Download the Score for Our Upcoming Short "The Mission"

"The Mission" is about a day in
the life of two Mormon brothers
experiencing the opposite
ends of their faith.

Apologies for my two month hiatus from the blog, it's been an insane time finishing post on our new short, dark-comedy, "The Mission". Wearing many hats in post-production doesn't exactly lend itself to an abundance of time to write. But to hell with all that, the flick is done and has already been submitted to the first of many film-festivals. As always, I'm unable to just sit idly by and watch the fruits of our labor, thus Liv and I are already prepping our next short "Dick Burrito" (co-written by Omid Ghaffarian and myself) for production. 

The only bummer of this ever-repeating cycle of making our short movies is that these flicks cannot even see the light of day until well after their film-festival run... so that got me thinking. Since I can't publicly share the movie for fear of ruining it's festival life (and the top-secret plan for afterwards), I began to think of things from the movie that I could share. Hence, the newest edition of the AntiCurrent.com Archives!

Cam and I at band practice

Though I haven't been an active participant in the Southern California Punk Rock Scene in a few years, for a good long while I was the bass player for the band Piss N' Blood. It was through that experience that I met some of the best friends I've had in my life. One of them being the guitar player for the band in question, a brilliant songwriter named Cameron Mosavian. During my time "in the trenches" with him both in the studio and in rehearsal, I noticed the dudes uncanny ability to perfectly capture the mood of any given moment and (often hilariously) put it to music. 

Front Cover

About halfway through editing I began to get concerned with music for the project. I had temp music put in to maintain momentum, but it wasn't a good fit. I experimented with using existing scores and even Creative Commons domain music off of Free Audio Archive like we did for Rodney Redbottom, but nothing was working so I turned to my good friend. He watched the flick and described right away the audio-fueled emotions I was struggling to convey and had great ideas about the genres to use when emphasizing each beat.

Cam immediately set my mind at ease and I was able to worry about the whole of the project knowing that the score was in good hands. The files he would send back to me as I was editing put emphasis on the perfect moments, punch-lined the jokes, and created the exact atmosphere I was looking for. The score he turned in is so damn good, he makes me look like a better editor due to the choices his music helped inspire. I'll never not use him again.

Back Cover

But enough about that asshole, let's get back to the point shall we? Since I can't show you a trailer, here is what I can do at the moment. I'm proud to introduce to you Cam's entire score for "The Mission". I've taken his original files, done some minor tweaking to make them flow better as an album and output them as both MP3's and FLAC's for free download via my website. 

I'm so proud of this little flick and I cannot wait to share it with you the second I can do so. Until then, here is the full, free download of the score to our new flick, "The Mission". 

Right click and choose "save link as".

FLAC Version: 

MP3 Version:  

Tracklist:

1: Theme to The Mission

2: Mormons on the Run

3: Clothes Make the Man

4: Proselytization

5: To Come of Age

6: Confectionery Canaan

Follow Cameron on Twitter here:

Remake or Reboot, Do Not Reset: Why Jurassic World is Dangerous

A Sequel to the Original

The film industry has been obsessed with producing remakes since it opened it's doors. In 1904 Siegmund Lubin remade the 1903 film The Great Train Robbery setting the precedent of rehashing old material for new movies*. A lot of people forget this fact and insist that Hollywood has no good ideas left when in reality, bad films always outnumber the good films on any given year. I personally embrace remakes and reboots, but what I'm not willing to accept is the notion of sequelizing an original, beloved film in a franchise while ignoring the missteps that came after, and that's exactly what Jurassic World does.

*In reality he was just cheap and didn't want to pay royalties, but the point still applies.

Before, if you were to make a new movie that drew on the love for a prior film, you were forced to make a sequel or start anew. Good or bad, at least it was a clear continuation or a fresh start. Now it seems we are allowing film studios to make bad sequels that they themselves are allowed to ignore. How did this change come about? We kinda have J.J. Abrams to thank for it.

A Case for Rebooting:

Well Executed Reboot

J.J. knew he was playing with fire by rebooting Star Trek as nerd's toes are delicate and easily stepped upon. However, he had no desire to work within the confines of it's previously established universe, thus, his team cracked the code. They cleverly inserted a time travel storyline from within the original universe and forged themselves an alternative timeline to play within.

This "soft-reboot" as it is known allowed the original property to exist without constraining the new one. You have to give it up, it's a pretty genius concept. However, its success appears to have given Hollywood the idea that they can just "reset" continuity anywhere without utilizing clever storytelling devices.



