Those long-promised words on my new favorite band are here with a new, unpublished installment of Virgin Ears. The record - Myxomatosis Failed - can be found here or at Zog 19 October and in the general Midwest at various points in late November.

The rebirth of the CD as a valuable, singular commercial product is beginning, slowly but surely, on the lesser traveled highways and byways frequently pounded by the ever-growing independent music movement in America. In perhaps the best example yet of what the 21st Century record will look like, traveling rock n’ roll minstrels ilyAIMY’s full band debut Myxomatosis Failed is slowly finding CD players quite literally through backpack distribution. Low budget, high value, and eminently replayable, this tense, percussive haunt of ilyAIMY is refreshingly free of pretension, a conspicuous absence of a plague killing contemporary music like a den of boil-covered rabbits.

The first striking distinction of Myxomatosis Failed is the simple rediscovery of the importance of product packaging. The recently popular four-panel cardboard case has been saved from its usual throwaway status with two different panoramic scenes that just make sense with each other, immediately giving the album the air of a complete work as compared to a collection of radio-ready singles. The genuity and ingenuity of the case seems insignificant until compared to the usual rabble popped out by low-budget affairs, where the art is almost an afterthought of the album and more often than not finds more usefulness holding up a pilsner in a dorm room than contributing a statement to the record. ilyAIMY blurs this distinction, providing ample eye candy to facilitate another sense for the listener.

However, for the listener too a unique surprise awaits. Though these troubadours may pass as a folk act, the record is such a distance from Dylan as Normandy is to Newport. More fitting genre placement for the group would be in the growing acoustic tradition beginning with the first less amplified releases from The Deftones, a darker side of your grand-dad’s standby. Blending the soul-stirring speed of full-stroke mariachi with the minor and mathematical progression structures of Mudvayne, these singers of slight R&B inspiration aren’t afraid to rake a little muck; the gut-rending growl of Rob Hinkal marking tracks like Chalk Pit and Loosen as soundly as the alternately sonorous and sultry song of Heather Lloyd on Sever. Succinctly, this Baltimore pair delivers, pound for pound, more actual angst than any three Papa Roach clones combined.

However, the album – like most independent affairs – is not without baggage. The album’s initial coherence begins to unravel by the center of the disc, with the mixture of live, studio, and radio recordings of widely varying production value jarring the record’s continuity making the journey from Track 1 to Track 12 much like a country road in a jeep with a blown suspension. Additionally, several songs begin with riffs that seem a bit too familiar, giving an undue amount of repetition to an already successful formula. But, the prognosis for this disc is far less fatal than those for our unlucky footed furry friends, as these complaints are dwarfed by the immense value of Myxomatosis Failed: a record that is everything that Evanescence could have been.

ilyAIMY is off for a stretch in Pennsylvania, but worry not RI Shaft fans for they will be returning 19 October and yours truly will be joining them for some crazy wicked drumming. Check out the mp3s that are available but, most of all, pony up the dough for their disc when they are in town. The artwork *alone* is worth the ticket to this boat ride, and the record itself is very unique and sufficiently hard rocking.

I'd write more about how they are my new favorite band, if it wasn't for my current shit paper dilemma.

So, the toilet paper that came with my new place finally ran out today, which was no problem as I had the prescience to go purchase a gigantic brick of 12 rolls a few weeks ago for just such an occassion. Soft, quilted two-ply waiting gently like an immigrant worker in a Nebraska meat packing plant - cheaply purchased and ready to do the shit job without a peep of aversion. And it did its job well, nary a complaint from my end, executing its given function with precision and care. However, when I went to place it in the appropriate station across from my toilet I found that it was too goddamned big to fit on the roller!

What the hell is that? Isn't there some sort of North American, if not global, standard distance from the wall shit paper rollers have to be? Am I the *only* one in New England that has to literally stuff the roll into the damn wall to get it to fit, thereby destroying the primary functionality of a roll of toilet paper inherently has in the first place?

I think I've found a new cause.

Holy crap dude. This festival was *unbelievably* good. In start contrast to the funky shit with the puppets, this fest was nothing but 3 hours of superior musicians and poets doing their art. Among my favorites were a duo from Baltimore called ilyAIMY. Jumpin' Judas Priest dude, these guys bring the rock.

