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.