#1-Way Cassette (DC)

[indiantradebird11]

1-Way Cassette (DC) | Blueace Limited

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[inlovewhithafairytale]

01 x 01 Pilot part 1

"You're waiting in the car" is the first thing Dean says when he parks the '67 Chevy Impala in front of the apartments where their brother lived.

Yn scrunched up her nose and furrowed her eyebrows "dude. Why?"

"Cause I say so"

"Why do you get to see him before me? Its not fair" Yn says not backing up as her oldest brother got out of the car.

"Just stay in the car" Dean says slamming the car door shut behind him and making his way to the apartments.

The 15 year old leaned back against the car seat crossing her arms over her chest with a pout "not fair" she mumbled to herself.

****

Yn had nodded off to sleep resting her head against the car window as she waited for her brothers hoping that Sam would go with them.

"Why did you even leave her in the car?" Sam asked Dean as he walked next to him to the parking lot.

"She was sleeping" Dean lied. Truth be told, he didn't want Yn to get her hopes up to Sam coming, he knew that she missed their brother horribly and had cried herself to sleep when he first went away to Stanford.

Yn woke up to her brothers voices and the sound of the cars trunk being open. She grinned widely when she heard Sam's voice and quickly opened the car door and rushed to Sam jumping into his arms and hugging him tightly as she let out a series of happy squeals.

"Sammy I missed you so fucking much" she said as Sam laughed hugging her tightly back and giving her a spin before setting her back on the ground.

"I missed you so much too Yn. Wow, you've grown so much!" Sam looked her up and down a smile on his face as he looked at his little sister.

"Yeah. She turned 15 two months ago" Dean cut in a with an edge to his words.

"Dean. I know" Sam answered glaring slightly at his brother.

"But that doesn't matter. We're here" Yn cut in giving Dean a reproach in her look, turning back to Sam "so...are you coming with us to search for dad?" She asked him eyes begging him to come.

"Yes, but i have to be back by Monday" came Sam's reply as he ruffled her hair up a bit.

Yn pouted a bit at his words "oh well I guess"

"Yn, get back in the car" Dean told her.

"Why?" She asked turning to him eyebrows furrowed.

"I want to talk with Sam and you're on the way. Car. Now" Dean said closing the back of the car.

Yn have a dramatic sight "fine...." she muttered and got back in the car arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face. When she walked behind Dean she stuck her tongue out at him making Sam stifle a laugh.

***

Dean knocked on the car window of the backseat startling Yn awake who sat up from the seat rubbing her eyes "what? Where are we?" She said groaning as she opened the car door.

"On our way to Jericho right now on a gas stop. Go to the bathroom" Dean said handing her a bottle of pear juice and a bag of cheese puffs "breakfast" he said simply and turning to Sam who was sitting shotgun he gestured to the other bag of chips he was holding"breakfast?"

Sam scoffed "no. How do you even give that to Yn?"

"Eh. I'm used to it." Yn said shrugging as Dean glared at his brother. Yn out her bag of chips and bottle of juice down on the leather seat and got out of the car stretching "I'm going to the bathroom" she said groaning a bit and walking past Dean into the small gas stop.

"How do you even buy stuff? Still on the credit card schemes?" Sam asked knowingly.

"Well, hunting isn't exactly a paying job" Dean shrugged as he walked to the other side of the car and got into the drivers seat.

"What names did you use this time?"

"Bert Afrahiam and his loving kids Hector and Evangeline Afrahiam" came the smug reply.

Sam gave a snort and a shake of his head turning his attention back to the cassette collection box Dean had "dude. You need to update your cassette collection. Black Sabath? Metallica? Ac/Dc? Who even listen to those anymore?"

"House rules Sammy, driver picks the music, shotgun shuts their cakehole" Dean said taking one of the cassettes and putting it on the radio.

"Sammy it's a chubby 8 hear old. Its Sam."

"Sorry. Can't hear you. Music's too loud" Dean said as he turned the music up, back in black playing loudly through the speakers.

The backseat door opened and Yn slipped in wincing slightly at the loud music. "Dude. Lower it down a little"

"House rules booger driver picks the music and-" Dean start again as he drove away from the gas station.

"Yeah but backseat gets to lower the music. Tune it down a bit, I've got a headache" Yn said rolling her eyes a bit at him

Dean complies and puts the volume down just a little.

Sam turns to her a bit of concern flashing through his face "you've got a headache?"

"No. But I'll get one if Dean keeps putting the music so loud"yn answered

Dean rolled her eyes at her through the rear view mirror "just eat your vegetables"

"Yeah dad..." yn said mockingly as she opened her bag of cheese puffs and started eating.

***

Part two ... Flashbacks.a.k.a. younger years before season 1

if any of you have any ideas I am all ears <333

[noloveforned]

it's a holiday weekend here in the u.s.a. and i'm 'celebrating freedom' with my typical friday evening freeform radio on wlur. you can tune in from 8pm until midnight for the live fireworks. if you're celebrating elsewhere tonight you can always catch up with last week's show streaming on mixcloud.

no love for ned on wlur – june 28th, 2024 from 8-10pm

artist // track // album // label the double // dawn of the double (excerpt) // dawn of the double // in the red dom sensitive // r&d // leather trim // dinosaur city mope grooves // forever is a long time // box of dark roses // 12xu antietam // shively spleen // antietam // hoemstead surveillance // on my way // less than one, more than zero // celluloid lunch loose lips // here she comes // loose lips cassette // (self-released) laughing // easier said // because it's true // celluloid lunch hot tubs time machine // no thanks, google maps // fifty shades of marcus 7" // spoilsport moss lime // dreamboat // zoo du quebec ep // telephone explosion the pretenders // message of love // pretenders ii // sire birthday girl dc // house of cards // birthday girl ep // army brat oh, rose // that do now see // that do now see (remastered) cassette // antiquated future danny paul grody duo // hawk hill // arc of night // three lobed fuubutsushi // new flora // meridians // cached media kronos quartet and laraaji // daddy's gonna tell you no lie // outer spaceways incorporated- kronos quartet and friends meet sun ra // red hot organization yea big and tatsu aoki // the mind and the heart // the hand and the moon, pt. 1 // for practically everyone william parker, cooper-moore and hamid drake // processional // heart trio // aum fidelity joe henderson // afro-centric // power to the people // milestone rome streetz // what i'm used to // i been thru mad shit // bad influenyce previous industries // white hen // service merchandise // merge homeboy sandman // the place i want to be // rich ii // dirty looks maxo // same hoodie since '05 // smile ep // smile for me yaya bey // chrysanthemums // ten fold // big dada jimmie green // dance // eccentric soul- the shoestring label compilation // numero group the garment district // the island of stability // flowers telegraphed to all parts of the world // happy happy birthday to me advantage lucy // solaris // fanfare // eastworld smile too much // memorial park // ep two cassette // dandy boy lunchbox // heaven only knows // pop and circumstance // slumberland shonen knife // elephant pao pao // burning farm // oglio korea girl // under the sun // korea girl // asian man

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 9: Vienna (Rest Day)

Distance Covered: 0 miles

Total Time: N/A

Average Speed: N/A

Apples Eaten: 1 (jazz - 7/10)

Today was quite an eventful rest day. I spent most of the morning relaxing, then in the early afternoon, we went to a bike shop to get a fix ups for my bike. We left my bike there, but when we came back a few hours later, they said that my back wheel was cracked and I needed a new one, but they didn't have one they could sell me. Luckily, as the area has a large biking community and is right next to the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, there were multiple other bike shops we could check out nearby. We checked 2, and the second one had a set of wheels I could buy, but not a single wheel. I ended up getting those wheels, as well as a new tire for my back wheel. At the bike shop, I asked that they only move the cassette to the new wheel (the part of the wheel which has the gears on it) and then we took my bike back to the place I'm staying to fix it up.