I'll be playing drums with them in the future. More on that tomorrow. Now I gotta pass out.

...

With a cast like this how could the film possibly be bad? I finally saw Masked and Anonymous last night after waiting for what seemed like forever, a film with a cacaphony of major stars in cameo roles all rotating around the protagonist Jack Fate, played by your friend and mine Bob Dylan.

The film's dialogue was full of carefully thought responses to seemingly ordinary small talk and illustrations of the sacred in the ordinary, and - of course - perhaps the best soundtrack of the year controlled entirely by Dylan himself. A young girl singing "The Times They Are A-Changin'" a-capella absolutely sent the goosebumps up my arms and made me want to share something with you .plan fans that Howie and I recorded as an afterthought during the Fireflies sessions.

This is a far less eloquent review of the film than I care for, so maybe I'll come back and try to fix it. Or maybe not, and hope the ordinary can pass for brilliant for a film containing such a theme so predominantly.

So. What the hell.

I turn my back from the street outside the front office of my work for 1 hour. And the road got mulched. As in, a big machine came along and mowed it up like a goddamned urban rototiller. All of it. The whole *thing*. Wherever there was road before, there is not mud and asphalt chips.

What was wrong with the road before is not evidently clear, but it must have been pretty serious. Cause it's all gone now.

All of it.

Seriously.

Maybe they're going to put in a new garden.

Woo! Go to our favorite search engine and type in the search phrase "geek rock."

Ohhh... What's that? Is Shafted number 9? And who is number 10? Oh. That's right. Weezer.

I'm glad *someone* recognizes the true kings of Geek Rock.

Ever so often I've been known to warn .plan fans about certain bastard telecoms because, pound for pound, listeners of Arturo Got The Shaft consume more than the average rockstar's communication services. The latest addition to the shitlist is Cox Communications. The fucksticks in my particular neck of the woods seem positively keen on keeping me from throwing my money at them in reasonably large monthly increments.

Get this. After haggling with these yohans for two goddamnable weeks about getting my service installed, I finally tell them that I will buy all the tools, get all the wire, and do all the interior installation with a butter knife if I have to as long as they get someone in today to connect the service at the pole.

I'll give you two guesses what the completely inept technician wasn't able to accomplish today. And it wasn't getting his morning bagel.

I connected *everything* at the box so that all one would have to do is look and be able to determine which wire went where. But no tags, that jolly little jackass hopped his merry self down the pole and found a nice big inconvenient knob to slam in Rob's ear.

All I gotta say, is if this isn't done tomorrow... I'm going to need an alibi after tomorrow's serial arson.

Yar de har har.

It be Talk Like a Pirate Day.

If ye be spinnin' a yarn, matey, they'll be the devil to pay and only a half a bucket of pitch, arrrrggg.

I be givin' serious consideration to singing tonight's show entirely in pirate.

Not a god damn fucking thing.

Such is the justification available for the Bush war in Iraq. Absolutely no inkling of evidence has been found that what we the people did in Iraq has any foundation whatsoever and with this new information from Team Pox, I think we just found our dick in the mashed potatoes for a generation to come. The rhetoric that has been produced by the White House recently has proven one thing concretely: no one has any idea what the hell to do.

Fortunately, we have a couple guys on tape that actually have a plan.

Surprise Saturday show this weekend! I really need to stop doing these last minute Safari shows, but unfortunately I have a severe addiction to performance and grab them whenever I can.

So there's this massive hurricane that is totally going to miss us. That's so disappointing. Everyone around here talks about hurricanes like they are the worst thing ever, but listen up motherfuckers. I'm from Kansas. I have no respect for a storm that you know is coming a week in advance. If you don't have 30 seconds from the time the siren sounds to duck into a root cellar before getting a two by four cockshot through your clavicle, then I am of the opinion that there is not a whole hell of a lot to worry about. I mean, these people have time to put plywood on their windows for the love of Christ.

Saddam didn't even have that kind of headsup.