A Case for Remaking:

Well Executed Remake

Take Ocean's 11. Soderbergh took a film largely celebrated only out of nostalgia and forged it into a masterpiece of a modern heist movie starring the A-list talent of the day. As often happens, with it's success came Hollywood's other obsession, the sequel.

Despite showing moments of genius, Ocean's 12 was a flawed movie and gave birth the worst fucking plot device in the history of cinema (Julia Roberts playing Tess playing Julia Roberts? Barf). Thus, for 13 they reverted back to the original formula that worked so well. However, even though they retrograded to what made the original movie so special, they had enough respect to embrace the events of 12.



What is Resetting and Why is it Dangerous:
Resetting simply picks and chooses the events in a timeline that it wishes to use and throws out anything that doesn't suit it's best interest. It resurrects your positive memories while lying to your face by pretending that negatively-reviewed, past films in it's franchise don't exist. If we as an audience are willing to look the other way when a franchise puts out a bad product, then the studios lose all incentive to make a good product in the first place.

Jurassic World is guilty of this. Though no one has directly said that the events of the second two films aren't canon, you really would imagine they would have been referenced if they were. No matter how amazing the film may be and how many times it references the original movie, it purposefully avoids dealing with the fact that the second two unpopular films in the franchise were made. Are the fans of the "Jurassic Park Trilogy" supposed to forgive and forget that they were fed a series of godaweful films that did little more than cash in on the franchises name? Just remake the damn movie, it's way less insulting to the fans that have supported your product.

Down the Rabbit Hole We Go:

Alien 3-2? Alien 3B? Alien 3: What If?
Who knows.

Love Alien and Aliens but hate the other films in the franchise? Don't worry, Hollywood will have you covered with the new "Alien 3" by Neill Blomkamp. "Wait? Didn't Alien 3 come out and suck-ass?" you ask. Well the new one will reset the timeline and ignore the events of the other films entirely. That's right, he is pretending that Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection didn't happen. This is plain lazy ass storytelling. I'm truly sorry, as we all are, that Alien 3 turned out to be a horrible pile of shit, but that is the movie the studio chose to interfere with and distribute. They have made their bed and we as an audience should hold them accountable to lie in it and I think that David Fincher would agree with me.

In Conclusion:

"The Godfather 3B"
hitting theaters in 2017.

I'm not a person that believes that every franchise needs touched, but I understand that is the way the system is, forever cashing in on your fondest-memories. But at least, if you're going to fuck with the movies that we so love, give respect to the audience that came to the theater for the shitty follow ups by not attempting to "sweep them under the rug". Don't just ignore several films in a series because you don't like the events of them, it's lazy and disrespectful. Jurassic World may be a fine film that both stands on it's own and lovingly pays tribute to the original, but don't let the studios off the hook for producing bad movies just because they finally made a good one.

AntiCurrent Archives Vol 12- William Elliott Whitmore: Radium Live in Los Angeles

This is the twelfth edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Archives", a collection of rare bootleg-albums I'm releasing through this blog. Click here to view all past AntiCurrent.com Archive Albums.

William Elliott Whitmore at
The Mint

Not enough musicians in the world treat their fans as well as William Elliott Whitmore. There's something special to the rarity of a person willing to hang out with their fans before and after shows. Matter of fact, I've only witnessed with four performers... Jello Biafra, Penn & Teller, and Whitmore. Got a question for him? Want to purchase an album off him? Want to just shake his damn hand? Hang around a while and he'll pop up and be more than willing to spend some time with you. Pretty goddamn admirable I gotta say.

Thursday's show at The Mint was the same. I got in line as the doors opened and there he was, talking

to a fan and just hanging in line. I generally avoid talking to performers I admire, there's something frightening to me about demystifying a talent you truly dig. Plus there's something really weird about seeing how fans interact with someone they really, really look up to. People act differently, they stare at you through the corner of their eye and then approach you with overly-prepared words and most of the time it's a horribly awkward fuck of an experience.

Horribly framed
cell-phone pic

With all that said, I've had a few encounters with WEW just from the fact he's always around and so damn ingratiating. Mistakes, all of them. In Orange County I drunkenly told him I loved him, at the Knitting Factory in LA (RIP) the girl I was with almost puked on him (and did puke next to him), in Sydney the girl I went with cried through his entire set and I had to reassure him that she was OK, and at a bar my best friend in the world also balled his eyes out through the entire show (weirdly reoccurring theme huh?).

See? Take it from me people, don't meet your idols. More than often you do dumb shit.