Fixing the Bike

Fixing my bike consisted of two main parts: changing the wheels, and then adjusting the brakes. For both parts, Andrew, one of my hosts, was very helpful in getting things done quickly and correctly.

Changing the Wheels: The back wheel was pretty easy to deal with, just removing the old wheel from the bike, then putting a new tube and tire on the new back wheel and putting it back on. There were a few issues fitting the wheel in with the cassette, but it still took no time at all. The front wheel took longer, for a few reasons. For one, at first the bolt keeping the old wheel on the bike was a little tight, so it took a little jostling to get it loose to take the wheel off. Then, for some reason, even with the air pumped out of the tire, it was difficult getting the tube and tire off the wheel. When I eventually managed to do so, I put them on the new wheel, and fitted the new wheel onto the bike. I had to replace the front skewer with a new quick-release skewer because the old one didn't fit the new wheel.

The hardest part of actually changing the wheels was probably pumping their air. It would have been easy to do it with a normal-sized floor pump, but I have a new small floor pump I wanted to test out. It was quite easy to pump up to ~40 psi, but I needed to get my wheels to ~100, and the rest was an uphill battle. I actually had to take a break while pumping one of the tires up to rest my arms.

Adjusting the Brakes: After putting the back wheel back on, we realized that the brakes were not properly adjusted with the new wheel. Unfortunately, the brakes were a little stuck and we couldn't move/rotate them, even by screwing/unscrewing all possible bolts around and on the brakes. So, while I started working on the front wheel, Andrew continued to work on the brakes for the back. He was able to figure out the correct way to adjust them. He figured it out, and I am extremely grateful, because I don't think it's something I could've fixed on my own.

After adjusting the brakes, I rode my bike around the driveway a little bit to test it out, and everything felt fine.

Other than the strenuous bike repair, today was a lazy rest day, without much going on. Tomorrow is the start of what should be the most exciting part of the ride: the C&0 and GAP bike trails, both rail trails that when combined go all the way from Washington, DC to Pittsburgh - this means for the next few days, almost all my riding will be on bike trails! I just hoped that they're mostly paved.

Hope y'all enjoyed today's slightly-longer-than-usual rest day post!

Previous -- Today's Pics -- Next

[sukimas]

i don't think i've ever posted about my car (the fuckmobile 9000) here, but it's the car of all time, so you get to be subjected to my experiences with vehicles.

so, for context: i own a car from 1996 (because I don't make any money). however- and this is important- i do not own a beater car. i own a car that was, at the time, a fairly high-end vehicle.

the car i have, specifically, is a top of the line '96 nissan maxima. bought early in the january of that year. the color as stated in the owner's manual is "gold" but the department of motor vehicles has ruled it as "beige". the paint on the roof is peeling off; the cover for a small piece of one of the headlights has gone missing somewhere. the hubcaps are beginning to rust, and the paint on the windshield wiper holders has been rubbed clean away, making them clean steel that reflects the sun directly into my eyes whenever i'm driving home at sunset.

the first indication one might gain that this car was worth far more than three thousand bucks back in the day is when, before starting it up, one opens the gas tank. on the internal cover, there is a warning saying to only use premium fuel (93 octane or better) for necessary engine performance.

(it gets 87 octane because that is what i can afford and it likes it. however, as protest, the gas tank refuses to indicate the proper fuel level until i hit half empty. such is life.)

despite the car insurance being 24 dollars a month, once you actually start the vehicle it roars to life as if it's fresh off the lot. completely overkill for a consumer vehicle, it's outfitted with a v6 engine that makes the thing shake so much that it needs a special doohickey called a harmonic balancer on the crankshaft to make it stop doing that.

i discovered, incidentally, that it requires a harmonic balancer when the rubber on the original manufacturer one wore out and the car threw 6 belts before the mechanics figured out what the hell the problem was. essentially all the rubber and plastic on the vehicle has worn out from age. this is, in fact, the only engine problem i have ever had.

one interesting piece of plastic in many vehicles is a little bolt-shaped thing that indicates when the brake light should turn off; a brake light is actually a dead man's switch, in that the switch is always on when it is not receiving electronic signal, as opposed to always off. anyway, the brake light's plastic bit broke in half last summer and my car battery died repeatedly until i figured out i needed a replacement for it, which cost $3 plus $18 shipping from missouri. the dashboard odometer mechanism is also plastic-based, so it is a 1/3 chance that it increments on any trip (but the internal odometer works; strangely, despite this discrepancy, there's only a 3,000 mile mileage difference between them.)

the radio/media system fuse burnt out in 2019; interestingly, unlike in more recent cars, this is not connected to the clock, so I can still tell the time. i do miss my cassette player, though, even if i mortifyingly found out recently that half of my old cassettes are from joe biden's favorite band.

either way, you're not here to hear about my car trouble (summing in total to just under half of the vehicle's current retail price). you're here to hear about its performance. well, i'm happy to tell you that even with 87 octane, it gladly goes from zero to sixty in about 6.7 seconds, nearly the same timespan as the 2022 maxima (5.7). how do i know this? i live in a town where the lovely non-permanent residents significantly enjoy showing off the power of their cars' motors. it's similarly excellent at maintaining high speeds, keeping 80 even running up steep grades in the appalachian mountains.

now, as for miles per gallon, it's not great. it's a car from 1996, and i'm feeding it low-octane fuel so it's doing even worse than it should be, but it can still run from the WV/SWVA border to DC on 2/3 of a tank. (it takes 3/4 to get back, because of the uphill/downhill differences, but it's still easily manageable on one tank.)

now you're definitely saying "whoa, hold on man, think about the emissions on that thing!"

luckily, my car's registered back in fucking lockheed martinville, so it's gotta go through emissions checks every two years. it's passed every single one with flying colors- by better margins than my next door neighbor's brand new audi. fuck that guy for doing donuts outside at three in the morning, by the way. of course, CO2 is an issue, but electric cars cost forty grand and as previously mentioned i live in appalachia. so this guy's staying around until it turns 30 or i leave the united states, whichever comes first.

in conclusion: the fuckmobile 9000 will never die. also don't tailgate me for your own safety, this thing's got a steel body and you've got crumple zones. if you rear end me at a traffic light, you're the one who's getting totaled, not me.

(as for me you can rest assured i'm not rear-ending you, i don't want a door through the head)

anyway if you have no money and want an alternative vehicle before getting enough to go electric, consider an ancient and immortal creature from the 1990s. and maybe try downloading some mp3s on your phone to listen to on trips; you never know when your radio will spontaneously fail, after all.

[supalonely17]

1 DC PLAYLIST EVERY DAY

DAY 10 : AQUAMAN

let’s talk : While making this playlist the main thing that was in my head was what Arthur’s relationship was like with his father. I think that his dad would’ve definitely inspired his taste in music. I also thought that Arthur would probably drift away from American music for a bit, considering his busy lifestyle. I wish Atlantean music existed in real life as well. But sadly since it doesn’t I couldn’t truly complete this Aquaman playlist.

While working on it I also tried to aim for more deep cuts. Unlike Hal who I think would’ve probably gotten all his favorite music from the radio. I think Arthur would’ve gotten his favorite music from the albums on cassettes his father would’ve had. Im not sure if radio would’ve carried all the way to the light house after all.

Playlist spotlight!

[malaysiacarrier]

the Carrier 40VU1 Variable Refrigerant Floor 1-Way Cassette Unit that comes with a DC-powered fan, low noise levels, built-in drain pump & other features.