Ordering coffee can be pretty damn intense. First of all, you're expected to know all the options available and fire them off in pretty quick order. During the morning commute, time is at a premium so everyone has to behave accordingly. The fine folks at Dunkin Donuts have spent a lot of time and effort in making the process as expedient as possible, though a pretty serious point of failure is that, for the uninitiated customer, getting that first cup of joe can be a pretty intimidating process.

"I would like a coffee."

"Okay."

"Um... yeah."

"Uh... What kind sir?"

"Um, what do you mean?"

*collective groan from the people behind you*

"Hot or iced?!"

"Ack! Iced."

"Regular?!"

"Sure."

That's really the only thing I know how to order, so I think in the best interests of everyone's time, that is what I'll keep drinking.

You know, I always thought of myself as a city kid.

Growing up in a teeny town in Kansas, I never really felt "at home." Similarly, though I loved my institution, going to school in Nebraska didn't feel much better. Now that I'm living in the heart of Providence, I think I know why.

I *love* the city. The people, the action, the never-ending never-stopping hustle bustle across these treadheavy concrete streets brings to life to me more smells of home than any wheat field ever could. Buying fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk, settling a car bill with someone with a small understanding of English, and checking email in a corner coffee shop at a busy intersection all populated by the cramped camraderie of yellows, browns, and whites whose only commonality - whether in religion or language or boxers or briefs - is that they are all stuck in this crazy circus together and we might as well make the best of it.

I love the big libraries. I love the corner frozen lemonade stands. I love the graffiti-laden bus stops full of the quietly immobile and the half-insane. I love the lights and the cops and the barely-paused stop signs. I love the kids playing in the street. I love the anonymity, the friendliness of crackheads, and the rudeness of the grinder vendors.

I love the humanity. I don't like the hot wieners so much.

I do love this city, because I finally feel at home.

As it is never too early to start running, I would just like to announce now my candidacy in the upcoming elections. Unless you want a Rhode Island Congress not prepared for the eventuality of the coming of Gozer the Gozarian in the form of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, I think you know who to vote for.

I've really been trying to unhitch the site from Blogger for some time, but just when I'm about fed up with them, they make me love them again. Finally, they put out some much needed features for the free users that allows me to make the date format in a style more consistent with what other human beings can read, as well as spellcheck and file upload. Some more features are on their way down the pipe, so it looks as though Google's investment in the firm is meant for long term user happiness. Why is it that everything they touch turns to gold? Now if they would have a backup downloadable in database form, I could be completely worry free.

Thanks to time and date changing features, I was also able to move the rob.plan entries from the old system fully into the system, now making our archives go officially back to February 2002, instead of just have 50+ entries under the first date of the new blog, 4 September 2002. Also, since we've got fully a year and a half of blog entries under the belt, I moved archiving from weekly to monthly, so browsing should be a ton easier and the archive page won't look so empty.

Generally speaking, I consider myself more masculine than most. In terms of pit farting, crotch scratching, and Neanderthal sound making I consistently exceed league averages and, as a rule, maintain a rather manly air. I have crushed a beer can on my forehead, lit a firecracker with intent to annoy, and committed many a flagrant violation of standard "Shotgun" etiquette.

However, occasionally I met a person whose testosterone emissions far exceed those of industry expectations. Yesterday I met one such person: Dawn, The Chick Who Lives Upstairs.

Dawn stood about 5'8" with an enormous range of tattoos and a "Gabba Gabba Hey" T-shirt. In addition to ink decorating her ankles, her lower legs were spotted with large nicks and scabs gained during the course of chainsawing the bejeezus out of a tree in the backyard. Her baritone voice was accompanied by the occasional and unrepentant mucus snort and deep-chested chuckle. No makeup and little regard for short-cut bleach blond hair, she fixed my toilet with not so much as a blink and disassembled a box spring set with a claw hammer and whim of mild curiosity. She practiced an aggressive and unapologetic tone as well as a general masculine air of "not takin' no shit off of nobody." Even deathly ill she carried more than any two Senegalese porters or even perhaps an adolescent llama and did so with complete disregard for the exposure of her asscrack. She may be the most masculine person I've seen, but I'm going to have to reserve further observation before knocking Old Blue Eyes off his throne.

