Go Metric

Are You Receiving Me? – The Night Birds: Round #4

by Mike Faloon

Night Birds
Midnight Movies 7” EP
No Way Records

The other night I fell asleep convinced that Midnight Movies was first and foremost a declaration of the superiority of physics over biology. I was so sure of this theory that I opted not to get out of bed and scribble a note or three. It seemed so much like the one or two good ideas I get every year (if that) that I couldn’t imagine it evaporating on any level. What I recall is this: midnight movies—horror movies, in particular—are often examples of biology gone wrong. Mutant creatures running amuck, people acting on impulses best suppressed, and zombies, them worst of all, failing to acknowledge the most basic of biological principles: you’re supposed to cease operating at some point. Knowing that Night Birds bassist Joe Keller is a physicist I then deduced that the implicit message on this EP is that while biology can and does go awry, physics is a discipline on which we can rely. It made so much sense.

Get In The RV, Part 15: East Bay Fun

by Joe Evans III

Todd and I spend my last few hours in Los Angeles getting a nice breakfast of fruit before he drops me off at the light rail, to make my way to the airport. I’m always anxious about something going wrong while traveling, but today I’m on a tight deadline; my last show of the tour is tonight, at Gilman Street in Berkeley. When I get to the airport and through security, I’m all right; I have enough excitement in my life, and I’m happy to sit around and be bored for a few hours. Then my flight is delayed. 

I get a phone call, from a computer saying, “We are letting you know that your departure time has been upgraded,” to which I think, “I don’t think you actually know what ‘upgrade’ means, computer.” Upon closer examination, the delay is only fifty minutes, and I’m flying to Oakland. I figure that’s not bad, and I’ll be fine. The plane doesn’t show up until moments before we’re supposed to have taken off, and by then I’m stressing out, but they suddenly rush everyone aboard. As I take my seat, the crew announces, “As we’re running a little late, please hurry and take your seats. We’re not telling you to hurry, but, hurry up.”

R.E.M. Collapse Into Now: Top 20 Positive Review Angles

by Brett Essler

Get In The RV, Part 14: Comedy of Errors

by Joe Evans III

When I first started booking my stand up tour, I was ambitious; I’d travel all over the West Coast, the South West, maybe even Canada. Then, I booked three shows, all in California. Not exactly Black Flag level touring, but by this point I couldn’t help but think it was for the best. Living out of a few backpacks exhausts you, and I figure out that getting around by yourself in a new city can be tricky when you don’t have an RV to ride around in. A little downtime seems all right.

My free days are spent in San Pedro while I stay at Matt and Kevin’s house. I hang out with Matt, take in more local sites like the aquarium, maritime museum, and views of the ocean while drinking cheap horchata. The morning of my last full day in LA, I have to figure out public transit again on my own to get to the Razorcake house. It’s nerve racking; I’m by myself with everything I have at this point, and the first bus out of San Pedro is not only late, it’s the wrong bus. But it sorts itself out, and I make it after two hours. Todd Taylor even waits up for me, and treats me to a late lunch.

Get In The RV, Part 13: First LA Stand Up Show

by Joe Evans III

The first day of having nothing to do or anywhere to be is a huge relief. For now, I’m staying with my friend Chris who flew down from the Bay Area and got a hotel room by the theater. We spend the day walking all over LA with the rest of my bandmates, taking in the sites and nice weather despite it being January. I still feel like a big shot that’s finally getting to relax and enjoy everything. Later on I get dinner and walk around Santa Monica with my friend Matt, though my confidence is gradually being replaced with weariness.

The next day, Chris checks out of his hotel room, and we spend some more time walking around exploring the city. It’s still fun, but now that we’ve checked out, I’ve got all three of my bags with me; my guitar, my travel backpack, and my duffle/sleeping bag. I like to think it’s easy enough to do, but after a while, it wears me out. But we’re both exhausted, and take some time to rest for a while before splitting up and going our separate ways.

365 Rejected 365 Day Book Projects (Part 1, 1-50)

by Brian Cogan

I recently decided the easiest way to be a famous author is to write a blog about doing something every day for a year. However, as many people have already done this, finding an original idea was, shall we say, might prickly. What follows week is my new project: to think of 365 unworkable bad ideas, one a day for a year!

Get In The RV, Part 12: The LA Show

by Joe Evans III

I wake up on top of some couch cushions I’d laid out, and hear the faint sound of the ocean. After a week of sleeping on the floor of our RV, living out of Wal Marts, we’ve somehow ended up at the beach house of one of the most extravagant mansions I’ve ever seen. Everyone’s still asleep, so I look around outside and find a patch of grass with a nice chair where I take a seat, looking out into the ocean, wondering if I’d actually died, or ended up in some Lost-type scenario. Considering I’ve slept in my clothes and haven’t showered in days, I can only assume that the owners are gone, lest I be immediately thrown off the premises. When a few others get up, we walk down to the private beach, and I think back to my words to Riley days earlier, “I will never see this ever again.”

Rejected by the New Yorker: Instructions for Our Apartment Sitter

by John Ross Bowie

Thanks so much for looking after our place (and Cosette and Eponine!). As we said, we can’t pay you, but the place is yours. Like all New York apartments, it has a couple quirks, but we think they’re charming!

Syracuse Rock City!

by Mike Faloon

When I was in LA on tour I was able to record two podcasts for Razorcake. The first focuses on music from my hometown, Syracuse.

Podcast: Robyn Hitchcock Artists Only

by Mike Faloon

Back in college our radio station — 92WICB — had a show called Artists Only, a 1-2 hour program that featured songs from a featured band. I co-hosted a bunch of these shows with my good friend Steve Reynolds (who also co-edits Zisk and contributes to Go Metric). Steve still has the cassettes from those shows. On his website (links below) he has posted a 2-hour Artists Only that focused on Robyn Hitchcock. This is from the spring of 1991.