DC powered fan with industry-leading noise levels down to 25dB(A)

Return air panel serves as a service port to maintain the unit

Built-in drain pump

Unique ceiling anti-fouling design

[hotflatrock]

Kansas at Golden Gate Theater

Back in the 90s, Berkeley was a music wonderland. As a kid from the suburbs that was only exposed to single Warehouse or Sam Goody stores in strip malls that would take an hour to walk to, I was stunned to discover the extensive array of record store options available to me in college. South of campus, you could find Rasputin’s, Tower Records, and Leopolds all within a block of each other, each with massive selections of an eclectic array of music. And that was a couple years before Amoeba Records came to the area and ramped up the selection even more.

The hours… days… spent rifling through bins of used CDs would come in later years. Freshman year, though, I was still buying tapes.

Freshman year in the dorms was wonderous, gaining exposure to everyone’s music collections at once. Tons of new (to me) music packed into a single hall, with everyone willing to loan for a quick dub using anyone’s stereo that had two tape decks. And we all had two tape decks.

Other songs came to me via the radio. I was a KFOG man at the time, at the tail end of my Classic Rock salad days that started towards the end of high school. Most of what KFOG would play was already familiar, but every now and then, some mind-blowing track would force its way out of the dust and the weeds and thoroughly wrest my attention.

Carry On My Wayward Son was one of those tracks. I knew it was by Kansas but had no idea what other song Kansas played. No one in my dorms had an album to steal. Cassette singles were not a thing that readily available, and I was not going to plunk down cash for a full album for a single song. MP3 were not even a pipe dream at that point, still 10 years away from being a thing.

I found my solution in a strange machine at Tower Records, the likes of which I had never seen before… or since. It was part jukebox - containing a huge catalog of songs - and part dubbing station. Basically, you pick 10 or 15 songs out of a catalog, plunk down a couple bucks per song, and it would press a tape for you of your selections. I can’t remember if it spit the tape out within an hour, or whether I had to come back for it another day. What I do remember is that I created a 7-song compilation album of completely mismatched songs, with the lovely title of Confused Shit.

Carry On My Wayward Son was the clear winner of the Shit.

Flash forward 3 decades and I can name precisely 1 other Kansas song (Dust in the Wind), and I can recognize one other song as a Kansas song, although I can not name it. Let’s face it, seeing Kansas was a total lark, a decision the wife made months before we started Year of the Concert in earnest. It weighed down our calendar like an anchor, tethering us to the date as other more appealing concerts appeared as conflicts. But we stuck with it, and it was OK.

I’ve never been a big fan of 70s prog rock bands. The music is bombastic, a progenitor of 80s hair bands that I never really cottoned to.  Mentally, I lump them together with other 70s bands that I never took a liking to: Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, or Black Sabbath, for instance. What I can say honestly, however, is that the concert was fucking loud. It was the first show in this glorious concert binge that I felt might have damaged by hearing.

The guitarist, an original band member, never once looked up, instead spending almost 2 hours staring at his feet or his pedals. The fiddler was fun. The lead singer was solid. They played the unnamed song early, Dust in the Wind in the middle, and Carry on My Wayward Son at the end.

I’m probably not going to remember this one much in a few years, as it fades into the background of all the fabulous things we will have seen. This post and the ringing sound in my ears will likely serve as the only reminder of the experience and of the Confused Shit generated by that mystery box at a record store.

[dritakk]

Snark touch metronome instructions

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[all-4-wincest]

Hey Liz!!! For the ask game #'s 1, 6, 9.🖤

Hey Ashley!! Thanks for the ask!

1). What were your summers like as a kid?

Usually long, waiting for my parents to get home from work so that my 4 sisters and I could do something besides work in my dad’s garden. We went to our local outdoor YMCA pool a lot.

6). What’s your favorite outfit?

Usually jeans and a t-shirt. Sometimes shorts and a t-shirt. LOL, it changes depending on the weather.

9). What CD did you play to death as a kid?

Again, LOL! CD’s didn’t exist when I was a kid. We had either album’s or cassette tapes. My favorite is a 3 way tie.

In no order) Led Zeppelin IV, AC/DC Highway to Hell, and The Eagles Hotel California.

I probably went through at least 2 cassette tapes of each. Those things wore out after rewinding them 10 times a day to listen to your favorites.

Look at you, @cordellwinchesterwalker , making me reveal how old I really am!! 😂😂

Thanks again for asking!

[velvetafterdark]

Favorite non-Star/scream character to write WG for?

Hmm, tough to say; combining the extras from Cargo Plane who are pudgy cuties (w*ndblade and br*akdown) plus the characters in the 3 fics I have in backlog, I think the two most fun are bd and s*undwave(g/1).

I do wanna clarify that the way I write bd is more akin to his characterization in g/1 than t/fp. DC's bd --who is a bigger, meaner, tougher, generally less...anxiety-ridden being-- is a magnificent piece of work that I love to see in action, but they and I have very different writing capacities, so obviously our characterizations differ. I do suspect that most of that kind of jittery characterization was removed from t/fp!bd and given to w/ildbreak instead in r/id15. I do try to write bd as boisterous and even a little bawdy, but my bd has his g1 outlier, so he's very reliant on his accommodations and support system to prevent him from becoming a living emp grenade.

Characters with outliers that are affected by their mood are the absolute coolest to me (I know d/irge is like the lamest se/eker but I love him ;m;), and when you throw in weight gain, which people tend to have very strong feelings about (positive and negative), it makes for a really interesting dynamic. I really want to address the fact that bd has his outlier in a later chapter, and what that means when interacting with a world that is kinda f*tphobic.

S*undwave, meanwhile, is just a very hapless case. I think characters who are self-conscious are really cute (not necessarily hateful of their tummies; just startled and perhaps unprepared for the sudden change in weight), so Sounders, who has a plethora of wiggly cassettes who squirm in his chest while his big belly is digesting, is a fun one to write. I'm very clearly a thigh-lover, and as you may know, I imagine s*undwave to have a huge case of office butt, so he's especially self indulgent.

[greenbagjosh]

19 April 2001 - flight to IAD and film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Sleepy Hooman”

Grüezi Mitenand!  Bonjour!  Buongiorno!  Hi everyone!

Twenty years ago today, I began my Sechseläuten vacation to Switzerland through Italy.  This was the "encore" vacation as a continuation of the one I had in September 2000, following along maybe half of the route from then.  The one unusual change was the very early flight from San Francisco International by United, to Washington Dulles, with a connection there to Milano Malpensa MXP Terminal 1.  

I woke up about 4 AM, bags all packed, and a work colleague had volunteered (actually agreed for Swiss chocolate as a barter) to drive me to the airport.  Before that, I had to call the hotel to let them know I was coming, so they would not be overbooked.  

I made it to the former Terminal 3 Concourse F about 4:25 AM to check in.  The plane was scheduled to take off about 6:30 AM, and board about 6 AM.  I was listening to my radio, an Aiwa HS-JS 479 AM/FM Stereo cassette recorder, and had tuned into my usual morning radio station to hear "One More Time" by Daft Punk.  Only in a matter of minutes, the plane started boarding.  The last time I flew from SFO to Washington Dulles it was on a Boeing 767, but this time I was on an Airbus A320 and I was in a window seat.  The plane took off about 6:40 AM.  I think at 7:30 AM breakfast was served, it was, for those who did not otherwise order a "special meal", eggs, sausage and orange juice, coffee or tea optional.  At 8:15 AM the inflight movie started, and it was the English-dubbed "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" film, as the only choice.  I watched half an hour of it before uncontrollably falling asleep.  I woke up the last ten minutes before it ended.  The plane landed about 11 AM Eastern (in 2001 I was living in California, so the original time was Pacific).