To get back on track, The Mint is a great little bar with great sound and is incredibly intimate. Also they lack asshole security guards so I decided to bring a Zoom H6 recorder in and bootleg the performance. Recording performances you go to I feel is a lost art. In old bluegrass bands most people in the crowd did it. Bands like The Grateful Dead encouraged it and today Hank Williams III allows you to record any show you'd like and even has a "Respect to the bootleggers" speech. Is Whitmore cool with it? He seems like a pretty cool guy and I was going to ask him, but he seemed busy so I didn't wanna bother him. I'm just going to assume he's cool with it until I hear otherwise. As a wise man once said, its smarter to beg for forgiveness than to ask permission.

Front Cover

The set was amazing as always. Staples such as "Diggin' My Grave" and "On the Chin" were played and even more exciting for me, I got to see him play electric for the first time. Hearing him strum that Bilt Zaftig semi-hollowbody and scream with a death-rattle yell on "Healin' To Do" was other-fucking-worldly. Plus his acoustic broke a string towards the end so he played the electric on "Old Devils" and it was sick as shit.

It's always cool seeing his new set and I've heard damn-near every song I've ever wanted from him... except for the one I've always truly wanted to: "Trespassers Will Be Eaten" (off the bootleg "Legalize Freedom", available here). My buddy requested it at a gig once and Will said he forgot that he even recorded the song, let alone how to play it. Fair enough, a strange song off of an old demo is a bit more than a "deep cut" as they say.

Back Cover

For not having a board feed (I nearly tried to bribe the soundtech but opted against it) and just leaving the H6 in my pocket, I'm pretty damn pleased with the results. I recorded it at 24bit/96khz, de-noised/EQ'd/normalized it with Adobe Audition and output it as 16bit FLAC files and 320kbps MP3's. I edited a little bit of the downtime out of the performance just to keep the album at under 80 minutes (max CD length). Past that, this is the show how it happened, and it's pretty goddamn great considering the recorder was just nested in my pocket with the XY mic pointed toward the speaker next to me.

Before you listen to this, I should apologize to both you and Whitmore, I'm the asshole guy yelling in grunts and the one that says "don't be a pussy" when it came do doing shots. What can I say, you can take the boy out of Ohio, but you can't take the Ohio out of the boy.

There used to be an inherent evil in bootlegs that seemed unavoidable, someone selling someone else's hard work for profit. Thanks to the internet, that can now be avoided. As always, I'm releasing this for free and without any ad-revenue generated from my blog or website (take note lawyers, I'm do this for the love of it and when my AntiCurrent server is factored in I'm making a sizable loss). If you dig this, please go and buy an album or even a beer-coozy off of Whitmore, he's more than deserving.

Without further ado, here is William Elliott Whitmore, "Radium Live in Los Angeles" on 5/28/15.

Download The Entire Album and Cover Art Here:
FLAC Version:
MP3 Version:

The tracklist is:
1:  Lift My Jug
2:  Civilizations
3:  Old Bill Jones
4:  Hell or High Water
5:  Johnny Law
6:  Can't go back
7:  Healin' To Do
8:  Don't Need It
9:  Hard Times
10: Don't Pray On Me
11: Diggin' My Grave
12: Do Something Impossible
13: South Lee County Brew
14: Sally Bangs
15: Ain't Gone Yet
16: On The Chin
17: Does Me No Good
18: Old Devils
19: Mutiny

My Love of Hockey

The NHL has long been an important shaping factor of my life. People often ask me how I got into hockey and in particular why an Ohio boy roots for the Anaheim Ducks.

Growing up, I unfortunately had to spend a lot of time at my Father's house. I say unfortunately not because of my Father's presence during that time, but rather the lack of it. From the ages of 8-12, I would go to his house every other weekend for visitation. However, owning his own business meant that he was off most of the time working on construction sites. This resulted in my being forced to spend most of this time with his second wife, Teresa.

The Barn

Teresa was mean and cruel in the truest of sense. She would tell me I was unwanted, she would call me fat, make fun of my acne, and she would directly tell me that I was what stood in-between my father and his new families happiness. She even gutted my bedroom, painted it with trashy-country stencils and redecorated it with creepy-as-fuck homemade dolls and pictures of her family (the bitch even owned a stuffed cat, only in Ohio right?). My point of explaining all of this is not for dramatic effect, but rather to explain that when I was forced to visit, I wasn't able to take refuge in my own room or even elsewhere in the house. I was forced to retreat to the barn and spend my days with my dog, Bullet.

