BLAST! REUNION..AT LEAST IN PICTURE.

..but not before I go out and shred. The original lineup of Blast! hanging out last week. Photo courtesy of Steve "Stevenson" Borek.

The first Blast! record is one of my favorites. Imagine my surprise when original guitarist Steve Borek dropped me a line. Seems like "The Power Of Expression" lineup have been hanging out as friends a lot lately. Will they play music, and write some new tunes? Steve says he isn't sure. I say: why the fuck not? These five men together were a awesome band. They could be better now..why not?

WHAT I FOUND ON THE INTERNET TODAY.

PICTURES OF COC IN S.F. BY MURRAY BOWLES, I THINK. I RECOGNIZE THE SETING. PRETTY KICK ASS.



DREW THIS FOR THE BAND CINDER...COMING OUT SOON. THANKS, GUYS.



FOUND THIS ON THE INTERNET..HA HA HA..PRETTY FUNY.

DOUBLE NEGATIVE AT ATP.

We went and flew to England to go to a small town called Minehead where we were to play at ALL TOMORROW'S PARTIES, this one being curated by the Melvins and Mike Patton. It was a rushed jet lagged pleasure, surreal and cold. Most of us have never been to England before.

The festival site was by the sea. It was fucking freezing all of the time we were there and the jet lag was immense, and that was strange considering that it was just a six hour flight to Amsterdam and a five hour layover there before backpedaling back over the English Channel to land in Bristol. hmm..maybe it wasn't such a shock how tired I was.

There were tons of bands there. I wish I could give you a blow by blow of what went down, but I can't because the truth is, I barely watched anybody play. Pretty lame I guess..it seemed like two or three songs by anybody was enough.

Our chalet was really nice. We had two between the four of us. We spent a fair amount of our time there, walking back and forth from the festivities back to our spacious quarters.

I spent most of Saturday in the merch trenchs sitting next to Henry from Chunklet, being entertained by his English friend Pete, (by far the coolest person we met over there.) and selling all of the posters and books that I brought. I signed some autographs and met some nice people. More importantly, I earned a living, a pretty good living for one days amount of work. Lots of young men with hoodies strolled by at one point, as you could see.

I was pretty happy about Saturday. Sunday night at two in the morning was when we played. We bid our time well waiting for our turn to play.

It seemed to go over well. It probably wasn't the greatest we have played, and the monitors were feedbacking constantly, but I think we did fine. It is not like anyone here has seen us before, so we were cool..some folks seemed to really REALLY dig it.

Afterwards we waited four or so hours before our taxi arrived at seven a.m. to take us back to the Bristol airport. We thanked Buzz for being so gracious as to include us beforehand and when we did fly over the Atlantic Ocean it felt like we were chasing a four hour sunset.

I am shocked at how little I really have to say about it, but all in all it was a fun rushed little adventure, we met lots of nice folks and played to a audience that I am sure mostly had no idea who we were and still seemed to like it. So, it was a immense victory.

thanks again to everyone we met over there. And tanks for the folks who bought my stuff. photos provided by Scott unless he gave the camera to Kevin or Justin....

WWW.BRIANWALSBY.COM IS DOWN..

In some sad news, I was told the other day that my sort of outdated site, www.brianwalsby.com, is down.
I don't know what happened. I will be looking into this but I suppose for now you will be stuck going here or to my Myspace page. I wouldn't be too bummed but obviously I shouldn't let it go down if I can help it. Hopefully it will be up again.

If I can't get it back, you'll be seeing more artwork for to check out.

We'll see what happens,
Brian


AFTERNOTE: IT IS TAKEN CARE OF, AND IT IS BACK ONLINE. GO TO:

www.brianwalsby.com

and I finally got around to checking out that last Torche cd..man, it is really good. I miss out on everything.

DOUG MOODY?

LOOK FOR NEW UPDATED VERSION OF THIS.

In perhaps the funniest (in both meanings of the word) work project that has fallen into my lap recently, I have been hand picked as the artist for the upcoming album entitled NARDCORE 3. I didn't even know that there was a NARDCORE 2, to be honest.

