books in it that I'm selling this week (you have to make an appointment!), held in place by the seatbelt! I gave my Wurlitzer to Jesse Sykes and my piano (that I've had since I was 9) to Blake who was in Saltine. I gave a book to a friend, and I'm drinking some of the less valuable parts of my collection before I have to put it in my car and take it to the storage. I took a bunch of paint, pesticides, and stuff to the Household Hazardous Waste Factility this afternoon. I have an embarassing amount of styrofoam that was packaging for audio components I no longer own. This has to go to the garbage dump and I am very unhappy about it. I am using some of it to box up audio components I own. And cardboard boxes--sweet jesus--the recycling gets picked up tomorrow and there's an outhouse-sized pillar of broken down boxes at the end of my driveway. My receycling bin (a big one) is totally full, and I filled another two boxes with paper, cardboard, metal, and plastic recyclable items. You know, a huge amount of this stuff is comprised of items that people left behind in my house. Thanks a lot. Especially weird were the boxes and boxes of tea bags that I didn't buy (they went in the compost bin, or the food bank, depending on condition) and the fucking 8-12 bottles of white wine vinegar that I certainly didn't buy (what the hell...who...agh, it's not even worth asking). It ain't over yet. I have a dump run tomorrow of styrofoam and some nasty stuff that the cleaners drgedged out of the basement. And the wine has to be moved. I still have a few things in the house to move out of the way of first painters, then hardwood floor refinishers.
I have been listening to a ton of music while I've been owkring on this tho--you should check out Solomon Burke's "Don't Give Up On Me", one of the most astonishing soul vocals I've heard. I've been listening to lots of soul, blues and gospel; but also everything else from crappy demos to audio books and spoken word to punk to anything else. I was digging the Deathray Davies' song "Dominique" for obv. reasons, and I really dug the instrumental bonus disk that came with Chris Stamey's "Travels in the South" album. And the 60s band the Action's album "Rolled Gold". Right now I'm listening to a great comp. of tracks from 78s called "Down in the Basement: Joe Bussard's Treasure Trove of Vintage 78s 1926-1937"; a collection of songs of similar vintage (albeit globally more diverse) is the "Hot Women" comp. assembled by R. Crumb from his collection, which I also enjoyed this week. There was a tune on there that really confused Jon Auer when he called me while I was listening to it. Oh, also very enjoyable was an EP by an Australian band called Bergerac, it's from 2001 and there's evil synths and all kinds of good things. I wonder if they still exist?
Last week I saw Metric, who played to about 1,000 people on a Monday night; their live show is about as intense as it gets; brilliantly staged, brilliantly executed, incredible playing and singing. They get the 'best band in the land' A.C. designation for 2006. The album "Live It Out" is also excellent, the title track being my favorite at this time. I met them in 2003 at the REM end-of-tour-party in LA. Emily complimented (er, maybe she was kidding tho) a vintage suit I was wearing and we chatted for a second. I hadn't heard them at that point and now do I feel stupid had I known what an important band they would become to me I would have spent a LOT more time talking to them instead of going off and sitting in Mike Mills' hot tub by myself (which wasn't really such a bad choice at the time, however). So...if anyone reads this that knows them...well...I guess ther's nothing you can really say. Except that, I, too have come to love this band's music very much.
I also saw, albeit, after a bit too much wine (NEVER order the second bottle), a great set from His Name Is Alive.
I found a CD single of REM's "I'll Take the Rain" from the Reveal album; it's a superb song, and I think one of my best keyboard moments (I play about 3 different things on it). The single has a live version of the song "She Just Wants to Be" that I play organ and 'strings' on, recorded at a small show in New York in 2001.
I'm going to eat something...and go visit Phil & Jesse of the Jesse Sykes org. and listen to their new album in progress. Then I'm going to come back to my house and sleep on a futon on the floor of my former office. I wish that was a poem.
Love
KS
Seattle