I'm one of the few who enjoyed FoxTrax

The barn was a steel-building with a few rooms covered in saw-dust and a cramped little office area where I would hang out. In it was a TV that got 5 channels, a small refrigerator, some long-abandoned file cabinets, and an office-chair who's best days were 10 years prior. Sometime in the winter of '96 my dog and I were in there huddled around a space-heater when I came across hockey for the first time. It was a Pittsburgh Penguins game on channel 19 and FOX had just began using their glowing puck (FoxTrax). Having nothing better to do, I sat there mildly amused while attempting to decipher the rules of this game when something amazing happened... a fight broke out. 

The two guys had enough of whatever their issue was and went toe to toe, wailing on each others face. I couldn't believe it, I had never been a sports-guy, but I had no idea this was possible. The fight eventually settled down and no one really paid it much mind. My brain raced. How did they not make a bigger deal of this? Two men just fist-fought during a game and the announcers immediately moved past it like it was nothing? Is this what hockey is? It was at that moment that I fell in love with the idea of the game and it became my refuge. No longer was it painfully boring to sit in the office with just me and the dog... it was now enjoyable. Hockey gave me something to look forward to whenever I was stuck trying to avoid the pains of life.

One weekend not long after, I was hanging out with my aunt Teena* and we eventually got onto the subject of hockey. She wasn't entirely familiar with it either, so we both decided we should take a trip north to see what it was all about. Two weekends later we took the trip up to Cincinnati to see the Cyclones. We walked into the massive arena and I was immediately spell-bound. These people zipped around fast on my little TV, sure, but actually seeing the size, strength and speed of these guys in person was spellbinding.

Towards the end of the second period, we sat there in our seats about 10 rows up and a puck came flying into our area. The puck zoomed about four feet above my head, and as I turned to see who's face it would inevitably impact, a mammoth of a man reached up with his bare-hand, caught it like it was tossed to him, handed it to his girlfriend and continued watching the game like nothing had happened. At that moment, both on and off the ice, hockey came to symbolize to me a place where men are men.

*Bonus Story: One day my Aunt Teena had enough, showed up on Teresa's front door and beat the shit out of her!

For the next few years, I would continue to watch hockey whenever I could catch it on TV, but without cable and having no source of a TV Guide, that was harder said than done. However, when I turned 16 one of my friend's mothers started working at the local radio station 105.9 The Rebel. The channel had four season tickets to the newly franchised Cincinnati Mighty Ducks and would regularly give them away as promotions. The cool part was, whenever a listener didn't pick them up or they happened to not be gave away, my friends and I got them.

My leg

The Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, for those of you that aren't familiar, were an AHL team that acted as the farm-team to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (and strangely enough the Detroit Red Wings as well). During the following two years, we regularly attended games at the Cincinnati Gardens and I fell deeper in love with hockey. If you think that NHL games can be brutal, the minor leagues are twice as fun. Tempers flare a bit more easily when the rules of fighting are relaxed. Hits were harder, punches were tougher, and the team was more ambitious. There for the first time I saw young and hungry players such as Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, and Jean-Sebastien Giguere fighting for their right to be moved up in the ranks. These were amazing games and to this day I proudly wear a Cincinnati Mighty Ducks tattoo on my leg.

Around 2003, on top of having just graduated, I was also running a quickly-failing custom-guitar shop, working full time as a clerk, and prepping for my inevitable move to Fullerton, California. Thus, I once again fell out touch with hockey.

However, by 2005 I had my roots firmly planted in Fullerton, was attending school, and being a broke college-kid, had stolen basic-cable. It was there that I truly discovered (the team now known as) The Anaheim Ducks. Having ample free-time and nothing to do, I popped on a game. Low and behold what did I discover? The players I had watched in my High School years, Perry, Getzlaf, and Giguere were all playing on the same fucking team. In what was basically my backyard, no less. From that moment on, I was a die-hard Anaheim Ducks fan for life. I'd sit in front of the TV for every game I could catch and watch the amazing lineup of Selanne, The Niedermayer's, Getzy, Perry and more conduct clinics on how to play hockey. The next year I even watched them win the Cup.

Me and Brando

About this same time I helped form the original lineup of the band Piss N' Blood (in which I played bass). I didn't have a lot of friends in the area yet so I began to hang around with my band-members. At one of their parties, I met an arrogant, smart-mouthed guy in a Ducks jersey who just happened to have extra tickets to the next night's game. Of course I went with him, but the tickets weren't in the same seating area so thankfully I didn't have to see him the entire game. When we met back up at the end, for the life of me I still couldn't recall his name, but we went out drinking anyway. Somehow, this piece of shit hung around me long enough until he weaseled his way in and became my best-friend. We still go to games together and the bastard is like a brother to me (though to be fair, probably not one he wanted).

