Hey palomines,

Very exciting news is a foot.  Thrilling new is a hand.  Thrilling and exciting news combined is a bag of extremities that only CSI can figure out the owner of.  What I'm trying to say is...

I'm gonna be hitting the rodeo with Little Joy for their US tour this June!  As some of you's may know and some may nots, this is a band started by Fabrizio Moretti from The Strokes, Rodrigo Amarante from Los Hermanos and Binki Shapiro from LA.  Since Fab is recording the new Strokes album (which I'm awaiting like a 12 year old girl), I'm going to be sort of taking his place in Little Joy on the tour.  Which is a bit like taking Sonny's place in Sonny and Cher, I guess.  But I'll take the heat because their music is fantasticles.  Sweet ball breeze music.  What you hear when you're on the beach with your shorts open, trying to figure out what went wrong in the city.  Um.  It's fuggenauszm, for real.  You should listen to it if you haven't yet.  I'm going to be playing a tenor guitar, which is like a regular guitar except it only has the top four strings.  You'd think that makes things easier but their music, just like The Strokes, sounds easy at first and is hard as hell when you try to play it.  So here's to not shitting the bed in a major way on stage.  If I do, please buy me a beer to weep into.  Thanks.

In other Strokes-related news, I got to sing backups on 'The Time Of The Assassins', the first solo album by Nickel Eye (Nikolai Fraiture).  It's awesome as well and has many, many great songs on it.  I'm endlessly surprised at how talented every single guy in that band is.  That's why they's them...   The chorus of "You and Everyone Else" has been looping in my head for months on end.  I don't sing on that one, though...I sing on "Every Time" and "Dying Star" (Nick Zinner from the YeahYeahYeahs gives good guitar on that one).  

In other me-related news, the new Only Son album is half recorded and sounding cool.  It's coming down with a serious case of cooliosis.  I have around 15 new songs and am experimenting in the stude.  The dio.  The stu-stu-studio.  I'm gonna take a break for the tour and after that it's time to finish this pup and let him out to play.  Lots of people have asked about Stamp Your Name On It - it's gonna be on there for surelies.  And there will also be some surprises so spread your bets... 

I hope you're all good.  Come see Little Joy!  Check out Nickel Eye!  But most importantly, buy thousands of copies of my album whenever the hell it finally comes out!  

Jackovia Mutual

PS:  Movie recommendations are as follows:

'Anvil: The Story Of Anvil'

'JCVD' (starring Jean Claude Van Damme as himself).  It's a foreign indie movie in French.  Unbelievably good, and not in an ironic way.  Just awesome.  He delivers a soliloquy that is some of the best acting that can be acteded.  I know you don't believe me, but trust me.

Hey hotwings,

I hope this finds you well.  I hope that you're not able to hide from this and it's able to successfully find you.  I hope that it does this well.  I can't think of another way to put it except that the older you get the more satisfying you find simple puns.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's just the difference between dads and non-dads.  I promise you - if you give a dad a pun, you'll have an instantly happier dad.  Anyway, either I'm about to accidentally become a dad or I already have kids I'm unaware of.  Either way, it's really surprising since I'm a virgin saving myself for mawwiage.  Also either way, I'm about to have a lot less money. But that doesn't matter anymore. 

I've been writing and recording the smash hit follow up to the debut Only Son record, which was itself a monstrous global success.  You might think to yourself, "I don't remember it being a global success."  But you'd be wrong.  So let's not dwell on accuracy or what you think you saw behind the picket fence.  Bottom line, Lee Harvey Oswald put out an instant classic in 2006 and nothing has been the same for anyone since. 

It's been awhile, I'll grant you that.  (I can't take credit for delivering 'I'll grant you that' in this tone.  Kindly listen to this horrifying and already famous phone message left by a stalkerish womanizer on some poor girl's answering machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acERZQIAjUk . He's the genius, I'm just the messenger.)  