Usually flights from San Francisco to Washington Dulles by United Airlines fly into Concourses C or D.  I had a look at the departures display and there was already a delay for the UA 0970 flight to Milano Malpensa by at least an hour.  I had to be back at Dulles by 3:45 PM in time to board the flight, though somehow it was pushed back a bit more by United Airlines.  That gave me the idea to see if I could make it as far as Capitol Hill in DC - well, did I succeed without the plane to Italy taking off that day without me?  We will find out...

In April 2001, there were no direct Metrorail trains to Washington Dulles, but there is an extension project underway to have the Airport rail station with the Silver line to Reston and Wiehle opened by 2022.  Instead, I had to take a Washington Flyer bus to the West Falls Church Metrorail station, buy a ticket for the Metrorail and take the Orange Line to L'Enfant Plaza.  That would take maybe 45 to 50 minutes.  I listened to the radio on my way from the airport to West Falls Church, and I distinctly remember hearing "I'm like a bird" by Nelly Furtado.  Once I arrived at L'Enfant Plaza, about 1:07 PM according to the timestamps on a video screenshot, I was about halfway between the Washington Monument and Capitol Hill.  I spent about five minutes in the Capitol Mall before going back to L'Enfant Plaza, taking the yellow line to the Pentagon station.  I did not go inside the Pentagon, but went there because I had enough time to do so.  I only went as far as the visitor entrance, but about 1:50 PM I decided to stop the DC tour and head back to the airport.  I took the blue line to Rosslyn to change to the orange line.  About 2:30 I caught the bus back to the airport and was there around 3:15 PM.  More than enough time to still catch the UA 0970 flight.  It was delayed 90 minutes from its expected departure time, owing to a mechanical concern of the Boeing 767.  

About 6:30 PM the flight boarded and took off about 7:15 PM, when there was still sunlight out.  As for the inflight meal, I cannot remember exactly, other than, it was good enough to order a Heineken and subsequently the "house red".  The entertainment was okay, at least I could choose which channel I wanted to watch.  There was "Where the heart is", dubbed in Italian and called "Qui, dove bate il cuore" (here, where the heart beats).  

On Friday the 20th April 2001, I would arrive at Milano Malpensa a bit after 9 AM but I would make it to Lugano in good time.  Please join me when I take a historic bus route (has since changed to a rail line) to Lugano, sleep off the jetlag, almost missing dinnertime and have a night walk through central Lugano.

Auf wiederluege!  Au revoir!  Arrivederci!  Goodbye!

[ellies-cycling-notes]

Day 7: Pequea Creek to Baltimore

Distance Covered: 62.47 miles

Total Time (including rests): 9:04 (8:04am-5:08pm)

Time spent riding: 6:08

Average Speed: 10.2 mph

Apples Eaten: 3 (gala - 6.5/10, gala - 7/10, gala - 6.5/10)

Despite being the shortest, today was probably the worst ride yet. It was hot and sunny (to be expected), but that isn't what made the ride terrible. No, the ride was bad for a few other reasons.

First, the hills: the first 2/3 of the ride was extremely hilly, often with very steep inclines. I had to get off my bike to walk several times on the hills, meaning I tired out much more quickly than usual. I couldn't even talk full advantage of the declines, as I had to make sure I wasn't going to fast because my luggage would go wild if I was too fast on a steep decline.

Second, and most more importantly, my tire tubes: when I woke up this morning, my bike had a partial flat. I pumped it up, then walked/rode 1 mile to the nearest bike station with a floor pump to fix my bike. I was able to fix it, and then I took off. Later, I felt that my back tire had lost a lot of air (but not yet gone flat), so I stopped for a moment. While I was stopped, I did have the pleasure of meeting a nice man who grabbed his bike pump so I could use it. I continued on my ride, but my bike was quickly going flat again. At this point, I had no spare tubes, so I had to book it to the nearest bike shop. I ended up biking a good 2-3 miles on a flat tire in a hilly area. It especially sucked because I was supposed to be enjoying those miles as it was part of a rail bike trail, but I couldn't, due to my tires.

The rest of the ride after that was rather uneventful, except for a second stop at another bike shop to get more equipment (the first one didn't have enough of what I wanted/needed).

Small Things on the Ride

Small gear - the front cassette (the part with the gears) of my bike has 2 gears, but it does not have the shifter needed to change between them. Due to this, I almost always stay only on the larger gear, as it usually gives me a better range. However, today, due to the hilly nature of the first 40 miles or so, I switched to the smaller gear in front (I had to do it manually because of the lack of shifter), and it made the ride slightly more pleasant. It did mean that I wasn't really able to take advantage of the momentum from going downhill that much, because when on the smaller gear, pedaling while going downhill doesn't really do anything.

State Trooper - one of the times I was stopped for a flat repair, a state trooper who was driving by stopped to ask if I needed any help. I didn't, but he did suggest a place I could go to get my bike pumped up if I needed more air in my tires.

White bicycles - I saw 2 white bicycles today while I was riding in Baltimore. If you don't know, a white bicycle is usually placed where a bicyclist is killed in a car accident. I've seen quite a few of them in NYC and Chicago before, but these were the first ones I saw on this trip. I suppose they probably are only really in urban areas.

Giving Up?

Here's the big topic for today: should I just give up on this trip? I came into it excited, but a good 70% of the ride has been rather unpleasant, especially today, where the only fun parts were the 10 miles or so, and even that wasn't the best (okay, that's not really true, I also really enjoyed several of the hills I went down, but those are counteracted by the pain of going uphill). While I was riding with my back tire mostly flat, I kept just thinking how horrible the ride was at the moment. I really don't want to have to be stopping my bike to do a quick fix 2+ times every day. My hope is that tomorrow's ride + the GAP trail from DC to Pittsburgh change my mind on this, but at the moment the ride constantly feels way too tiring. You might notice I don't have much to say in today's post (apart from this part), and that's because I spent so much of this ride just focusing on trying to get to the next "checkpoint", or thinking about how much I wanted the ride to end. I started this blog as a way to record the various thoughts I usually have during a ride but forget about, but it's kinda becoming a chore. For example, today's Design Notes about my Cardcasting system. While I did enjoy thinking about it, I started my train of thought about it on the ride because I was thinking to myself "I should find something game-design related to write about today" - that's also why it may seem a little disjointed, because it's a distillation of a much larger idea that I can't really be bothered to write about at the moment. You'll also notice a lack of many pictures - that's because when I get into this sort of depressed zone, I don't even want to have to think about taking pictures, so I just block it out. My front bag is also falling apart a bit, and it's tearing at my handlebar tape. I also keep having to true my back bike wheel (not that I mind it too much, it's rather relaxing compared to fixing a tire). I even forgot to mention that last night I actually got a cut on my thumb while doing some bike fixing work. I'm worried for the rest of the ride. So far, what I've been doing is the easy part, camping only 1 night at a time and then staying at a friend's place. But starting Sunday, I'm going to be biking/camping 4 days back-to-back, and then after Pittsburgh, I'm going to be doing the same, but it won't even be on bike trails. The only good thing I can say about the Ohio portion of the ride is that it will probably be flatter than these last couple of days. Today's ride was supposed to be the shortest day of the trip, but it still ended up taking 9 hours. I don't even think I'm going to really be able to do yoga today, because I got here late. That's not to mention the fact that PB&Js are getting less enjoyable by the day. I meant to make myself a cream-cheese bagel yesterday in Philadelphia before starting my ride, but I forgot. Honestly, at the moment, what's keeping me going is not the ride itself, but rather the people I plan on seeing along the trip, as well as not wanting to waste the camping reservations I've made. I'm already starting to hate the idea of bicycling.

