Nowhere Band News

Holy crap, it’s true. The Derailleur Bond EP is done, and available for download over at the Derailleur site. Listen, learn, and love, my friends.

In case you haven’t heard me babble about this before, this EP is our attempt to write theme songs for Bond movies– some are replacements for the original theme (I mean, do you even remember what the official theme to Octopussy was?) and others are themes for Bond movies that haven’t been made, but should.

And if you like this one, there’s more on the way. Our man Jay is hard at work mixing our second full-length album, tentatively called The Dirtiest Dudes in Rock ‘N’ Roll. 

And oh yeah, that comic that gets done around here…. on schedule, and looking good for a posting on Sunday night or Monday morning.

So, this week Jon learns a harsh lesson that’s surprisingly common, I’m told. I’ve never actually played Guitar Hero or Rock Band (I’d like to, it just never works out), but I’ve had enough guitar-playing friends complain about getting waxed by children that it seems to be a universal right of passage.

Couple of other items:  my old band Red Hay, which provided a bunch of source material for Nowhere Band, got a nice writeup on Tried to Rock, a wonderfully kick-ass site about bands that don’t go anywhere (you can see why the site appeals to me). Go over and check the whole site out, it’s good, good stuff.

And, hopping away from comics and music, Rebecca and I have once again sat down and tried to decide whether another beloved movie stands the test of time. The latest contender? Say Anything. 

So, I’ll say this about bus commuting: you get a hell of a lot of reading done. With a pile this big, I thought I’d revive an old tradition and print out the list of what I’ve read so far, with brief comments. The thought of going through and doing proper italicization gives me hives, so we’ll just skip that.

1.    Complete Peanuts, volume 1 (Charles Schulz)- More interesting than fun, really. There’s good stuff, but the elements that made Peanuts so special aren’t anywhere near to gelling in this early stuff. It’s pretty amazing to see how rigid Schulz’s early style was, and how much more expressive he got when he loosened up and simplified.

2.    Cartoon History of the Universe, vol. 1 (Larry Gonick)- If anyone’s ever done a better job with nonfiction cartooning, I haven’t heard of it. Gonick serves up great, great stuff—this volume gets you as far as Alexander the Great, and it’s a really informative blast all the way.
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w00t! A strip of mine got picked for the City Pages (Minneapolis’s alt-weekly) Comics Issue, focusing on the upcoming Republican National Convention. I did some writing for them back in my freelance days, but this is the first time I’ve convinced them– or anybody– to actually pay me for a comic. I’m pretty jazzed– hey, validation!

Also, the next Nowhere strip should be up in the next day or two, and a couple of other bloggy posts are forthcoming. Horn o’ plenty, dude.

Did Johnny Cash even own a pair of Tevas? I think we can assume he did not.
And that’s why everybody looks up to him so much… or at least why Aaron does.

The issue of rocking footwear’s a tough one. But, silly as it sounds, I think that in the end Aaron’s right: you can’t show up on a stage in sports sandals and expect to be taken seriously as a rocking force. I’m trying to think of counterexamples, and totally drawing a blank. Phish, maybe? Not that they rocked that much, but they did occasionally, and they seem like sports sandals guys. I don’t know. It’s tough.

Rebecca and I discuss this in great detail, and you’ll have to go over there to get the answer.

Everyone has something to hide. Everybody.

For what it’s worth, this one went through a small last-minute script change; Josh’s secret was originally supposed to involve a tiny bit of insecurity about the band’s future, until a conversation on the drive home from a camping trip hammered home just how shameful it is to like “Uncle Albert.” So now Josh shares my shame.

Hoping to get back to more or less regular updates now, but I notice that the 4th of July holiday looms. We’ll see how this shakes out.

Come on along one and all, for a little guided tour of your favorite slightly warped hunk of fretted maple!

By way of liner notes, this one’s pretty self-explanatory.  Bands like the Awesome Boys (and pretty much every band I’ve ever been, although less and less so with Derailleur) always have instruments with tons of asterisks attached– stay away from here because it frets out, don’t play up the neck because it sounds weird, and so on. And even if you’ve got a perfect guitar, odds are your own stylistic foibles will keep you away from certain spots on the neck– I still view the entire B string with distrust.

So, I said 29 would be late and it wasn’t. Whoops. Some side projects came together more quickly than I expected. 30 will be late for sure, though, since I’ve got a camping trip planned for next weekend and precious little cartooning gets done on camping trips (or immediately afterwards, when you’re dealing with the Wall of Exhaustion).

Nowhere 28’s up, with Josh looking to use some connections to further his musical ambitions.

When I wrote this one, the thing on my mind was that every music writer on every level goes through this… people you know, from close friends to distant acquaintances, are always asking you to, y’know, give ‘em a hand.  And I was feeling kind of condemn-y about that, but the truth is that I’m just as bad with trying to push this comic.  I guess that’s the game.

Note that Mimi’s extremely awesome wall art is taken from J. Ralston’s The Hole in the Wall, on view at Top Shelf. 

Time to the next one’s a little indeterminate, but it’ll be up by 6/19 at the latest. Hopefully sooner, it depends on another (kind of exciting, but secret at the moment) project.