Anyway, I've been writing a lot of songs and it takes me a long time.  I have a nice amount written and a nicer amount almost finished and an impossible-to-judge amount of halfsies.  This is my progress report to you, the prospective consumer.  I want you, as an investor, to know that the Only Son brand is gearing up for its second massive launch and has lost none of its value.  On the contrary, we anticipate penetrating new and unexplored markets in the human soul by the fall.  You may be wondering how we plan on doing this without capital.  And you would be left wondering. You wouldn't want to know how Molly gets her beehive to stay intact all day, would you?  The mystery would be gone.  And so it is with the finance reports of OS Corp.  Suffice it to say that nothing said should be sufficient.  And let me finish this thought with another: The only thing more important than making a point is making the same point again immediately afterwards.  This is almost as important as remembering people's names, which Dale Carnegie will tell you is the most important element of a good relationship. Without names, you wouldn't even know who your friends are.

But this communique isn't about which classic self-help books I've read or what people would do if names didn't exist for things.  It's about music.  And the mountain range between myself and every album I make.  Don't get me wrong, I have a mule and a rucksack and tin cans and cowboys to help me get across.  But it sure gets lonesome under them icy blue stars and sometimes a fella could just break down and have a conversation.  Just last night I pitched camp and set up a bunch of red and orange paper in a pyramid with a fan blowing on it and it looked like a real fire.  As I was theoretically warming my hands I realized that the birds I heards weren't birds at all.  They were boyds.  And as the voice of Archie Bunker lulled me to sleep I thought of how excited I am to go back out on the road and share these experiences with you all again.  It's going to be fun and historic.  But that's for a later time.  Until then, I'll be holed up in my Arch de Bunker writing the songs that make the whole world listen for a second and then forget who sings it.  But emerging information technology will take care of that problem.  And when it does, I'll be old.

Until then, be good to each other.  And never forget that I give important spiritual advice at the end of my blogs.  This one is going a little longer than I thought, so I'll give you another one.

Be so great to each other that you don't even think about the slowly exploding state of affairs all around us.

Just kidding!  Everything's fine!!!!!!!!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jack
 
PS: To prove that everything's fine, please watch these hilarious cartoons by Brad Neely...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SspboO7yOc8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a20_HWXin3Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7BkXtcwp7U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbx2XlqePwg
 
 
 
 
 

Hello chumbs,

Here's the scene:

It's late last night.  I'm on the computer at around 2:30am, just about to go to bed.  I check my email one last time because I have a problem with that.  But that's not the goddamn point.  One of my friends sends me this link:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197

I figure it'll be a twenty second clip of a dad hitting himself in the nuts with a wiffle bat or something so I click it.  I see that the run time is two hours.  I give a hearty belly laugh at the idea of watching something that long.  But I click it anyway, mostly to see what could possess someone to send me something that time-burgling.  It begins.  I yawn and am confused at first.  A voice over.  Weird images.  But interesting, so I continue. 

My friend's email said, "We will have many conversations about this - at least make it to the Jesus/Astrology part..."  Um, what?   

I watch for a few minutes and am still unable to figure out what it even is.  Also, no sign of Jesus or Astrology yet.  And then it begins for real.  I stop noticing the time.  The Jesus/Astrology part comes and goes and I have absolutely no intention of going to sleep until the entire thing is done.  Believe me when I tell you that it's almost impossible not to finish watching this movie.  It's called "Zeitgeist" and made me feel like Neo when he was shown The Matrix (for those of you that haven't seen either movie, it made me go "Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow" for a really long time).  One of my friends pointed out that he thinks Neo is a dick.  This may be so, but he was a dumbfounded and bewildered dick and so serves my purposes here. 

I'm sure there's going to be be a lot of discussion about the information and perspective contained in it. You may even fistfight your spouse or grandparent over it. You might send me a sack of rotten chicken parts as payback or take me out of your top friends or threaten my family with an embargo.  But I think you should see it anyway and am very interested to know your thoughts.  In the words of the friend who passed it along to me, "It will blow your mind through your asshole".  Yeah.

I hope you're doing perfectly

Lubb,
Jack

PS - I started recording the new Only Son album ...............

Hi friends,

It's become obvious beyond a shadow of a doubt that
I'm no longer able to prioritize my life.  Tonight was
set aside to write and record music.  Instead, I've
accidentally created a mini-exhibit showcasing the
evolution of Macho Man Randy Savage's promotional
poetry.
 