To make a long story short, my old pal Tony Cortez of ILL REPUTE got in touch with me and explained that he was putting this together and not only that, but that Doug Moody of Mystic Records fame was involved! Tony was a really cool guy, and it was nice to hear from him. It was however, odd to think that Mystic Records was still around, let alone Doug Moody! He is like eighty years old, and still out there. Very odd.

Some of you might remember Mystic and Doug Moody..they put out a non stop onslaught of endless young thrash bands in the mid eighties, like SCARED STRAIGHT. Otherwise, I can assure you that we NEVER would have been able to put out a record, and SST wasn't going to be knocking on our doors anytime soon. Doug got a horrible reputation for ripping off his bands, and faded away into obscurity. But look, I am really sure that he wasn't depositing a cool half million dollars in the bank off of all of those Manifest Destiny and GRIM records. Call me crazy but that is how I see it.

The NARDCORE compilation was drawn by me years ago. But the version that you see here is actually someone tracing over the original with a black marker. True story! I remember getting it and being too mortified to say anything! Yikes almighty!

So I told Tony I would do it..sounded like a hoot..but that I wanted half of the money up front. He said he'd get back to me, and then he did. Doug Moody is going to do it. Which really is um...interesting.

Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine drawing another NARDCORE cover twenty five years later, or that Doug Moody was going to be involved. Have I landed on bizzaro world?

PROGRESS.

then.


now.

MANCHILD 4 AD RATES.

HERE ARE THE AD RATES. CONTACT CHARLES IF YOU ARE INTERESTED. THANKS.





1/2 PAGE AD (6.25WIDE BY 4.5 HIGH)WILL COST YOU $100.00
FULL PAGE AD (6.25WIDE BY 9.25 HIGH)WILL COST YOU $160.00
INSIDE FRONT/BACK AND BACK COVER (ALL HAVE BEEN RESERVED)
IF YOU WOULD LIKE BRIAN TO ILLUSTRATE YOUR AD, ADD $30 FOR 1/2 PAGE AND $50 FOR FULL PAGE.
ALL ADS SHOULD BE SUBMITTED AS GREYSCALE 300DPI TIFF, JGEP, OR AI FILE. THEY SHOULD ALSO COMEWITH
A CHECK FOR THE AD.
BIFOCALMEDIA PO BOX 50106. RALEIGH NC 27650
WWW.BIFOCALMEDIA.COM
BOOK SIZE: 6.75X9.75
PAGES: 100 or more
PRINT RUN: 2000 for the initial run with many more to follow
FULL COLOR MATTE FILM LAMINATED COVER
DISTRIBUTION: LUMBERJACK/MORDAM AND AK PRESS
THIS PUPPYWILL BE EVERYWHERE.
Call or e-mail asap to reserve ads.

Charles Cardello
Bifocal Media
919 696 3892
Charles@BifocalMedia.com
charles@bifocalmedia.com

I AM GOING TO ENGLAND NEXT WEEK!

APPARENTLY WE ARE PLAYING AT TWO IN THE MORNING AFTER THESE GUYS. HOW DO THESE THINGS HAPPEN?

So I will be flying to England as the ongoing drummer of DOUBLE NEGATIVE next week to play at this three day music festival, ALL TOMORROWS PARTIES. Besides playing with such little known bands like THE MEAT PUPPETS and THE DAMNED, I will be on hand to draw all matter of homemade posters for every English person who strolls by the merch table, and not only that, I will be selling previously made homemade posters, my MANCHILD books and I am sure some other stuff as well. It will be three days of tea and crumpets probably!

Please help me convert euros and pounds into something that makes sense to me..and if anyone knows Scott Walker, invite him down. I'd like to say hello.

Until next week..toodles!

COMING SOON....