Hockey has done a lot for me. It provided an upset little kid some form of sanity, it provided a rebellious high-schooler with something to do that wasn't self-destruction, it provided a college-kid with a free way to pass the extra time, and it helped me connect with my best-friend. Even today, my wife and I watch every game together.

The wife and I

These days I live in North Hollywood and reside among Kings fans. This makes it really fun at bars when I wear my Ducks jersey and get to shit talk with the locals. We don't have cable at my place and thanks to local black out restrictions I'm forced to pay for NHL Gamecenter and forward my signal to another country to watch games happening an hour south of me (seriously in a world where even the government deregulates blackouts and knows it's a dated concept? Catch up NHL!). But all in all, it's a small price to pay to view my beloved team, especially when The Ducks swept the first round in four games! It's amazing to have your team on such an amazing swing, but, win or lose, I'll be here again next year and every year after that.
Go Ducks!!!

AntiCurrent Video Archives Vol 2- Urban Struggle: The Battle for the Cuckoos Nest

This is the second edition of the "AntiCurrent.com Video Archives" a collection of rare, out of print, or unreleased videos that I've chose to release through my blog. Click here to view a list of all past releases.

Urban Struggle:

Article On Cuckoo's Nest

Believe it or not, once upon a time, Punk Rock was as dangerous as it was interesting.

This release covers one of the best Punk Rock documentaries ever released: "Urban Struggle: The Battle for the Cuckoos Nest". This 1981 film is an unabashed look into the dawn of West Coast American Hardcore Punk-Rock and how the "powers-that-be" fought so hard against it. It chronicles the Costa-Mesa based club "The Cuckoos Nest" and it's owner Jerry Roach during his long-going fight with local authorities trying to shut his club down. Unfortunately, he fought the law, and the law won.

Featured throughout this are performances and interviews from quintessential punk bands such as Black Flag (in my personal favorite era with Henry Rollins), The Vandals (Stevo years), T.S.O.L., The Circle Jerks, and more.

Bootleg History:

Bootleg VHS cover

Legend has it that this documentary was aired on a local cable access channel at the time, and someone recorded it from TV. This sole recording is what birthed the generations and generations of bootlegs that came from it. Despite a lack of official release, "Urban Struggle" has long been traded in West-Coast based record stores, and that's where I had my first interaction with it. I found my VHS copy while working at Black Hole Records in Fullerton CA, and immediately fell in love with it. Not only is it an amazing document of music history, it also serves as an amazingly executed "us versus them" tale of authority meeting counter-culture. Coming in at only 38 minutes, this flick has as much heart, soul, and fight as anything Alex Gibney is putting out today, and that's saying a hell of a lot. My extreme compliments to director Paul Young.

Why It Hasn't Been Released:

The reason for the film never being professionally released is due to a long-ongoing conflict between Jerry Roach (who insists it's his product because he paid for and produced the movie) and Paul Young (a then local-area film student who insists it is his body of work and that Roach didn't actually contribute anything other than time and access). Which of these two is correct? Well, I sure as hell wasn't there so I won't begin to speculate* other than to say that they both are very passionate about the other being full of shit. For what incredibly little it's worth on the subject, Roach was nothing but extremely kind to me on Facebook and Young didn't accept my friend-request :-( or email (though I likely had the wrong email address). If you care to read more on the subject of Roach Vs. Young, OCWeekly did a great write-up of it HERE.

* What I will speculate on is the fact that the release could potentially be held up due to Black Flag's Greg Ginn having the reputation of being an enormously greedy dick. I'm told that's a big reason that the amazing "Decline of Western Civilization Vol 1" has never been released. Never met the guy personally, but that film needs a professional re-release and fuck him IF that is true.

Docs that pull from Urban Struggle

Unfortunately for us, this battle has led to the documentary never getting a full, professional release. Even so, extensive segments of it have been used for other punk-rock documentaries such as:

Clockwork Orange County: an insightful documentary that is extremely hard to watch due to the incredibly poor production-value that went into it.
&
American Hardcore: a documentary that I cannot recommend highly enough. Amazing interviews, amazing production value, done with much love and knowledge of the genre.

This Release:

Newspaper Clipping

As I stated, I recently I got in touch with Jerry Roach (who was incredibly kind to me in response to my long-winded questions) to attempt to get the best quality version of this possible. He was willing to give me access to an original print, so I immediately got to work about researching the prices to telecine the documentary into HD. I was extremely excited and was just about to pull the trigger when the local scanning companies got back to me with a $1200 figure to scan the 16mm film. As much as I would LOVE to spend the money on this, at the moment I cannot justify spending that kind of loot to post something for free on my blog. Perhaps one day.