The first promo (which I posted once a while ago)
shows him at the peak of his popularity, dressed in a
glittering robe.  It's short, iconic and perfectly
executed.  Besides his incredible voice and
mannerisms, please notice the grace and fluidity of
his taped fingers as he makes his point:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ywQ2EnGWvAs

The second clip shows him many years earlier, toward
the beginning of his career.  He was wrestling in a
smaller regional organization but already a champion.
He's wearing a straw (leather?) hat and shedding genuine tears.
It's impossible for me to stop watching it:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EfosfT8Ojbg&feature=related

I sent this first as an email to my friends but the reaction was so strong that I thought you all might need to see it. 

Situations DEVELOP, man!

Hey friends, 

I’ve been home "writing the new album".  What this means is I’ve been home writing songs for what will be a new album but taking frequent "you deserve a break" safaris on YouTube.  This has produced an unintentional list of cultural treasures.  So instead of constantly sending out blasts to all my friends telling them to check out another amazing thing I compiled them.  Some are funny as hell, some are interesting as hell and some are touching as hell.  Hell is a multi-adjectived place. I’m sure you’ll come up with your own.  But believe me when I tell you that none of them are without great value.  And so I present, in no particular order...

Jack Dishel’s List Of Powerful, Hilarious, Fascinating, Startling YouTube Clips:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=a41lJIhW7fA - Mr. Rogers talks to The Senate

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLF9iEXnBRo - Paul Potts sings opera

http://youtube.com/watch?v=--Vaz9jW054 - Speak The Hungarian Rapper

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sOxmWx_0Xwk&feature=related - Olga & Vova Galchenko, the world’s greatest juggling duo

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pgX-hiQdfFw - Hasselhoff tries to parody himself but creates a new reason to parody him

http://youtube.com/watch?v=urpMQ-2KNho - Smell Yo Dick

 

"We Are The World" section (very important):

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WmxT21uFRwM - original video

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bgNuzQxRcGA - a spontaneous tribute during the making of the song (all the parts are worth watching but this one has one of my favorite moments)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OuK8jc87t-I&feature=related - Stevie Wonder teaches Bob Dylan how to sing like Bob Dylan

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WNrkHj8zWGA - Cyndi Lauper gets herself in a difficult situation

Have fun!

Jack

 

Indigital peoples,

The new year is here and I think it's going to be a very exciting one. I hope you all had a great time hanging with your friends and lavas.  I did.  Parties full of high quality homo sapiens are one of my favorite natural environments.  If there was a Discovery Channel special on me I'd be found grazing on Triscuits, drinking vodka-crannies and talking shit to my peepholes.  The new year's party I was at was very fun and had garlic potatoes and salmon.  My breath smelled like flaming garbage trucks but I didn't care because it got neutralized by the sauce. Grey Goose should be called Golden-God-Goose.  I was actually drinking Absolut but dreaming of the Louis Goosett Junior anyway.  That's the good news.  The mediocre/shitball news comes next. 

A couple of days after this glorious party where friends were friending like creatures in the wild, my neck got fecked up in a most forced-to-suck-a-stranger's-balls manner.

Here's the quickness:

I get out of the shower.  I shake my curly locks like a teenage girl being watched getting out of a pool by the hunk of football-excelling junk she likes.  Or like a lion out of a lake, as my friend Parker said.  I feel a pain so severe that I think I've somehow broken my neck.  I stagger and shuffle to the bed and eat painkillers that weren't prescribed to me.  I eat a couple more of them.  The pain doesn't leave, despite multiple eviction notices from my soul.  The pain squats and has kids and they have kids and pretty soon they act like they own the fucking place.  Seeing both sides of things, I decide to call an ambulance and let them figure it out.  The EMS workers arrive to see me shirtless on the bed with Kramer hair (pre-racist) making faces that look like Halloween masks.
The female EMS worker is having a hard time not smiling at the sight of me. I guess when you're used to walking into homes and seeing limbs coming out of places they don't naturally grow you get amused at a shirtless skinny guy who doesn't know why he can't move.  Anyway, I was in the hospital for 13 hours and got X-rays and CAT-scans while drifting in and out of knockout.  The results are in and all is well.  Turns out my neck just decided to tell all the nerves surrounding it to go fuck themselves that Saturday.  Just a pulled muscle.  And I was supposed to go see a play.  Damn shame.  Now that it's over I'm very grateful that it wasn't serious.  People have to go through a lot of pain in this world and I just hope that mine got tabulated on the master list so I can avoid it for a while.  Like jury duty.  I do suspect that this has something to do with reading "God Is Not Great"... 