IT IS MY FIRST EVER T-SHIRT DESIGN AVAILABLE THROUGH VOLCOM..IT IS A DRAWING OF ALL OF THEIR BANDS FROM THEIR LABEL ON ONE SIDE AND A LOGO I DID FOR THEM ON THE BACK! VOLCOM BANDS ALL HAVE LOTS OF BEARDS AND LONG HAIR! STAY TUNED FOR FUTURE DETAILS ON WHEN IT WILL BE AVAILABLE.

MANCHILD FOUR: RIDING THEM COAT TAILS...

HERE I AM, RIDING THEM COAT TAILS.

After messing around with other choices like, "cupcakes and puppy tails","good luck..you'll need it" and "the one", we decided that the full title will for sure be MANCHILD FOUR: RIDING THEM COAT TAILS.



Ad rates coming soon.

The phrase "band slut" will be in the cover too.

ANOTHER MELVINS CD TO BE INCLUDED IN MY NEXT BOOK.

I am pretty excited, because I got the green light for the next musical contents of my next book, MANCHILD 4.

We are going to do another full album length MELVINS cd, this time we will be focusing on two shows to pick from, one of which is from a show in Boston on the band's last u.s. tour that Toshi (Big Business) recorded, and it is pretty smoking. It is very likely you will hear some brutal live versions of "Eye Flys", "Boris" and a handful of new songs from the Buzz/Dale/Jared/Coady lineup of the band.

The real goodie is a show recorded at (of all places) Gilman Street years and years ago with the fabled Buzz/Dale/Lori lineup. This is historically significant due to the fact that it almost chronologically follows the previous "Making Love" demos that were in MANCHILD 3 material wise; more songs that eventually ended up on the record OZMA and (to me at least) were actually better versions, like the versions of "Oven" and "Koolegged". You can almost hear a pin drop between songs, as if the people watching just didn't know what to make of the assault, which was actually par for the course back then.

Put it all together, and you'll have a really neat all live MELVINS cd, and another fine addition to their massive catalog.

Sadly, the idea of having this cd become a split between the MELVINS and DOUBLE NEGATIVE will not happen due to a small assortment of reasons. Maybe next time.

thanks.

DIVINYLS.....YET AGAIN.

I am a big fan of the first DIVINYLS album. The song "Elsie" was the centerpiece, side one, last song. I am posting this song because even though this is 1984 or 1983, it is pretty cool. Christina Amphlett was way ahead of her time..what kind of stage presence is this? I hope Charles Cardello watches this one day. He's dig it.



and here is "Only Lonely", another catchy tune of said record.

I HAVE BEEN ON A BYRDS KICK.

I KNEW I'D WANT YOU.



A MEDLEY..ACTUALLY DOING IT LIVE.



YEARS LATER, GENE CLARK WROTE THIS SONG "GYPSY RIDER" AND SNAG IT WITH A LADY NAMED CARLA OLSEN..NICE TUNE.



THE BYRDS DOING "GOIN BACK" RIGHT AFTER CROSBY IS FIRED..GENE RE-JOINS FOR LIKE THREE WEEKS..WEIRD.



THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS..I LIKE GRAM PARSONS ALRIGHT BUT..WHAT IS UP WITH THIS PRANCING?

THIS WEEK'S CARTOON...

..IS ACTUALLY HANGING IN A GALLERY IN CALIFORNIA... IT IS YET ANOTHER DRAWING OF BLACK FLAG, AND THEY REALLY LOVED IT. TOO BAD I CAN'T FIND THE LINK..

LOCAL PRESS FROM THIS SUMMER.

While I was on tour this summer, a guy I know wrote about it in a weekly here in Raleigh.

Raleigh's Brian Walsby quits his day job, hits the road with Melvins
Neither here nor there
13 AUG 2008 • by Grayson Currin


Click for larger image
Illustration by Brian Walsby
Raleigh cartoonist and drummer Brian Walsby is five days away from finishing his first month on the road with the Melvins, possibly his favorite band of the last two decades. As the California quartet made its way east from a show in Santa Barbara July 16, Walsby managed the merchandise, selling records and discs and shirts to clubs full of people he's lovingly typecast.