After trading and re-trading various digital, DVD, and video versions of this, I finally found the cleanest copy I've seen off of a documentary torrent-based trading forum. However, this still had VHS color artifacts, tracking lines, was interlaced, and the black and white levels were all over the place. So I ingested the flick into After Effects, up-res'd it to 720p, de-interlaced the footage, desaturated it, added a slight sharpening filter, fixed the wrong aspect ratio native to the DVD, and adjusted the black and white levels to where to where I felt the footage shined. Every version I've ever seen of this (other than the trailer) is in stark, high-contrast black and white, so I made the blacks deep, and popped the whites out just as much as I could.

Final Word:
I wish this film would be professionally cleaned up and re-released. The second it does I'll happily delete the video (and if it's monetized that's because of a copyright claim by Black Flag, not me) and purchase a proper copy. But at the moment? This flick needs to be seen by anyone with interest, so please, enjoy.

My Appendix Has Declared My Body No Longer Inhabitable...Who Could Blame it?

Warning: This Post was written under the heavy influence of morphine.

Middletown Regional Hospital

During the ages of 8-12 I was hospitalized about 3-5 times a year due to my asthma and during that time I became well acquainted with the staff and surroundings of Middletown Regional Hospital. As a kid, I weirdly looked forward to it since they had a Sega Genesis that they would let you play, and seeing as how I only had an old NES, that was enough to excite me. Honestly, with all things considered, I don't really mind hospitals too much since I've spent so much time in them.

I always assumed the next time I was to be hospitalized would be due to an accident on my motorcycle. I'm a great rider, don't get me wrong, but as the old adage goes: There are two types of riders, those that have been down and those that will go down. At the moment I'm in the latter camp, thus I've always had premium motorcycle insurance, but...

I've spent the last 8 years without medical insurance (much to the discontentment of my mother) however once Liv and I got married, she made it her mission in life to find us the best insurance possible so that I could finally get on my regulatory meds for my asthma (that totaled about $220 a month without insurance). So she rallied the support of her parents and my mother behind my back, and had them help flip the bill for insurance. I was furious that she would go behind my back and talk to others about my well-being, and I viewed it as a breach of trust. Why? Because I'm a too proud idiot a lot of the time. 

Liv's been up in Ojai the last few weeks acting as production-secretary on a movie (and kicking ass at it) so I've been using the time to get a lot of writing done. Unfortunately, for me to sit in a room, by myself for hours and hours on end is not something I can do without the assistance of some type of substance to help me focus. Generally, this is alcohol. So I went on a bit of a bender of sorts, downing about 1/4 a handle of whiskey a night to myself and writing. My body is no stranger to Jim Beam, so I had only very slight hangovers in the morning and little else... until Thursday morning.

Wed. night activities

Thursday morning at 5AM I woke up in agonizing pain. If being on fire is a 9-level pain, this was an 8. So I laid in my bed for four hours, rolling around in searing, cramping pain hoping for it to go away on its own, It didn't. Out of desperation I was trying anything, and downed an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol. When that didn't work, I convinced myself that if I could just take a shit (the pain was similar to that of the moments before diarrhea) I would again be fine. 

That's when my roommate knocked on the door to see if I could work on a project that day. He opened the door to discover me laying on the bathroom floor in my t-shirt and underwear attempting to make myself puke in desperation for anything to help. At that moment, I had convinced myself in my heart of hearts, that if I could only take a shit, everything in life would return to normal. So with a clouded mind full of pain, I begged him to go buy me an enema so that I could expel the contents of my stomach, At first he was reluctant, but the sight of me begging him half naked from the bathroom floor convinced him to do it.

Half hour later J.C. delivered a box with two enemas, wished me luck, and went to work as I got down to the deed. I read the instructions, got down naked on my hands and knees, inserted a cold plastic water-bottle up my ass, and squeezed the contents in. The process itself wasn't as bad as it sounded, but for me to get onto our small bathroom floor in the level of pain I was enduring was nearly impossible. I sat there on my knees, ass to god, and maintained the liquid inside me as long as I could. I then fumbled to the toilet, and although the water came out... nothing else did. So, I figured what the hell, I have two anyway, and I repeated the entire process again with the other enema.

Quickly running out of options and realizing that I must have actually hurt my body with alcohol consumption I looked at WebMD and attempted to self-diagnose my problem. Nausea? Check. Cramping pain? Check. Confusion? Triple check. The proposed-results horrified me, it was acute pancreatitis, a result of overdoing ones limits of drinking. I laid there, horrified that I may never be able to drink again and began to cry. As I did, I decided that if the pain wasn't any better in an hour, I was going to go to the hospital. Having time to kill and being me, I figured what the hell? Might as well distract myself. So I pulled up a website and jerked off for a half-hour in what was one of the least pleasing bouts of self-pleasure ever. 