So, in all, No, I will not be giving up on this ride yet, but it is a definite possibility, especially if things don't get better from here on out.

Design Notes

I don't have much today in this area (see above, in Giving Up?), just want to touch on a magic system I've been working on.

Cardcasting

Cardcasting is a magic system I first created about a year ago when I was thinking about world-building, RPGs, and magic systems, and was disappointed by the fact that I couldn't find a style of magic system where the process by which one casts a spell can be represented in a tabletop game. For example, when RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons have magic, they typically forgo the players needing to perform some actions in order to cast the spell, and rather just focus on how many spells a player can cast, and of what level.

In Cardcasting, anyone who cast spells has an "Element" or "Mana" Deck, which consists of various cards of different elements (think a deck full only of Energy cards in the Pokemon TCG or only Land cards in Magic: the Gathering). In order to cast a spell, a player draws a certain number of cards from their deck, and must be able to assemble the spell from the cards they drew. I've written a rather long design document about this that I might share at another time, but that's all that you need to know regarding Cardcasting for what I was thinking about today.

While I have a core system developed, I've never really thought much about the larger game this would be a part of. For example, until recently, I hadn't really thought about how players would learn to cast spells, and what types of spells they could learn. Obviously, a player can only learn spells that their Element deck has the capacity to create (for example, if a player's deck only has 2 Dimensional Mana cards, they wouldn't be able to learn spells that require 3 Dimensional Mana). However, should there be further limitations on that? What about ways of amplifying or changing spells? What are the limitations on that? These are some big questions, and I've only just started thinking about them.

Cardcasting is also a good example of how I do worldbuilding as I mentioned on Day 1. I started by creating this system, and now the world that I'm building for it is largely structured around making sure that that system works and makes sense for the world. In fact, when I've been describing to myself the way in which magic "actually" works in this world, I can't quite put it into words. Thus, it makes sense that there could be a card-based system for magic, as that's the closest as the people of the world can get to truly understanding how the system works. I know I'm just rambling at this point, I lost my original train of thought.

I'm currently in Baltimore, and will be heading towards DC tomorrow. Tomorrow's ride is likely gonna be the deal-breaker regarding what was mentioned above.

Previous -- Today's Pics -- Next

[cammi-writes]

Title: Chuck’s Wrath

Part: part 1 | part 2

a/n | warnings: | First tell me why I was halfway through writing this when my internet gave out and erased it. Guess that’s what I get for writing it on the actual website and now Microsoft. Anyway guyssss this was originally Sam-centric but now I’m in love with the idea of it being focused on Dean!!! It’s just a short part because the next one will be fillllllled with Dean Fluff

Fandom: Supernatural

Pairings: Sam Winchester x Reader, Dean Winchester x Reader

Tags: message me if you want to be tagged

You watched as Sam left the Impala and walked towards the bar alone. You felt bad leaving Sam to investigate patrons alone but you needed to talk to Dean. 

“What?” Dean grunted out when he noticed you starting at him. 

“I’m just taking in everything. I really want to have good memories of you after you’re dragged to hell.” You crossed your arms and glared at your best friend. 

“Not you too.” Dean groaned. “I already got the speech from Bobby and Sam.”

“What did you expect? Did you really think I would be okay with you selling your soul?” You cried out. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Sammy died, Y/n.” Dean yelled with the same frustration. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Move on!” You yelled back. “We’re hunters. When someone dies, you move on. You don’t sell your god damn soul!” 

“Like you were moving on? You were a mess! You sat with his corpse just as much as I did!” Dean faced you. “You have to admit that you considered it.”

You pursed your lips, not wanting to lie to him. You had considered making a deal... 

“Exactly. I don’t get why you’re so upset? Sam’s alive. You two are together. And I get one last year to live it up.” Dean sighed. 

“What happens next year, Dean?” You whispered. “What happens when the hell hounds come and I- we have to watch them tear you apart? What happens when we have to live everyday knowing that you’re in the pit?”

“Y/n-” Dean tried to console you as your tears spilled over. 

“I don’t want to know that. I don’t want you to be down there. I’m going to miss you, Dean.”

“Don’t cry, Cherry Pie.” Dean placed a hesitant hand on the nape of your neck. You snorted at the use of his childhood nickname for you. “I’m gonna miss you too.”

“I just wish we could go back to being kids again.” You sniffled. “ The times when we would rock out to your Dad’s old cassette tapes and Sam would judge us.”

“Who says we can’t?” Dean grinned before popping a tape into the Impala. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Dean grunted as the beginning melody of Highway to Hell by AC/DC started up.

Soon the Impala was enveloped in laughter, terrible singing from both parts and a lot of seat dancing. 

As the song closed out, Dean dropped a hand into yours. 

“Memories like there...” He smiled at you. “It’ll be what keeps me sane down there.”

Before you could reply, another voice cut you off. 

“So get this- what happened?” Sam stared at you with concern as he took in your tear stained face. 

“Nothing- Nothing.” You pulled your hand away from Dean’s. 

“You left your own daughter’s recital to go on a hunt. With your soulless brother nevertheless. Dean, what the hell? I thought we were past this. The whole ‘Sam comes first’ thing.” You sighed. “We have a family. Your children should come first. Especially after what he did to me.”

Dean was stunned by everything you had just said. You thought Sam was still soulless? Dean had children? As in plural? With you?

“I know- I know he cheated on you-”

“Cheated on me?” You sputtered. “You think that’s the worst thing he did to me?What about the time he shot me and we almost lost Ellen?”

“What?” Dean was even more shocked. “He shot you and Ellen?”

Sam stared at Dean with his eyes wide open. 

“Dean... I’m going to ask you again... Are you alright?” You spoke slowly. 

“I promise I’m fine.” Dean whispered. 

“I was 8 months pregnant with Ellen. It was Mary’s 4th birthday. A demon broke into the house, you were still hunting back then so you weren’t there. I got him away from Mary but he had a knife to my neck when Sam showed up. Sam shot me in the chest to kill the demon.” You explained. “I know he didn’t have his soul but don’t you remember how scary it was? It’s why you stopped speaking to him... because he was dangerous. What if it had been Mary?”

“We got his soul back, Y/n...” Dean whispered. “He’s okay, now.”

You sat there shocked. He hasn’t had his soul in 9 years... You guys tried to find a way to save it but you couldn’t...

“How?” 

“Death... He had some sort of way to bring it back. He’s actually a cool dude.” Dean laughed, still processing all of the information he had just found out. 

“Oh... Well hurry home.” You frowned still unsure. “But don’t bring Sam. We don’t know if she remembers...”

“Of course... I’ll see you at home. Where is home exactly?” 

“Dean-”

“I know, I know. We’ll do the whole silver, holy water test when I get back...” Dean grinned a little. You were still as sharp as ever. 

“Home is my Dad’s house. He left it to us after he died of the stroke.” You laughed a little. “Still can’t believe he didn’t die hunting.”

“Yeah, that’s-that’s something.” Dean breathed a laugh with you. 

“I’ll see you in about 8 hours. Okay?” You smiled. “I love you.”

“I-I love you too.” Dean stuttered as you hung up. 

“What happened?” Sam tried to hide the annoyance in his tone at the fact that his old girlfriend just told his brother that she loved him. 

“I’m guessing a lot of stuff changes if Ruby never killed her.” Dean ran a hand over his face. 

“Like what?” Sam pursed his lips. 

“For one, Y/n and I are married and have kids. Two, I know of so far.” Dean smiled a bit before frowning at the look Sam gave him. “Bobby died of a stroke and you never got your soul back.”

“What?” Sam scrunched his face up. “Why?” 

