Riot Fest spotlight: The Orwells

I believe it will take me all summer to get fully prepared for the lineup that Riot Fest announced last week.  It is such a robust bill that I can't even complain that they didn't take any of my late-breaking suggestions from a couple of weeks ago. 

So I would like to take a moment to talk about a local band in the middle of the bill that intrigues me.  Young vampire hunters, The Orwells, are from Elmhurst, IL.

I happened to catch their appearance on David Letterman earlier this year, and I think it was something truly special in the land of television:



Now, if you watched that video all the way to the end, you are undoubtedly left with a question or two:  Are they high?  Did the singer suffer a concussion?  Were David & Paul mocking them or were they geniunely moved by the performance? 

Whatever questions you may have, it really doesn't matter what conclusions you arrive at.  The performance was anything but safe and ordinary.  And their youthful exuberance comes through - this was their big television debut and it was string-snappingly sloppy. 

Their debut LP, Disgraceland, comes out in two weeks on June 3rd.  And this goofy song is on it.  I have heard it on the radio three times already so hopefully things are moving in the right direction for them.  

For the record, I personally believe that David Letterman and the Late Night band were duly impressed by the passion on display. 

Somebody else was so moved by the performance that they made a claymation homage to it.



Another indication that I will dig this band if I investigate further is that when I traveled to their Instagram I encountered this:

PBR2-D2?  Pure Genius!

Not game for a lame name change

Jefferson Airplane - "White Rabbit" & "Somebody To Love," legendary performances like the Monterey Pop Festival. 

Jefferson Starship - Blows Against The Empire  wins a sci-fi Hugo Award but is burdened over time with "concept album creakiness."

Starship - performing on the Star Wars Holiday Special with a guy (not Grace Slick!!) singing into what looks like a neon dildo - "We Built This City" & "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now."

Where am I going with this, you ask?

Fair enough. I am distressed by news of an impending name change.  I fear that it signals a creative nadir of something that I once cherished. 

Y'see, I didn't always work for an organization whose mission is to prevent and end homelessness.  For a decade I ran an organization that tried to improve the quality of life for homeless children.  

It was such a small organization that I was involved in every single facet of it. It was such a part of my identity that when someone spoke of it by name I felt like they were also saying the name I was born with.  

And I was fine with that because it was a solid name, a righteous name. A name that conferred vitality and a directive.  I was there when this name was born out of necessity and I tried to live up to that name 365 days a year.   

As I made what I hoped to be a graceful exit, I seriously considered getting that name as a tattoo.  Boy am I glad I didn't act on that impulse!  

Yesterday I learned that with the help of a consulting group, it has been decided to replace this name that has served the charity well for 14 years.

First of all - FUCK that consultant and to hell with the entire field of consulting. If I never work with a consultant again for the rest of my professional life I will not regret it.  

Consultants justify their existence by presenting themselves as agents of change - whether that change is needed or not soon becomes irrelevant.  They predicate action fueled by the insecurities of people made to fear that they are clinging to some outdated model of success. 

This is nothing new.  Committees love to cede decisions to an outside expert rather than lead and risk having their convictions challenged.  

The only time I could see clear to hiring a consultant is if his name is The Wolf and I just accidentally blew someone's brains all over the back of my car.

Now, you've got a corpse in a car, minus a head, in a garage.
Take me to it.

But to add insult to injury - the new name is a genuine headscratcher on the WTF-scale of Huh?!? 

It isn't going to be publicly revealed for a few months so I don't want to ruin the surprise (and I guess I hope it isn't too late to turn this camel around). But if you want to hear it, just get a hold of me. 

I was talking about this with my composer buddy SW and his first lament was that the departing name even had a nice octave progression.  

The whole ten years, saying it every time I answered the phone, and I had no idea that there was an octave progression at work.  

To me it just had a "nice ring to it".  Now I feel stupid to admit that because the mission of the organization is to bring music education to underprivileged children that wouldn't otherwise get it. 

This new name that is coming down the pike is just a brick.  A part of my past is dying and in case you couldn't tell I am not happy about it. 

Vader and son

So J.J. Abrams is gonna direct the next Star Wars movie and I find myself ambivalent.

I think this is a byproduct of the current lens through which the entire Star Wars Universe is viewed at my household.   You see, my five year old son is really into Star Wars right now even though he has yet to see any of the movies.

How is that possible you ask?  Well, there are Star Wars Legos (which drain my wallet) and Star Wars Angry Birds (which drains my phone's battery).  

They are both little bizzaro worlds of the Star Wars movies and toys I grew up with.  

I mentioned this to my wife recently; how strange it was that all our boy knows about Star Wars comes through Legos and Angry Birds and she says to me, "Oh, we were driving the other day and I told him all kinds of stuff."

M: "Like what?"  I ask nervously...

D:  "Y'know, stuff like Luke and Leia are brother and sister.  And Darth Vader was their father..."
...

She tells me this like she is checking it off a list of basic factoids of citizenship. Like she told him "The President lives in The White House.  And we all can help to choose who gets to the job by doing this thing called voting".

....

.... 

Is this (....) the blog equivalent of squinting your eyes and staring in disbelief at the soulless way in which your loving spouse just callously ruined one of the greatest reveals in cinematic history for your offspring? Cuz that is what I am going for here.

Occasionally my wife and I lie to ourselves and say, "Oh maybe he won't remember this less than stellar moment of my parenting" but deep down we know it is something we utter to smooth over fuck-ups big and small.  We both know this kid never forgets a thing you say to him. 

This probably has just as much to do with my ambivalence.  What is the point now of getting excited about moving through the Star Wars and Empire with young grasshopper?  

Then a few days later, I find this book by Jeffrey Brown at the library.  Its broad and gentle humor helped me to ease back up.  

You can find this readily at the moment and I suggest you seek it out.  It is short but definitely sweet.   Here is a taste. 

 This book rekindled my hope in a Star Wars that I can share with my kids.  I didn't know that was a big deal until I realized it had been lost and regained.