In the midst of a painful afterglow, I knew that my time was up and I had to get professional help, so I lumbered myself into the shower, and sat there for 10 minutes unable to move due to my stomach's condition and attempted to clean myself as much as I could. I dried myself off, called my ever-dependable buddy Andrew, and told him I needed a hospital. He arrived ten minutes later with his wonderful girlfriend Ellyn, and away we went,

The ER

We arrived, Ellyn got me checked in, and we sat there enduring the emergency waiting room. ER's have to be the great equalizer in life as no one is there unless they have to be, and people from all walks of life are treated with the same disdain. I sat down next to a kid who insisted his chair was a drum-kit, watched Jeopardy, and waited. Eventually they took me back, I explained my symptoms and the woman agreed (after accusing me of being on drugs a dozen times), that my drinking days were over. The ER was overcrowded and no rooms were available, so the male nurse escorted me back to a section of the hallway that was to be mine for the next 8 hours. During said escort, the small little man made it a point to rub my nose in the fact that alcohol is a bad thing no less than 8 times in 8 different ways, thinking himself some type of holy messenger for those of us that were never told that excess can hurt you. Asshole.

The doctor eventually came and gave me the best news of my life, the location of my pain combined with a very heavily increased white blood-cell count meant that the culprit was NOT my liver or my pancreas, but was in fact, likely appendicitis! After he finished being wholly confused as to why I would celebrate such a thing, he then instructed me that I was to take a CT scan, which to me, screamed money lost. I argued that I could possibly be fine and there was no way in hell I was paying $1200 for some fancy x-ray. I asked for a form to release myself from care against orders, and Andrew, my amazing friend began yelling at me. "Listen you idiot, if it ruptures in you you'll be admitted for two weeks, how much do you think that will cost? Moron, get the damn thing." Thats when the doctor ganged up on me as well, grabbed my appendix and squeezed on the area making me squeel like a little girl. "That's not normal, listen to your friend."

My room

So I called my mom and asked her advice. Evidently, the insurance that my wife picked out was platinum and it covers nearly everything known to man, thus, the scan was $80. I'm a fucking idiot. The insurance that my parents-in-law, my mother, and my wife all bitched to me about getting was the same thing that was going to let me discover whether or not I'm about to have an organ explode. I got scanned, and they promptly diagnosed me with an about to burst appendix.

On the way out of the ER to be admitted into standard care, I passed the male nurse that gave me the 5 minute lecture about how I live my life, and stopped him. "Good news man! It wasn't the booze! It was just an appendicitis, I can still drink!" He stood, staring open-mouthed at me. "But I appreciate the lecture man, thanks!" They wheeled me past him and I cackled in a morphine ridden haze.

Andrew and Ellyn

Andrew and Ellyn sat with me all damn day. Andrew gave me advice, yelled at me when I was being an idiot, and made fun of all of the doctors with me. Ellyn memorized every doctors name we talked to, took care of all of my paperwork, and acted as my mother until Liv could get down from Ojai. They wheeled me into my little room, Matt and Sarah came to visit, and we all sat around laughing at what a fucking idiot I am. Eventually, they left and it was just Liv and I, I held her for a while, insisted I was going to be totally fine, and then somehow convinced her, though I was in extreme amounts of pain, that having sex with me was a good idea and we got down in the bathroom.

Blessed is a dumb fucking word, it implies that you are a victim of not having free-will, and that God has designed the things and people that are in your life, so I won't use that. I surround myself with good people that I would break my back to help out at any given point, but I am fortunate enough to have picked people that are willing to do the same for me. So thank you Andrew, Ellyn, Liv, Mom, Peter (father-in-law), Guee (mother-in-law), Matt, and Sarah for being amazing people who I don't deserve. And a special thanks to J.C. for enduring the shame of buying me an enema.

Piss N' Blood: 24 Hour Machine Music Video

I got bored today, so as I sometimes tend to, I went digging through my archives for footage to mess with. Deep in a series of subfolders I found footage of my old band Piss N’ Blood back when I played bass for them. So I said fuck it, took the audio from our single for "24 Hour Machine", and made a music video. Seeing as how I only had three camera angles to work with I’m pretty proud.

