TONIGHT!
Be there or be marked absent! Attendance will be taken, and it will be part of our permanent record. 
| Fox News is giving lots of coverage to PBS deciding to edit out Paul McCartney's jabs at George Bush after receiving the Gershwin Prize from President Obama. I saw the preview of the show and thought McCartney sounded sharper and funnier (and less defensive) than he has in many years. Oh well.http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/27/pbs-defends-cutting-footage-mccart... |
Mick Jagger says that people ask him all the time, "How do you remember all those words?" and he always replies, "It's easy. I wrote them."
I've never found that to be very helpful. I have a long history of needing the lyrics to our songs written in big Sharpie marker down at my feet during shows. Last week at an outdoor show the cheat sheets to "My Pre-Existing Conditions" blew away and Kevin the Merch Man had to chase them down. (His Christmas bonus this year is going to be either a four wheeler or a rocket jet-pack.)
So I've been practicing and reciting these words for a few days, there's a heap of them, and I'm just a line or two away from totally nailing it.
I'm pretty sure that if I gave up the Diet Coke, this situation would improve.
The Public Good plays this Thursday evening at The Velvet Lounge.
We will be the first of 4 bands and will go on early at 8pm. Perfect way to round out an evening happy hour.
The other bands:
Saint Solitude (from Asheville, NC)
Spouse (from Massachusetts and Oregon)
Sweet Interference (DC band)
The Velvet Lounge is located at 915 U Street NW.
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The Public Good, based in Washington, DC, has developed a cult following inspired by the band's special mix of pounding rock and roll, brain-wrenching on-stage IQ quizzes, and occasional costume dramas. The Public Good rocks hard while writing with wit and empathy about the foibles (and pleasures) of adult life.
The Public Good's new release is "A Varied Program of Stereo Dynamics for Your Wild Nights Alone." Their CD from last year, "No. 1," garnered rave reviews for its "great sense of humor" and “clean, clear, sharp mind of its own.” Blurt Magazine named the band one of "Rock and Roll's Best Kept Secrets." Songwriters Elderkin and Ruppenthal have also been praised by Billboard, SPIN, and Jon Pareles of The New York Times.
Greetings, TPG Faithful!
Colin Rink, a fellow musician out in Vancouver, BC, has selected our 2010 CD (lovingly titled A Varied Program of Stereo Dynamics for Your Wild Nights Home Alone) as his CD of the week! You can learn more about Colin at his blog, and here's a link to the post at his CRMB blog:
http://colinrinkinfo.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/crmb-album-of-the-week-03/
Thanks very much to Colin for the review. Don't forget you can buy your very own personal copy of A Varied Program of Stereo Dynamics for Your Wild Nights Home Alone at any TPG live gig, through our website, or at any of the various electrical down-load sites the kids enjoy using these days.
Don't forget about our gig at the Velvet Lounge here in Washington DC on Thursday, July 29.
Our fine friends over at the We Love DC blog are spreading the good word...
http://www.welovedc.com/2010/07/20/blurt-magazines-best-kept-secret-d-c-s-the...
TPG has read the following and is now enlisting new ideas for outrageous personas. Perhaps Sam's hankering that we wear eye patches and claim to be pirates on the lam isn't so preposterous?
From NPR:
Gavin Bain and Billy Boyd were two college friends from Dundee, Scotland, trying to make a name for themselves in rap music. But despite a talent for spinning rhymes, they couldn't make it past the local scene. They even traveled to London for open auditions to become the next Eminem, but were told that they sounded more like a rapping version of the thick-accented pop group The Proclaimers.
Bain and Boyd returned disappointed that no one would take them seriously. So they adopted new identities, Bain as Brains McLoud and Boyd as Silibil, and invented an elaborate back story: They were from a small town in California, got kicked out of school and ran out of money in the U.K., where they were currently working to make it as the rap group Silibil 'N Brains. They based their personas on their favorite comedians — Jim Carrey, who is actually Canadian, and Chris Tucker — and rapped with American accents. That made all the difference, Bain tells Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz.
"These lyrics were just the same when we did them again in American accents," he says. "There was nothing different, and all of a sudden, people were saying, 'Oh, wow. They're just as good as Eminem.' But in the Scottish accent, they're saying, 'Oh, no. They don't have any talent.' "
The group eventually signed a $350,000 record deal with Sony U.K. and recorded three albums. They dropped small clues to their true identities in their lyrics, as in "Losers," which subtly mocks the people who bought their story.
"We kind of liked to put little hints about what we were actually doing," Bain says, "because we knew as soon as the record came out, we were going to come clean and that would make sense. It was a very naive plan."