“Maybe that’s where things strayed from our timeline or whatever. Maybe when you and Lucifer swan dived into the cage, I went and started a life with Y/n. We got married and had kids and I didn’t find a way to get your soul back.” Dean explained his theory. “So you stayed soulless and shot my pregnant wife.”

“Wait what?” Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

“Y/n said that you shot her when she was pregnant with our daughter.” Dean frowned. 

“I would never shoot Y/n.” Sam protested. 

“But you without a soul? That guy was dangerous.” Dean grimaced at the memories of that year. “If she remembers that guy then..”

“Then she hates me.” Sam sighed. “So what do we do?”

“I say we head to Sioux Falls. You can stay with Jody while I go down to Bobby’s and figure out what Chuck’s playing at.” Dean frowned once he remembered that this was all part of Chuck’s doomsday plan. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Dean?” Sam asked unsure. 

“No but Y/n doesn’t want you near the kids.” Dean didn’t lie but he wasn’t completely honest. He really just wanted to see what his life would have been like without worrying about Sam... 

“Okay, Dean.” Sam sighed. “Let’s go.”

[daggerzine]

Sohrab Habibion from SAVAK (and Obits, Edsel, etc.) fills in the gaps.

I first noticed the name Sohrab Habibion in the Sub Pop band Obits nearly a decade ago. He’d then gotten in touch with me a few years back when he sent me the last Savak record, Beg Your Pardon (the band’s 3rd). I did some backtracking and realized he was in the old DC post hardcore band Edsel, whose music I enjoyed. We got to talking and I realized this guy’s had a pretty interesting career and I needed to find out more. He was more than agreeable to an interview on the DAGGER site. Oh and dig this....he recently he began posting some videos that he took of shows in the DC area in the mid-80’s, which is discussed below. Let’s all thank our lucky stars that someone was there with a video camera at shows back then.

Back to SAVAK, they have recently released their fourth full-length, Rotting Teeth in the Horses Mouth (on the Ernest Jenning Record Co label, like the last few) and it’s a terrific record. The kind of post-punk that’s not afraid to pOp! and vice versa. So needless to say Sohrab had plenty to talk about. Let’s take a trip both down memory lane and back to the future as well.

Sohrab.... always pushin’ the hair products.

 Did you grow up in the DC area? If not how did you end up there?

I moved to the suburbs of DC in 1979. My mom and I drove through Hurricane David from my grandfather’s house in Leonia, New Jersey to Annandale, Virginia with all of our possessions in the back of a Chevy Chevette. We had just left Iran because of the Revolution and, after a short stay in Bergen County to gather ourselves and do some research, my parents decided that we would resettle in the DC area.

Do you remember what the first record you ever bought was? First concert?

First record: It was a cassette of Love for Sale by Boney M. Actually maybe that was a gift from a friend. Either way I think of it as my first-owned album. I quickly had the lyrics to “Ma Baker” memorized and never gave a second thought to just how weird the cassette cover art was. If you’re not familiar, perhaps imagine an S&M dungeon version of Ohio Players? As a 7-year-old I think it just didn’t register. More interesting is that the producer, Frank Farian, was also the guy behind Milli Vanilli. If you’re up for it, I recommend doing some Googling about Mr. Farian, who was born Franz Reuther just after the start of World War II in a German valley settlement once known as the “Town of Leather.” It’s good stuff, I promise.

First concert: A friend’s older sister drove us to the old 9:30 Club to see one of the club’s 3 Bands for 3 Bucks nights. I remember feeling pretty excited about being in a part of town I didn’t know and seeing all kinds of people I didn’t ordinarily see. This was probably 1983 or 1984 so it was heavy on the New Wave look. In the basement of 9:30, once you’d squeezed down the narrow flight of stairs, there were bathrooms as well as a small counter that sold records and tapes. I bought The Halloween Cassette—a WGNS comp with Gray Matter, United Mutation, Velvet Monkeys, Malefice, Bloody Mannequin Orchestra and others—and the Minor Threat record that compiles the first two 7”s. On our drive home the DJ on WHFS played the song “Minor Threat,” which we literally had in our hands, and the whole thing felt tremendously serendipitous.

During his tryout with the Washington Bullets (Elvin Hayes beat him out). 

At what age did you pick up the guitar?

One night my mom came home from a school fundraising auction with an acoustic guitar that she’d won in the raffle. I actually think it might be the only time anyone in my family has ever won a raffle. I was 13 or 14 and discovering that I was not as good of a baseball player as I’d hoped or wanted to be and the guitar felt more connected to my interests, so I started to teach myself chords and rudimentary scales. It wasn’t long before I was able to get an electric guitar and make a complete mess of sound in neighborhood basements with friends.

How old were you when the punk rock bug bit you?

Thirteen, I think. I’m pretty sure it was 7th grade. I didn’t know a lot about rock music. Having spent a chunk of my early life in Iran, I missed the boat on a lot of big, American rock’n’roll moments. I was 9 when I was first exposed to KISS by neighbors who were also in the Boy Scouts and so I kind of lumped all that costuming together and the whole thing seemed silly. Special badges and membership cards and various allegiances you were supposed to declare. I felt disengaged from a lot of things in the suburban culture around me, so punk made sense upon its arrival. It took some time to sort things out, like what made the Dead Kennedys good and The Exploited bad, but once that initial door opened, I never turned back. If anything it just opened additional doors to other subcultures and underground movements and marginalized artists and thinkers. Punk helped me recognize that my sympathies will always be with the disenfranchised, the unheralded, the amateur, the wandering tinkerer.

How and when did Edsel get together?

I met Nick Pelliocciotto and Geoff Sanoff (who wouldn’t be in Edsel for a few years) at a Government Issue show at the Hung Jury Pub. Nick and I briefly played in a band with Jim Spellman (Velocity Girl, High Back Chairs, Foxhall Stacks), but that fizzled out. So Nick and I were looking for a bass player when we saw Steve Ward play a cover of “White Rabbit” at a high school talent show. Nick and I agreed that Steve looked cool (he really did) and, when we ran into him in the parking lot, he passed our test by answering that his favorite DC band was Happy Go Licky. We started practicing in the basement of the house Nick, Jim Spellman and I lived in off Reno Road in the Cleveland Park neighborhood of DC. We didn’t know what we were doing. Nick played me a bunch of records I had never heard before and we would talk about various details in the music. He made me aware of the way certain things interacted, like the bass guitar and the kick drum. I’d never considered that. I was also unfamiliar with singing in a band, so was starting from scratch. A lot of it began as rhythmic sing-song-speak-howling that could be heard somewhat above the volume of the band. I’ll never forget recording our first demo at Inner Ear with Michael Hampton. When it came time for me to do the vocals we were all surprised by what they sounded like and Michael nicely said, “Why don’t we call it a day and you go home and work on some melodies that we can record tomorrow.” Ha! When Nick and I got back to the house we listened to a bunch of albums to get ideas for vocal melodies. The one that resonated with me was Midnight Oil’s 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and it helped me understand how you could take a simple line and move it around with chord changes. I didn’t figure out what phrasing was for some time to come, but that was the start. Thank you Michael, Nick and Peter Garrett.

How/when did you end up in NYC?