"You have the rare cool fan that comes up, really nice, that knows what he wants. Then you've got drunk fucking idiots, and they're neck-and-neck with super-hyper-obsessive Melvins fans," Walsby says, while doing laundry in Northhampton, Mass., enjoying a day off after a run of nine shows in as many days. "They know everything. They have calculated last night when [Melvins drummer] Dale Crover picked his nose out in the parking lot and wrote about it online."

It's not really that different from his last job at Whole Foods on Wade Avenue in Raleigh, Walsby says, laughing. Instead of people asking about artisan bread and vegan options, he's dealing goods to a different demographic, one wondering about limited-edition records and T-shirt sizes.

Walsby, 42, has drummed in a dozen Triangle rock bands since he moved to Raleigh in the summer of 1986. From Wwax and Patty Duke Syndrome to Polvo and, most recently, Double Negative, he's constantly been behind the kit with someone. Since 2004, he's also released three collections of his comics, black-and-white ruminations on a life spent loving rock music and trying to like jazz. After those books sold well, Walsby decided he was done wasting time in the service industry. He quit Whole Foods in March.

"I figured [I needed to] start trying to figure out something to do to better myself and use whatever talents I had, whether it was writing or drawing or whatever," says Walsby. "I didn't want to wake up eight years from now, at 50 years old, and realize I was still working at Whole Foods."

Walsby stumbled into a job with the Melvins in much the same way he met the band 22 years ago—by accident. He moved here from California after becoming pen pals with Raleigh's Corrosion of Conformity. The Melvins crashed with C.O.C.'s Reed Mullen after their first show in the state on a humid July night in 1986. Walsby lived just down the street. By the end of the band's Chapel Hill set, Walsby—a C.O.C. and Black Flag fan who treasured punk rock that wasn't pure—had new heroes.

"They played their original stuff, and they basically cleared the entire room. Me and maybe 10 other people—no, not even 10 other people, five people maybe—sat and watched them," explains Walsby, reciting the names of those who survived the set with him. "The baton had been passed. We were like, 'Whoa, this is it.'"

He kept in touch with the Melvins, visiting the band in California several times and meeting up with them whenever they ventured south. In 2006, he toured with the Melvins for two weeks, selling and signing copies of his first two Manchild books. His third set of illustrations, released last year by Bifocal Media, included a CD of otherwise-lost Melvins demos that he'd kept on tape since 1988. After Walsby mentioned to Melvins founder Buzz Osborne that he'd quit his longtime grocery store gig, Osborne invited him to come work on the road.

When this six-week run ends, it will mark Walsby's longest tour yet: In 1997, he spent a month on the road drumming for Polvo's final tour. Double Negative made a nine-day trek to Canada last year. But this is the first time he's been on the road with a girlfriend and mortgage back home, and the first time he hasn't been playing his own music onstage each night. As much as he likes being on the road with one of his favorite bands and some of his favorite people, he says tours eventually end for a reason: "There are a bunch of other guys out here, too, and being around a bunch of other guys like that and not having any privacy, missing people, sleeping in your bed, your little routine ... It's rough at times. I'm having a good time, but I'll be glad to be back."

BYE BYE!! DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE WAY OUT!

This week's cartoon..actually just a sketch.

VERY GLAD TO BE PROVEN WRONG: WAY TO GO, AMERICA.

PEOPLE I KNOW HAVE CRIED. I JUST SMILED.

Everywhere I went today, everybody has been very nice!

I didn't think in my lifetime that I would actually see the day where the country I lived in elected a black president. And this is the first time in my life where the person I voted for actually won. The first time. I really can't say if my day to day life is going to change too much because of this, but for some reason I can't help but feel (gasp!) proud of my country for actually stepping up..unbelievable.

McCain went out with class in his concession speech. The rest of the world won't see us as such assholes anymore. And President Bush? Well..fuck him and the horse he rode in on...good riddance.

We will go on with our lives and hope for the best and hope Obama lives up to his word. That would be nice, wouldn't it?

