Wilderness Sculpture, www.joshshaffner.com

howdy,

This summer here in Montana has been spectacular and I have been unable to drive myself indoors to compute up some new ink math mixes for you, but luckily the last 2 days have been nothing but rain and gray so I’ve finally planted myself down to work it on out. Over the last few weeks I have been living in an album from 1976 called, “Have Moicy!’”… I’ve either been listening to it, singing the songs in my head, or making up my own lyrics to match the harmonies from the record and singing them aloud when I am doing whatever. Have Moicy! was created by a supergroup of sorts, that being Michael Hurley, Members of The Holy Modal Rounders, and Jeffrey Frederick and The Clamtones, all real tight buds.  It’s folk but not, it’s country but not quite, and the lyrics are outrageously silly, genius, and unforgettable:, “I was cleaning my jackknife when you did appear, had to fight with you I cut off your ear.” How could a person not like a song with lyrics like, ” I was cleaning my jackknife”? I slid a few tracks from Have Moicy! into this mix (you deserve to hear the whole album, so hard to choose two songs), hoping to convince you that it is an album you need, along with some original early Holy Modal Rounders and some solo Michael Hurley. Oh, and aside from all that goodness I also put in some Incredible String Band, which never bores, and some solo work from ISB member Clive Palmer….and to put a cherry on top, a nice little hawaiian two-step from my boy, John Fahey.  Anyway, hope you like it…lemme know.

In other news I am so goddamn sick of politics and can’t bear to turn on the tv or log on to cnn or nothing. I have gorged myself on that gruel for far too long..Will it ever end? Maybe the torture never stops.

Couple weeks back I was forced to sleep in my parents’ basement. I had a week where I had to sleep at my folks’ house and on top of that my Aunt was visiting, so I was booted out of my childhood bedroom and given a mattress on the floor in the basement. I actually don’t mind sleeping in the basement…it’s cool, silent, and dark as can be, but it is also piled up with all sorts of accumulated what-have-you and I had to eeke out a little corner for my pad. I’d turn off the light and run to my pad, strap on my headlight, and read while boxes of junk towered around me (mostly my old junk, to be fair).  I was somewhat suspicious of spiders in this room, what with all the crevices, hiding spots, and the like, so when I awoke very late at night to a spider’s legs scuttling across the middle of my back I casually, but quickly, swatted the fat little sucker off and went back to dreaming. After this incident my dreams were anxiety ridden and I kept awakening and running my hands across my bed and entire body in search of more spiders. I didn’t think there were too many spiders hanging around, I hadn’t seen many, but for some reason my subconscious wouldn’t allow me the deep peaceful sleep a growing boy like myself requires. Two nights it went on like this, hour after hour awakening with thoughts of spiders crawling all about my person, so I went out and bought myself five little pieces of mind called, “catchmasters”. I laid them all around my bed and in the corners and deep in the crevices,  sticky pads, with an aroma that attracts fuzzy little ones. It was piece of mind alright, I had protectors out there guarding my bed and I was able to sleep like a lamb.  I awoke in the morning refreshed, stumbled up, did my scratching and then looked down in horror.

Oh, and at the end of September myself, and a few other dudes will be DJing a portion of the KBGA birthday  bash (which will undoubtedly rule). It’s a ’50/’60’s sock-hop theme this year, so I am going to whip together some sort of rad late ’50’s, early ’60’s rock n’ roll set that’ll get the kids bopping. Everyone is supposed to get all dressed up, so I need to dig up either a preppie sweater-wearing captain of the football team outfit, or some bad-ass, hair greased right on back, switchblade in the pocket, package of cigarettes in the sleeve, big black boots ready to rumble garb. And, I’ll post that mix up here for you in case you can’t make it.