Well, it’s a circuitous story, but . . . Edsel toured a lot between 1993 and 1995. So much so that I moved back into my parents’ basement to avoid paying rent for a place I wasn’t going to be spending any time in. My folks are lovely and it was a fine arrangement, but I missed having an apartment of my own. On tour in Chicago I was presented with the opportunity of a cheap living situation in a city that I liked, so I moved there. I had this fantasy that the band could keep it together while being in 3 different cities—Geoff had moved to NYC and the two Steve’s were in DC. Not a chance. I had a good year in Chicago, working at the Empty Bottle and playing with different local musicians, but Edsel basically succumbed to inertia and I decided to move back to DC to make a solo record. My parents had a cabin in the Shenandoah Valley and I went there for a period of time with my 4-track and the hopes of discovering whatever my version of Leonard Cohen and Brian Eno might be. That didn’t happen, but I learned a lot about recording myself and making mistakes and stumbling on things I liked that I hadn’t intended. Around this point I got a call from Michael Hampton, who’d moved to New York City a few years earlier. He said his neighbor in the West Village had moved out and he wondered if I might want to take the apartment. I was feeling pretty untethered and the idea of giving Manhattan a shot was exciting, so in November 1997 I packed up my books and CDs and headed up here. I’ve since crossed the bridge over to Brooklyn, but have no plans of leaving. I love this city and all of its flaws.

How about Obits? I know Alexis was in Edsel….had you known Rick already?

Alexis played in Edsel for a few reunion shows we did in 2013, but he wasn’t in the original lineup of the group. I first met Alexis in 1985 when Lünch Meat, his band, played with Kids For Cash, my band, at my local community center. He and I also share a birthday and a similar sense of humor, so when he joined Obits after the departure of Scott Gursky, our original drummer, it was an effortless transition. I’d also played with Alexis in Girls Against Boys on a 2002 European tour that Eli couldn’t do. I was Fake Eli and got to play bass on some of my favorite GvsB tunes, which was a blast. Alexis has a humorous diary from that tour: http://www.gvsb.com/euro_diary/index.html

Here’s an excerpt just so you know it’s worth the clicks:

“scott has determined that we should get rid of all the equipment and excess drummers and bass players and just travel with a painted sheet (we in the biz call this a scrim). that way he could have a band painted on it and just cut out the head of the singer and stick his own head through. this would reduce overhead and be a whole lot less of a hassle than having squabbling bass players and drummers with no IQ whatsoever.”

Rick and I met at an art show of his in the summer of ‘99. In fact, in looking to clarify the year I came across this email I sent to a friend:

“Last night my friend Hiroshi took me to an opening of his friend Rick Froberg’s work in some unknown Lower East Side apartment/gallery. I was shocked at how incredible his stuff was. His etchings like Goya’s, his prints like a German expressionist and his paintings like a weird amalgam of Raymond Pettibon and Norman Rockwell. But everything was very original despite its familiarity. He gave me one of his prints and I actually ended up buying one of his paintings. I’m really excited about it.”

Funny thing is that on that European GvsB tour I was wearing a Hot Snakes shirt. Little could I have guessed that I’d be in a band with Alexis and Rick 10 years later. Or maybe I could’ve? Our behavior and patterns are probably more predictable than I’d like to admit.

Anyway, long and short of it is after meeting Rick we started hanging out and as Hot Snakes was winding down in the early aughts he proposed we get together and strum our guitars. We had a good time and kept at it until things started to take shape. Fast forward a bit and our friend Speck browbeat Rick into playing with her band, Orphan, at Cake Shop. That was early 2008 and the internet did us a favor by sharing a bootleg recording of our gig, which led us to signing with Sub Pop. Seems just as weird now as it did then, but so it goes! The band was a hoot to be in and we had a grand time, particularly touring. The trips we made to Europe, Australia, Japan and Brazil were fantastic. I never thought I’d be able to do that playing scrappy rock’n’roll music. All the people that we met, the local specialties that we ate and drank . . . and drank . . . and then ate some more. Unforgettable. Until I forget them. Then I’ll refer to the documentation.

Obits.....always ready to rumble (notice the switchblade comb in Froberg’s pocket). 

Tell me about the end of Obits and the beginning of Savak? Who came up with the name?

The end of Obits was a little unexpected. At least the timing of it. All bands end, so it wasn’t surprising in that regard, but we had a French tour planned and had been offered some East Coast dates with Mudhoney, so it was a bummer not to be able to do those. But it had been a cold and miserable winter and Rick had some family stuff to marshal, so it felt best to call it, which is what we did on April 1st, 2015. The April Fool’s part wasn’t intentional, but I liked that it happened that way, what with being in a band often feeling like a cosmic joke anyway. But we’re all still good friends and very much in touch with each other. Funny thing is we’d actually written a fourth record with two drummers, as Matt Schulz had started playing with us as well (we did one show with both Alexis and Matt, which was fun), so on my hard drive somewhere are the demos and jams for that, including covers of “The In-Crowd” (https://youtu.be/KYbwk26mYJA) and Beasts of Bourbon’s “I Don't Care About Nothing Anymore.” (https://youtu.be/IpWi4OxhJXY)

Towards the end of Obits I’d started getting together with other friends to make noise. I was playing with Greg Simpson and Matt Schulz, doing instrumental versions of Hooterville Trolley and Shadows tunes, and separately with Michael Jaworski and Benjamin Van Dyke, just bashing out riffs. I asked all involved if they would want to combine the two and everyone was into it. The nice thing was Michael and I got to write with two different drummers, which opened up new ideas, and for a band that was just getting the swing of our internal vocabulary, it helped jumpstart the mojo.

I can’t remember at what point we were talking about band names, but when Viet Cong couldn’t take the heat for their name and decided to change it I made a joke about calling our group SAVAK. Then the more I thought about it the more I liked it and the group was on board, so we ran with it. The Iranian side of my family was a bit perplexed and bemused, but they all understood that this was a rock’n’roll outfit and not some creepy tribute to the former secret police in Iran. I’ve come to appreciate how that type of band name is a good litmus test. With a moniker like SAVAK you can see who actually knows anything about global political history, but more importantly you immediately know that anyone who takes issue with it isn’t likely to be interested in or even be familiar with punk rock or underground culture. So that person’s opinion on the subject doesn’t hold weight for me and I’ll attempt to redirect to a different subject that could be entertaining to chat about, like food or wine or bicycle maintenance or John le Carré books or, I dunno, HTML/CSS?

Savak has been recording pretty consistently…how did the new record come together so quickly? Who came up with the title?

Michael Jaworski, the other guitarist, singer and co-songwriter, came up with the title of Rotting Teeth in the Horse’s Mouth. Apparently it appeared to him in a dream and, well, I just liked the way it sounded. Both in that it reminded me of the DK’s classic Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables and as a play on the idiom “hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth,” since the current mouth we hear more often than is good for anyone’s mental health has enough proverbial rotting teeth to fill the mouth of a giant armadillo.

We worked on the album over a period of months. Sometimes we would get together with Matt Schulz, our drummer, and hammer stuff out. Other times either Michael or I would start something at home and build it from there. The main thing was to keep it feeling like a band had cut it together live, regardless of how accurate that may be on any given song. We started with 16 tunes, ditched 2 of them that weren’t as developed, and recorded the remaining 14. Then we picked the 10 that sounded the most cohesive for the album and the others will come out as singles later in the year. We spent many intensely focused hours editing, overdubbing and trying to really hone in on what each tune needed. I like discreet events in music and subtle details that may not make themselves evident for a few listens. A keyboard that only appears in the second verse or a backing vocal that’s buried deep in the right channel of the outro or a flanged cymbal crash at the top of the chorus. Stuff that doesn’t have to happen in the live version but makes the recording a little richer without being overbearing.

SAVAK, just before diving in. 

In Savak, re; the songwriting process, is it both you and Michael together or do you write independently?

There’s always a collaborative element. We each add or edit the other’s songs to some degree. That’s one of the things I really like about our partnership. We actively try to keep our egos out of the way. And while we may not share the exact same taste about every little thing, we trust each other’s sensibility. I think that willingness to let go of our own ideas makes them more interesting and strengthens the working relationship.