EDISON LIGHTHOUSE - "LOVE GROWS WHERE MY ROSEMARY GOES"

CATCHY TUNE..NO ONE DOES INSTANTLY CATCHY SONGS LIKE THIS.

FRANK NAVETTA RIP

Just found out that Frank Navetta, the original and founding guitarist of the Descendents passed away on Halloween. Frank and his contribution on the Descendents debut album "Milo Goes To College" was huge and that record helped get me through many a shitty day when I was a youngster. This is terrible news, RIP to Frank and my condolences to his friends and family.

DOES ANYONE OUT THERE HAVE ANY OLD EIGHTIES ERA STUFF THAT I DREW THAT I COULD BORROW?

DO YOU OWN SOMETHING LIKE THIS?


I have what might be an unusual request.

I am getting ready to put together my next book called MANCHILD 4. And I thought it would be really great if I could re-print an assortment of the kind of stuff I drew back in the eighties when I was a punk rock pen pal who drew little silly cartoons. I have a humorous article that I have written, put aside for this event. But I need help to pull it off.

For anyone out there that might remember writing to me, trading stuff with me and having me draw stuff for you: Is there anyway that you can reach into that box of old stuff that everybody no doubt has, and pull out that old Brian Walsby drawing that I did for you twenty years or so ago? And if you have been able to do that, would it be too much to ask for a scan of said drawing and send it to me for the possibility of having it be re-printed in the next book that I am about to do?

my e-mail address is:
reluctantking@hotmail.com

individual credit will of course be given for the help. A 300 dpi jpeg would do nicely. My goal here is to have a affectionate look back into my past, with a dash of humor involved, and that is pretty much it.

thanks for your time!

YOUR WEEKLY NEW CARTOON.

Well, it is Monday and here it is, this week's new cartoon. It is all about the state fair that just happened here in Raleigh. Sort of. Click on the cartoon to read it.

Also, thanks to Christian for his story, and also Rev. Mike for his. Hopefully I will be able to turn these stories into cartoons.

SCREAMING TREES - "HALO OF ASHES"

REALLY UNDERRATED. I WISH I WAS PLAYING THIS SONG.

PAY PAL LINKS.

I twisted the arm of computer genius (and frontman of..ahh you know who) Kevin Collins to put Pay Pal links of all of the things that I am selling, like all three of the MANCHILD books and the MANCHILD t-shirt.So now you will never have to go to my horribly outdated website (www.brianwalsby.com)ever again to buy any of this stuff.

So scroll down and check everything out on the right side of this blog.

Also, the horribly outdated website will be dealt with soon enough. I am debating just pulling the plug on the whole thing because to me it seems to make more sense having everything that I am about in one place but Kevin thinks that there is a lot of potential. Since I can't really seem to ever get in touch with the affable fellow who built it for me years ago, I think I will let Kevin take a crack at it. Anyways, there will be some changes going on for that fairly soon.

I have also upped the prices a tiny bit for a few things since it was killing me financially to offer the books at these rock bottom prices, especially sending anything internationally.


thanks.

MANCHILD 4.

CHARLES CARDELLO, MY PUBLISHER.

I would like to talk a little about MANCHILD 4, which will be my next book put out by Bifocal Media.

At the end of this month, we will begin to work on it. This means scanning all of that new art, erasing my own pencil lines, at least attempting to proof read my misspellings and to get a bunch of people to advertise for the book. We did pretty well the last couple of times and there is no reason why we couldn't do it again.

As of right now, there are no set ad rates. We will decide that and I think that will be the next announcement.

There has also been some talk about including another cd inside the book. This time We are hoping to do a split cd with some lives Melvins stuff, and some Double Negative stuff, either live or studio out takes. No actual real news on what it will be, but that is what we are aiming for.

In the meantime, if anyone reading this is interested in placing an ad, I don't think it would be a bad idea to bother Charles Cardello and give him a "heads up".

Charles has a business called Bifocal Media, and he has put out lots and lots of stuff. To get to the website, go to:

http://www.bifocalmedia.com/

And to bug him personally, here is his e-mail address:

charles@bifocalmedia.com

And that will be it for right now. So thanks and stay tuned.

NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS 2008.

I don't know why I haven't bothered to at least mention this here yet, but Double Negative has been invited to play at this three day festival in England. It is in December. That is right, we are flying over to play one show, hang out, and then we are flying back.

It is our only U.K. show this year. Don't miss out!!

For more info, go here:

http://www.atpfestival.com/events/nbc2008/

VALIENT THORR MOVIE!!!!

Listen up kids, Charles wanted me to spread the word. The movie he has made about those bearded madmen VALIENT THORR is ready to be unearthed. Click on the pic below for details:



And lurking in the "extras" section of this soon to be unearthed DVD is this video Charles made, with crude animation and cartoony graphics from yours truly. This was one of the very first things I had posted, but you know what? Let's see it again:




So come on down..even if you don't have a beard.

THE MANCHILD COVERS THAT DIDN'T MAKE IT.

HEY..FINALLY, STUFF THAT WON'T APPEAR ANYWHERE ELSE OR END UP IN A BOOK FORM:



BASED ON A TRUE STORY THAT HAPPENED YEARS AGO. THE STORY WILL APPEAR IN MANCHILD 4. YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T WAIT.



THE AGE OLD STRUGGLE.

DOUBLE NEGATIVE LAST WEEKEND IN RICHMOND.

WE PLAYED WITH WASTED TIME AND DEVOUR. TONY LYNCH TOOK THESE PHOTOS AND THEY LOOK REALLY COOL. THANKS, TONY.

MY PROG ROCK DRAWING FOR THE BAND.

NOT FINISHED YET, BUT REALLY BEAUTIFUL ALL OF THE SAME.

CY RAWLS.

cy rawls. (on the right of this picture)

I WAS SADDENED TO FIND OUT THAT CY RAWLS PASSED AWAY THIS MORNING AFTER HIS SHORT BATTLE WITH HIS ILLNESS. HE MUST HAD BEEN VERY BRAVE. I CAN'T SAY THAT I KNEW CY VERY WELL BUT HE WAS ALWAYS A REALLY NICE GUY WHO SEEMED LIKE THE BIGGEST FAN OF MUSIC OF ANYONE I HAVE EVER KNOWN. R.I.P.

here is the link to today's interview.

http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot1001c08.mp3/view


it went well. I had no idea it was NPR!

WUNC's "The State of Things" for Wednesday, October 1st

today I will be interviewed on the radio in Durham. It will be the last fifeen minutes of the hour of noon. Tune in. Maybe I will be charming and witty.

JASON NEWSTED.

I am just following my muse..if even it is about this guy!

ODDS AND SODS!

HERE IS SOME OLD (AND A LITTLE BIT OF NEW) CRAP I DUG UP.




ANOTHER CLASSIC OLD FLYER FROM THE GRUNGE YEARS.




DOUBLE NEGATIVE WITH ERIC FROM PITTSBURGH AND HANK.



BACK WHEN I PAINTED: THE MAEL BROTHERS OF SPARKS.



THE MIGHTY WOODY WEATHERMEN IN 1984.



I LOVE A GOOD PARADE.



DOUBLE NEGATIVE..GOOD PIC I THINK.



ANOTHER OLD CARTOON..NICE TO SEE I HAVE IMPROVED.



I WONDER IF I COULD EVER LOOK REMOTELY LIKE THIS AGAIN?



HA HA..I RIPPED OFF GEORGE PEREZ AND PUT TOM WAITS, CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND NICK CAVE IN IT..WHATEVER DUDE.



THE "MY COMICBOOK" COVER, ALSO DONE BY DANIEL GALLANT.



PHIL, ERICA AND SCOTT OF THE LATE RALEIGH BAND DADDY.



A COUPLE OF OLD CARTOONS.



SOME PAINTING I DID BASED ON THE MOVIE CARRIE.


ONE OF THE WOULD BE MANCHILD COVERS, DONE BY DANIEL GALLANT.