Gone to Chattanooga to see my ponies run,

Collin

Artist / Album / Song

Michael Hurley, Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones / Have Moicy! / Jackknife/Red Newt

The Holy Modal Rounders / I & 2 / Blues in The Bottle

John Fahey and His Orchestra/ After the Ball / Hawaiian Two-Step

Michael Hurley / Long Journey / Polynesia

The Incredible String Band / The Big Huge / Cousin Caterpillar

The Holy Modal Rounders / The Moray Eels Eat the Holy Modal Rounders / Bird Song

Clive Palmer / Spirit of Love / Spirit of Love

Michael Hurley, Unholy Modal Rounders, Jeffrey Frederick & The Clamtones / Have Moicy! / The Slurf song

Michael Hurley / Armchair Boogie / Sweedeedee

Side One:

Side Two:

Hi,

How does it feel to be in attendance at the world premiere of Ink Math 2.0?  Probably not too special, I suppose, considering that only a few of you came and I could only wrangle a cash-bar and a platter of cheez-its. So, out with UCTIV DOT NET and in with the DOT COM, spread the word casually, perhaps in a conversation with a co-worker, or in a brief interaction with an old woman on the subway. With the help of a wealthy and talented benefactor, this new site has finally become a reality and oozes with the sheik modern landscape I so desire in this cold sterile world of internets that we live in. There should be some new “high-tech” features beaming at you soon, such as a subscribe feature, and a link section that will guide you towards things that I think are neat, the sky is the limit. Isn’t it great that we live in The Future?

I knew that I’d have to put together a special mix for this kick-off party and I have been sitting on this one for awhile, saving it up little by little only to drop it all on you unawares for this grand occasion. Something summery, something fun, something unique, something rare, all with an underlying layer of credibility, that was my goal.  I started listening to a lot of late 50’s and early 60’s soul recently and with the addition of a few box-sets, and the right albums, I knew I had the right recipe to blow your sweet little mind. I tried to focus on female artists for this set, but a few males slipped in here and there, apologies. One boxset, “One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found”, proved especially useful for putting this together and is also totally rad on its’ own. In addition, I went through a bunch of A-Side singles from the Stax/Volt record label between the years 1959-68 and found some incredible stuff, too much stuff, and there are some odds and ends thrown in as well from whatever happened to pop up. It was kind of hard whittling down all this totally great music into two petite handy mixes, but I think I picked the real gems and I am satisfied and beg you to be as well…maybe I’ll do a part two of this sort of stuff some time.

Lulu & The Luvvers - I’ll Come Running

Also, if you are in Missoula come down to The Badlander next Tuesday July 28th to hear me DJ up what might be some of hardest and nastiest ganster rap ever made. I’m not really a fan of rap music, or hip-hop, but a few of us KBGA folk were sitting around one night and we started reminiscing about our youthful days when rap music was especially dirty, especially interesting. and was like candy to the mind of a 10 year old. After saying, “those were the days”, and having another drink of beer, we decided to take a little live DJing trip down memory lane to the year of Nineteen-Ninety Motherfuckin’ One and thus the ganster rap royal DJ night was born. I can remember convincing my Mom to tell the record store owner that it was ok for her son to buy parental advisory albums (told her that all the good albums at least had one swear word) and then coming in later by myself in order to buy every 2 Live Crew, N.W.A., and Geto Boys album they had, and this was in fifth grade. First thing I would do was throw away all the cover art and black out the group name and track-titles on the cassette, so as to assure my Dad didn’t get wind of what I was up to because one time he threw away my copy of Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik when he found it. And, after that it was headphones, and headphones only, Mom and Dad could never know. Most of the time I didn’t know what they were talking about, what with all the violence and women, but there was something so goddamn fascinating about the lyrics and the music that I kept buying tape after tape until one day I burned out and bought a Tool album.  Anyway, at the very least this DJ night should at least be funny (3 white guys in Montana playing the hardest of early 90’s ganster rap) and maybe I’ll post my set up here some time so you can fully understand the sort of filth my mind was drawn to at a very tender age.

I hope you are doing well,

Collin

Artist / Song

Side One

The Cobras / Restless

Twiggy / When I Think of You

The Fleets / Please Return to Me

Elle Greenwich / You Don’t Know

The Mad Lads / Don’t Have to Shop Around

Barbara and The Browns / In My Heart

The Teddy Bears / To Know Him is to Love him

The Crystals / He Hit Me (and it Felt Like a Kiss)

Wendy Rene / After Laughter

Side Two

Petula Clark / Heart

The Shangri-Las / Out in the Streets

Billy Joe Royal / Down in the Boondocks

Jackie DeShannon / Dream Boy

Dolly Parton / Don’t Drop Out

Lulu / I’ll Come Running

Carole King /  He’s a Bad Boy

The Chiffons / Nobody Knows What’s Goin’ On (In My Mind but Me)

SEE

From the Great

I’ve heard so many parts so many times but I’ve never listened straight through.

Collin