I guess that wasn't so quick.  But it's all right since the last time I wrote was around half a year ago and so much has happened since then that any account of life seems like a gyp.  Is that short for gypsy?  If so, I'm sorry.  I love Gogol Bordello and would never knowingly undermine their cause.

In other news, the last stretch of tours was amazing as usual.  Touring with Regina Spektor is sort of like touring with Regina Spektor.  You can never quite get used to how awesome it is.  For those of you who haven't seen her perform in a while, let me be the 4,836th person to tell you that she actually gets better all the time.  No shit.  It's not really human.  But I'm not at liberty to discuss the level of human DNA she possesses as that would get me kicked off the tour for breach-of-supernatural-secrecy agreement.  Sadly, she got a serious case of the human vertigo and had to cancel 4 shows at the end of the run.  Happily, we'll be making these up at the end of Febberary.  I'm excited for these.

It looks like my full band will also be playing some shows around NYC in the coming months, in between yours truly writing songs for the next album.  I rock shit snail-style but hopefully when it's done it'll be worth the wait.  I don't like singing about things that I don't care about and sometimes it takes some time to get those ideas out in a manner that is pleasing to one's self.  My self is a demanding one so we'll see how it goes. 

The between-albums period is usually a very up'n'down'round'n'round type of thing where you realize that things done changed since the last one and you're not the same person and how does this new idiot make songs.  For me, for some reason, this means making a tremendous amount of hip-hop. So far January has been almost entirely devoted to rocking the mic. Right.

Since there's gonna be some down time, I figured I'd let you all in on my semi-secret hip-hop group.  It's called Jack Beats Bruno.  I've left it out of my top 8 all this time for reasons I don't even understand and it will remain topless until I figure it out.  In the meantime, here's the link to it:

www.myspace.com/jackbeatsbruno   

I'll write again soon with more helpful tips on talking shit.

Yours in newness,
Jack

 

 

 

 

Hey!

It's been a long time since my last plea to humanity. There's so much I want to say but it's gonna be a quickie because I gotta get ready, yo.

"Get ready for what, yo?"
"Information to follow, yo."

I'm going to be joining Regina "Taking Over The Entire Planet" Spektor in the land down under and the land near the land down under. That's right, geographiles. Australia and New Zealand are gonna get it niiiice and gooood. I'm tremendously excited to go to these mythical lands and continue my streak of mind-rearranging travels. I won't ask anyone from these countries a single question about kangaroos, koala bears, Nicole Kidman, Lord of the Rings, prison colonies, Crocodile Dundee or Outback Steakhouse. America has an immaculate reputation to uphold and they've selected the right ambassador.

The story goes like this:

I was at home, hanging out in the middle of the NY summer, perusing manifestos and watching propogandist videos. I was allowing my farmer's tan to fade a bit before I reinforced it again, showing every-goddamn-body how many colors I can be at once. The red phone rang. It was Commissioner Spektor, saying there was an emergency down in Australia and could I get over there immediately. I looked at my skinny-guy pot-belly and thought I was maybe not quite in fighting shape at the moment. I'd planned on taking the summer off, after all. But this was not something to say no to. I sprang into action and called my ward, iPod. I told him what needed to be done. He reminded me that our relationship is platonic. I reminded him that I wished it wasn't. I settled and asked him to go on the tour with me. He accepted.

I got a haircut and suited up. Sucked in the gut. The gut sucked in it's gut. I bought new underwear. Shaving cream. Socks. Guitar pixxx. I spared no expense. That's how it happened. The history books of the future are sure to distort the details but no matter. The Truth charges onward and I sit upon it's back in a suit of t-shirt and jeans that are too tight to fit my stupid fat wallet. This is gonna be radicle.