One lie in particular took on a life of its own. Bain and Boyd claimed to be close friends of Eminem and D-12, but when their manager told them that Silibil 'N Brains would be joining the rappers on their U.K. tour, they didn't know what to do. Bain says they couldn't avoid them on the whole tour, so they decided to go for it.
"We walked over and we started throwing high-fives and cuddling them and acting like we were the best of friends. And they just went along with it," he says. "To everyone else, it just really looked real."
When Lies Become Life
Bain and Boyd dodged that bullet, but there were numerous other close calls — some of which appear in Bain's book California Schemin'. When the group appeared on MTV's TRL, fans and friends starting flooding message boards about their Scottish origins. Bain says he and Boyd worked to shut down the sites and keep their secret under wraps.
"It just got carried away," Bain says. "There was so much money involved. The plan was originally to come out, but... when it got big enough... we stood to be sued [by the record company]."
The stress of the lies had Bain and Boyd at each other's throats, Bain says. They even stopped talking to their friends and parents.
"We were so in love with these characters," he says. "We couldn't get out of the character. It was complete insanity."
Eventually, the pressure became too much. Bain says they had a violent fight about keeping up the facade. Boyd wanted to leave the group and marry his girlfriend back in Scotland, but Bain didn't want to jeopardize the group. The next day, Boyd was gone, leaving just one half of Silibil 'N Brains.
Although his music deal fell apart, Bain continued to live in character as Brains McLoud for the next two years. He lived on welfare and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse. Soon, he had overdosed.
"I always said when I was younger, if I hadn't been happy with music by the time I was 25, then I would kill myself," he says. "And that date had really crept up."
Bain lived through his near-death experience and found several odd jobs. He worked as an escort agent and even conned his way into a job as a shoe salesman for an American company, using his American accent.
"For me, I still thought this American character I was playing — it was more beneficial to be him," Bain says.
Finally, in 2007, Bain came out with the truth in a debut performance with his new band, Hopeless Heroic. He says it was the first time he'd been on stage sober. The reaction was mixed, but Bain says it was an inspirational story for some.
"That was the aim of it," he says. "That was the message, to get people off their asses and doing what they want to do and never give up."
Prince's recent comment that "Playing electric guitar your whole life does something to you. I'm convinced all that electricity racing through your body made me keep my hair," has The Public Good wondering. Did Prince hear "Imagine the Girlfriends I'd Have (If I Still Had Hair)"? A Public Good/Prince tour now seems likely, especially since we've thanked him on both our CDs...
Who's bigger than Justin Beiber (and by association, The Public Good) in American pop culture? LeBron, LeBron, LeBron (which you can sing to the tune of Beiber/TPG's "Baby, Baby, Baby," btw).
This report on "The Decision" from Honorary Public Goodsman Rett Snotherly, editor of "Ah, Bartleby!" --
The lowpoint of sports in the 21st Century was the LeBron special last night. As a lover of pop culture, I had no choice but to watch despite the fact that it will cost me an extra century in purgatory. The first thing I noticed was that the show was simply titled "The Decision" because, y'know, it was even more momentous than a presidential election, which they at least label with a year such as "Decision 2008." Someone like Chuck Klosterman needs to write a scathing piece on this. Like how on God's green earth did they get Wilbon on the set? Like how could not an ounce of irony be demonstrated by anyone? Like, how could someone not acknowledge something like "Hey, this is ridiculous but the fire's out of control so here we go." Stuart Scott needs to go to jail for 2 months. Satan got a baker's dozen in 60 minutes. And -- it was so money -- that Jim Gray, the person on the planet least qualified for his job, did the interview where he and LeBron used the word "process" twenty times in one minute. (That's actually not an exaggeration.) As our friend J said, if you are LeBron leaving Cleveland (and Northern Ohio for that matter) you do not throw it in their face like this.
The most awesome part of the show was when LeBron said "Miami" and the audience, comprised mostly of kids, made a slight groan followed by silence. LeBron seemed to get a little rattled by this, and he should have, because it's exactly how everyone outside of Miami, the worst sports city in the country, reacted.
Like any band, The Public Good is a group of people that forms around music making. This group isn’t limited to the people holding instruments; it embraces all involved. This blog records and riffs on this involvement.
The Public Good’s live shows in and out of the District of Columbia have developed a cult following intrigued by the band's special mix of heart-pounding rock-n-roll, brain-wrenching IQ quizzes, and occasional costume dramas.
John Elderkin (guitar) and Steve Ruppenthal (bass) lead songwriting and vocals, and the band is rounded out on stage by literary genius Sam Esquith on guitar/keyboards/tambourine, and the supremely talented roaming percussionist Chris Garges (Mitch Easter band, etc.) on drums.