Though it pains her to speak of it, her former managerial affiliation with Rounder Records has given her a broad and thorough collection of cool shit. Included in said collection are a number of Gold and Platinum records, one specifically attributed to her in the promotion of one of my favorite bluegrass acts Alison Krauss and Union Station on their release New Favorite.

I may never wash this hand again.

Moving into my new place down in the Armory district today. The area is currently undergoing a big "revitalization" which I think means "bringing a bunch of white folks in." Not sure what to make of the neighborhood yet, but a 100-year-old house with 12 foot ceilings and hardwood floors seemed about my speed, so I couldn't help but accept. I did some stuff over there over the course of the weekend and some strange noises are leading me to believe that perhaps the place is haunted, which would be cooler than hell. I think the smell of a little ectoplasmic residue every morning would do some wonders for my hay fever.

Well. Look at that. The Iraq price tag leaped $27 billion in two days.

In other news, these things are pretty weird. Way cooler than crop circles.

Why are midgets funny?

Neither do I.

Meditate and get back to me on that.

The fish passed me by lead by fish-hooks..."

Many thanks to the many of you who came out to the show at The Blackstone last night. Much rock was had by all, and much more rock is yet to come. For those of you who didn't catch the exchange with Darryl or didn't make the show, I have a bit of a selfish story to tell about the show.

"...we hit popflies and caught their strange looks."

Darryl was an older, somewhat gregarious fellow who was (by my nearest estimation) sitting by himself and enjoying a drink at the club, and enjoying what he appeared to be surprised by in the act of Missi Ryan's. He was digging the tunes and digging my set, and asked to hear "Sugar Mountain." Naturally, I responded with the only song I know with sugar in the title.

"But one figure struggled just to stand there..."

Darryl walked around on crutches because he was missing his right leg above the knee. He also seemed to be searching for something that he wasn't finding. So, I played Sugar and Candy in the hopes of connecting with him.

"...he was a one legged man in his wheelchair."

The moment I uttered the line I could see in my peripheral vision that he was rather pissed that I was singing about such a clearly sensitive subject. However, he listened. And as he listened he thought. And I could see behind eyes slightly glistening in the reflection of restrained tears and neon beer signs that some stupid cover in some distant bar in this faraway corner of America can mean a whole hell of a lot to at one lonely guy knocking back a few to make the world seem like less of a frightening place.

And for my penny, that's more than I need to know I have to be a rockstar.

"I struck out a course for his lantern,
I put out a hand and then he grabbed me.
He told a lifetime of boxcars and byways,
Of the times of stockyards and chain gangs and two legs.

He offered his advice for a penny.
And for that small price, here's what he gave me."

So Bush wants another $60 billion check from Congress. Comments from Iraqis: "Wow. That's a really expensive dildo." American schools can only wish they could get a piece of the action.

So East Coast traffic, right. Worst thing ever. I'm driving home from work yesterday (a trip of 7 miles that took me an hour) and I have to pee in the absolute worst way. Coming across a gas station, I decide I'll sacrifice my place in the enormous line on Killingly Street to relieve myself, only to discover from an incredibly rude attendant that they do not have a "public" restroom.

Incidently, they did have a public bush.

So, Blogger finally came back up to speed. Here's why you haven't been getting .plan updates recently. Blogger, in their infinite wisdom, decided quite suddenly to discontinue Active FTP access in favor of the more secure sFTP. Following all the security issues that we ran into at our last server, Spooky has, for the time being at least, discontinued SSH access, thus completely eliminating any way for Blogger to update the site.

Randi and I had been kicking around ways to make this happen, but ultimately what ended up happening was I had Scott - who sits next to me at BZ - come over to look at the problem, and apparently by some Heisenberg effect him just *looking* at the Blogger website, they got their shit together. ph33r him indeed.

What if they spent one half of the time spent telling people to put their faith in God to put their faith in themselves? What if - for one time in history - instead of giving people false metaphysical machinations of personal relationships with omniscience I said to you that everything you need you already have. What if I told the tin man that Oz didn't give anything that he didn't already have? That this hole inside of you is to be filled with the people around you. That heaven really is a place on earth.