When I get home I'll return to writing new songs for Only Son's second album, tentatively titled "Tentatively Titled". Be on the lookout for it sometime in the future. If you have a tower it would help to see it because it's really not so close yet. But no fear, the future is bright and bushy. What else could it be since the past and present have been so dumb and Bushy, eh?

Eh?

Have a fun summer and I'll see you in the fall!

Jack

PS - please watch these incredible videos:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=P39b7v1wzfg
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ywQ2EnGWvAs

Attenciones populaciones!

I hope all of your New Year parties were fuggenauszm. I celebrated with my six hundred sets of parents at seven exotic locations at once. Originally structured molecules are sooooo over.

Anyway, on to the first piece of beautiful news:

Only Son will be opening for Regina Spektor once again on her Winter '07 tour of the UK, Germany, France and Sweden! I'll be playing solo with the iPod band, as usual for overseas, but there are some new things...songs, stories, explosions, flying, historical inaccuracies, scientific discoveries, birdwatching.  Also a slide show on Global Cooling. Very dense, very vague. You'll love it.

The second and third pieces of good news are these reviews of my album!

Hybrid Magazine:

http://www.hybridmagazine.com/reviews/1206/onlyson.shtml

Indie Music Stop Magazine: (go to CD reviews)

http://www.indiemusicstop.com/

They were actually written by John Lennon and Elvis Presley under pen names. Those dudes can't be using their real names for things like this, bro. People would lose their minds, bro. Also, if they make a negative comment or two, that's just an inside joke between the three of us. Funny little game Bob Dylan passed along. You wouldn't understand.

Prologue to a fourth and fifth piece of good news:

Two videos are almost done - one for My Museum and one for Long Live The Future! I know I have said this before but since there are such astronomical figures involved with these things it takes my accountants months to straighten out the payroll. Don't blame them, they have to earn their Bentleys somehow. As for me - I've been relaxing in my fur cottage, just fanning my gold with money and burning my money with hot diamonds. If you haven't tried using sushi to scrub the bathroom wall, you should try it. Works like perfect.  That's what my man-maid says, anyway.

See you soon!

Jack

Hey assorted humanities,

"The Drop To The Top" is released! It's officially gettable no matter where you sleep every night. Here's the brizeakdizown of how you can get it:

USA
1. Most major record stores in most major cities (Tower, Virgin, etc.)
2. Amazon.com and other online mail order sites
3. iTunes and other online download sites

UK/Europe
1. Amazon.com (for physical copies sent to you through the mail)
2. iTunes (for digital copies sent to you through the ether)

If you can't find the record at these places just let us know and we will hunt them down like dogs. Like, we'll be the dogs and they'll be the hunted. Not like they're dogs and we're hunting them. We don't hunt for dogs. You can just whistle and get a dog. That's not impressive. But to hunt LIKE a dog. That's the real shit right there.

Buy the album and command your friends to buy it too! You OWN them! You are the single most important opinion in their ear! ENFORCE it! Threaten them! Sever ties with anyone who refuses you! Abandon your faaaaamilyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!

Calmly,
Jack

Hey you with the face,

There is good news banging around my mouth.  And I don't mean that Good News is having sex near me and trying to avoid my lips and teeth.  I mean I have a bunch of words in my head that make happiness when strung together in this way:

The following shows of the Regina Spektor Fall US Tour will feature Only Son as a full 5-piece band:

9.20 - Toad's Place - New Haven, CT

9.21 - Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel - Providence, RI

9.27 - Town Hall - NY, NY

9.28 - Town Hall  - NY, NY

9.30 - Electric Factory - Philadelphia, PA 

10.3 - 9:30 Club - Washington DC

10.6 - Avalon - Boston, MA

You should buy tickets now because they seem to be flying away nicely...

Also, the final version of the CD with a lyrics booklet will be for sale at all the shows on the tour so bring your money and give it to me so that we can see each other again. 

Vaguely prostitutionally yours,

Jack