Nowhere Band News

One last gasp on the covers discussion. The Boys are wrestling with something I still see a lot of, to my puzzlement and amusement: the Replacements still cast a long, long shadow up here. When I was a music writer a couple of years ago, every local band I interviewed, without fail, would mention the Replacements, even if it was just to say that they see part of their mission as getting the Twin Cities music scene out of the Replacements rut. If one band says something like that, it doesn’t mean much, but when everybody does, it gets kind of interesting. Anyway, the vast majority of Minnesota bands do seem to go through at least a very short phase where they see themselves as the heirs to the ‘Mats, either in sound or in work ethic (IE, “we’re so talented that we don’t need to practice, so let’s get FUCKED UP”).

To be honest, I like the Replacements a lot, but I always kind of preferred Husker Du. And yet nobody compares themselves to them. Weird.

…and we continue with last week’s internal Awesome Boys debate over how to get ready for their show at the Terminal.

I don’t know what the deal is with the rule Jon cites, but it seems to be pretty ironclad… covering still-active bands that you like is just Not Done, for no good reason that I can think of. Especially weird since I remember reading about Jimi Hendrix covering “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” like a day or two after it was released, and the Beatles being really flattered, etc, etc. Essentially, I think it’s hard to say that something’s uncool if Jimi Hendrix did it (especially death by vomit!).

Future comics note: I’ve gotten a little bored with the formatting and general look of Nowhere Band. Played with it a little bit for this one, and it might drift some more as time goes on. Depends on how some experiments go, and how much drag they put on the comic-making process.

I survived the monster bike ride I was talking about, although lack of daylight forced us to cut it off at about 75 miles. We made up for the shortfall, though, by spending the weekend splitting a metric shitload of wood.

I don’t do a very good job of keeping my weekends restful.

Here she be. Not much needed in the way of liner notes, except to say that every band does this, I think, and that I was kind of gratified to get the chance to play off a little bit of past continuity (I did resist the urge to add a Stan Lee-style “*as seen in Nowhere Band #17!”

We’ll say 8/1 for the next one, because Crazy Recreation Summer continues to eat up time. I’ve got a 120-mile bike ride cropping up in the next comic cycle, and god only knows how many comic-making days that’s going to derail…

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. 

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.

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.

So, Dan’s a pretty good drummer, but he’s got other skills. He just sets them aside out of concern for the happiness of his friends.  What a guy!

This one isn’t ripped straight from real life like the whole Great Big Schmooze deal was, but there’s sort of a historical precedent.  Back in my first band, Red Hay, our drummer was a sextuple- or septuple musical threat who pretty much limited himself to drums.  I doubt that he ever had any conversations where he flat-out said he was holding back to spare our feelings (although he’s a hell of a nice guy, so I wouldn’t put it past him), but I was still always conscious that he could probably step forward and go all Gary Louris on us at any moment if he got the itch.

So, then, it’s Hiatus Time.  I’m off to California for a week, with production starting back up when I get back.  That puts the next strip up at, what, some time in June?  Let’s say June 9th as a probably-hard deadline.  Although you never know, it might be worth watching this space to see if things run more quickly for some reason.

…aaaand now we see Aaron reap the wages of cock-blocking his bandmate. Poetic justice? Just the way things go? All in the game, yo? It’s not for me to say.

OK, I guess it is for me to say, since I wrote the damned thing. And here’s what I’ve got: like several other Nowhere strips, this whole Great Big Schmooze business is at least partly rooted in something that happened to me (in this case, about 10 years ago), back in the days of my band Red Hay. I was the Aaron figure in that little piece of Kabuki (here’s a hint: whenever a strip’s based on a real-life event, all you need to do to identify which character’s taking my role is to look for the one who’s being the biggest chump or asshole; that seems to be the way I write the reality-based scripts). I really was thrilled to have actually picked up a girl (so I thought) by playing guitar, and I really did sort of elbow my way past one of my boys to get there, and the whole thing ended more or less the way 26d does, except without a righteous drawing of the Hindenburg (actually, the night of the initial pickup also included a crazy little side adventure wherein my friend Chad and I spent a hair-raising half hour with a completely insane dude who wanted to be called “Hustler Pete.” I’m still on the fence about whether The Tale of Hustler Pete will ever be transmuted to comic form).

So, May is a crazy month for me. My wife’s birthday, our anniversary (5 years!), a week’s vacation at the end of the month, and some family visits. Which is to say, sorry the schedule’s been a little choppy, and there’s still some chop to come. One more strip will come out next week, and then there’ll be like a 2-week lull while I travel and recharge and all that. Full service will resume in early June.