Tell us about working with Arto Lindsay?

Rick Froberg was employed as an illustrator at a web-based, digital media shop in SoHo called Funny Garbage and he helped get me a gig making music for cartoons and video games they were producing for companies like Cartoon Network. I had access to a recording studio on a floor above our office which was run by an incredibly talented musician/producer named Andres Levin. One day ‘Dre asked if I could work on a session with a friend of his for a gallery installation. It seemed interesting, so I agreed. The guy showed up with two pillow cases that he wanted to put on his arms and flap wildly in front of a mic. His idea was to pitch the pillow case recording down a few octaves and add a lot of reverb so it would sound like a giant bird was flying. I don’t remember if he was pleased with the results, but we had a blast trying, and it turned out that fella was Arto Lindsay. He got in touch with me soon after about recording his next album. I was direct about the fact that while I was brisk with the ProTools and could run sessions efficiently, I was not a real engineer who knew about microphone placement and how to apply compression, etc. He said that was fine and arranged to rent a recording rig for his apartment and we got straight to work with Melvin Gibbs, who is Arto’s writing partner, co-producer, and bass player. We made Invoke in 2002 and two years later we made Salt, once again doing the whole thing in his Chelsea living room. Arto’s a wonderful guy, as is Melvin, and we had a terrific time together. I also learned a lot. He has such a deep knowledge of avante garde music and art and a whole world of Brazilian culture that he can tap into. And Melvin is an incredible musician, so getting to see how he approached assembling Arto’s ideas was fascinating. He was also forgiving with the fact that a punker like me was trying to edit Brazilian rhythms when I was having an impossible time even identifying the first beat of the groove. There was a lot of, “Please just tell me where the ONE is.” Arto knows a wide array of people and the process of making a record with him was very much about getting it done, but not at the expense of the vibe, so if someone dropped by you’d just have to roll with it. Sometimes that person would bring their instrument and overdub on a song or two, so I had to figure out how to be flexible about the recording process to make sure it was gonna be smooth for all involved, regardless of if it was a violin player or a guy doing a percussion track using a cardboard box. I ended up calling Geoff Sanoff for advice quite a bit—to the point where Arto would joke, “Is it time to call Geoff?” Ha! But he knew the deal going in, so all was fine. The experience of making those records was great and I got to meet some interesting folks. Also my appreciation of Brazilian music completely exploded. An unexpected and super cool project with Arto, Debbie Harry and Mikhail Baryshnikov also came from that. Another side note: when we were recording Invoke there was a song which Arto wanted to get Animal Collective involved in. This was 2001 and they were still more of a record store employee kind of band, but Arto had a couple of their CDs (Spirit They’re Gone Spirit They’ve Vanished and Danse Manatee, I think) and was really into them. We arranged to go into Stratosphere Sound, the studio that was owned by Adam Schlesinger, Andy Chase, and James Iha, where Geoff Sanoff worked, and do the session there. They had an interesting way of working—they would manipulate all of the instruments, including live drums, and have everything run through their PA and then have Geoff mic the PA speakers. So the final thing was this gauzy, mushy, blur that was like a sonic paste. They totally knew what they were doing and I was particularly impressed with Noah/Panda Bear as a musician.

Speaking of legends, how did you begin collaborating with Michael Hampton?

First we should be clear that we’re not discussing “Magic” Mike Hampton AKA Michael “Kidd Funkadelic” Hampton. According to Discogs, the Michael Hampton I know is “Michael Hampton (3)” of Brief Weeds fame. He’s a few years older than me so I missed his days in SOA and The Faith, but I was a fan and saw him in Embrace and One Last Wish. I attended American University in DC and ran into him on campus, told him I also played guitar and suggested that we “jam sometime.” Knowing him now this detail cracks me up because I’m positive I freaked him out and that he was horrified by the idea of “jamming” with an arbitrary, long-haired frosh. Some time after Edsel started we asked Michael to help produce our demo, as we were clueless about the studio. And when he was in Manifesto our bands played together and we got to be better friends. After he moved to New York, it was he and his wife, Monica, who encouraged me to move here. They also introduced me to my wife. And for the last 15 or so years we’ve worked together on soundtracks for indie films, documentaries and commercials. I can’t recall how that collaboration first started, but I love working with Michael. He’s got a quick wit, so there’s lots of yucks involved, but he also has a remarkable knack for music composition and knows how to layer ideas for perfect cinematic effect. As a guitar player he remains one of my favorites. Michael’s distilled Bob Andrews from Gen X and Captain Sensible and George Harrison and all these choice rock’n’roll and punk players into something distinctly his own.

Somewhere in Madrid, Spain (Spain Radio Nacional) 

Tell us your top 10 desert island discs?

That’s tough. I’d like to ensure a bunch of different moods are covered, so let’s see . . . how about:

Hamza El Din - Music Of Nubia

Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou - Éthiopiques 21: Piano Solo

Mark Hollis - s/t

Skip James - Today!

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady

Mission Of Burma - Vs.

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers

Television - Marquee Moon

The Velvet Underground - s/t

Wire - 154

Who are some of your favorite current bands?

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys, Cable Ties, Contractions, FACS, Gotobeds, Grey Hairs, Hammered Hulls, Hot Snakes, Light Beams, METZ, Mint Mile, Modern Nature, Patois Counselors, Pays P., Rattle, Skull Practitioners, Slum of Legs, Sunwatchers, Tanning Bats, TK Echo, The Unit Ama.

I know I’m forgetting stuff. There’s a ton of excellent music being made right now.

What’s next for Savak? Once the lockdown is over will you guys tour?

It’s hard to be certain about anything these days, but I do know we’re eager to play once the Javel water has cleared. My hope is that we reschedule our UK tour as well as the shows we had on deck with Archers of Loaf. We were also trying to coordinate a Japanese tour, which we’d love to do, so I’ll add that to the list.

In the meantime we have a couple of non-album singles coming out later in the year.

I love making music, so whatever form it needs to take to make it work given our circumstances I’m fine with. Wanna jam on our phones? Hit me up!

SAVAK’s new one- Rotting Teeth in The Horses Mouth

BONUS QUESTION:  Tell us about all of those shows you recorded in the 80’s and have been putting up on the Dischord page? Great stuff!

Thanks! My mom bought me a Sony Betacam in 1985. I honestly had no inclination towards videotaping anything prior to this, but I think she may have thought it was a positive thing for a teenager to get involved in instead of playing Atari or hanging out at the Orange Julius at the mall or whatever. So I had this camera and I started taping what I was doing, which was basically going to shows. I didn’t think much about it and I never watched the tapes afterwards, so just slowly built up a collection of recordings that sat in a box at my parents’ house for years. It wasn’t until James Schneider started working on what eventually became the Punk the Capital movie that the tapes were unearthed. Then Scott Crawford wanted to use them for Salad Days and had the genius idea of getting Dave Grohl’s production company to digitize them, as they wanted footage for that Sonic Highways show. So at Scott’s suggestion I sheepishly asked if it was something they could do and they immediately said yes. I was pretty stunned by their generosity. The tapes themselves are now part of the Punk Archive in the DC Public Library, which is both cool and hilarious. The idea of random stuff I videotaped when I was 15 being part of an institutional archive is pretty absurd. Now that I’ve got this extra pandemic time to spend in front of my computer, I’ve been editing down each set, adjusting the light balance so the footage is less murky and also remastering the audio so they sound better. The timing of the Dischord Records Fan Page on Facebook is fortuitous, as it provides a reasonably eager audience for what might have otherwise just been a few additional gigs of server space being cooled in a Google data center in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

“Who you callin’ a low life?” 

www.savakband.com

www.savak.bandcamp.com

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