Building My Stage 3 Fender Jaguar: Adding a Bigsby, Caps, and a Diode Distortion Circuit

I’m a customization nut. If you look through my past blogs you’ll notice that merely owning something isn't nearly enough for me… I have to make it my own. I've written about customizing my sound rig, record player, motorcycle, and now? My guitar. Specifically my Black Fender Jaguar HH. I already had a Seymour Duncan P90 style Neck pickup and a Gibson Dirty Fingers (highest output passive humbucker made) installed and was delighted with the results, but that wasn't enough. So in this blog I’ll cover my Stage 3 mods which include:

Stock Jaguar HH

• Oil in Paper Capacitor in Top Controls
• Orange Drop Capacitor in Bottom Controls
• Passive on-board distortion circuit in bottom controls
• Shield guitar body using copper-tape
• Adding a Bigsby B5 Tremolo (utilizing a Vibramate)

Side Note: There is a TON of online arguments on whether “big money” capacitors are even worth the time/energy/money to install. I’m not going to get into that, but there are some amazing youtube videos that test the tone of different capacitors such as the one HERE.  Do yourself a favor and make up your mind up if they change the tone or not. It IS important to remember that the capacitor value has a much greater influence over tone than what type it is. Personally I’m a control freak and knowing that I was already opening up the cavity of my guitar, I had no problem spending the $6 per capacitor to ensure my own potentially placebo based happiness.

History:

Fender Jaguar Promo Image

The off-set waisted Jaguar was introduced by Fender in 1962 as the company was trying to steal customers from Gibson by giving the musician more control over their sound (some argue too much). The guitar (and its sister the Jazzmaster) did well in the surf-rock scene and bands such as The Beach Boys were seen playing it. However, it never took off in popularity and was promptly discontinued in 1975. This caused both Jaguars and Jazzmasters to plummet in value and by the late 80’s they were readily found at local pawn-shops for astoundingly cheap prices. It was at this time that musicians such as Kurt Cobain, John Frusciante, Thurston Moore and other 90’s mainstays began to use them, leading to a resurgence in their popularity which can still be seen today.

Personally, I grew up on Nirvana, thus I was enamored with the instrument from an early age. I vividly remember hanging out with my good friend Nick Dellaposta (From To No End) and pulling my first ’66 Jaguar off of a Guitar Center wall and plugging it in. Though the bridge/tremolo seemed to be a pain in the ass to deal with, this particular Jag had been outfitted with a Black Ice mod, which replaced the seldom-used mid-cut switch with a passive distortion circuit. The idea of having an on-board distortion has stuck with me for years, and last week I finally implemented it.

Basics: Switch Setup
First a bit about the controls of the stock-Jaguar. Keep in mind that all switches on the Jaguar are in the ON position when they are up and directed towards the player.

Top circuit
Switch A in the ON position activates only the top control circuit (just the neck pickup and the top Vol/Tone). In the OFF position, it activates the bottom system allowing you to only utilize the bottom control circuits (Switches B, C, & D as well as the bottom Vol/Tone).

Bottom circuit
As stated, when switch A is in the down position it activates the bottom controls. Switch B turns ON/OFF the Neck pickup and switch C turns ON/OFF the bridge pickup. Switch D in the ON position activates a capacitor (Caps as they're known cut certain frequencies) and acts as a mid-cut of sorts. The bottom knobs control Vol/Tone.

Getting Started: Shielding

Shielded

Since you’re already opening the cavity of your guitar, you've already done the hard part of shielding. Copper tape is the easiest thing on the planet to use, simply unstick the back of the tape and cover the entire cavity of the guitar as neatly as possible. Now you have to make sure that the metal tape touches the other which means getting around the adhesive on the back of the tape.

To do this simply take a needle and make small punctures in the tape wherever you have placed multiple layers of tape. In order for the shielding to be effective, you need the taped area to make connection to the ground. To accomplish this you can either solder a wire gently from it and to the ground (hard because the tape burns easily) or, since the back of your pickguard should already be shielded, just leave little pieces of tape overtop of the pickguard holes. When you screw it back in, this will branch the two points with a metallic connection. One word of warning, if you think paper-cuts suck, you've never experienced one as deep as caused by copper paper, be extremely careful because it hurts like a motherfucker.

Wiring: The Capacitors:

As for the capacitors they're pretty easy to figure out: Take apart your controls, unsolder the existing capacitor, and re-solder the new one in it’s place. As I previously stated, I added an oil-in-paper Russian capacitor in the top controls and a Orange Drop to the bottom. The only advice that I can give for this is to keep in mind that you’re dealing with very small cavities in the guitar so maximizing space is essential. The O-I-P nestles nicely in the area I show, but too much one way or the other may result in your not being able to place the controls back in the cavity. The bottom controls have a much bigger cavity, thus it is pretty forgiving with the massive area that the Orange Drop cap requires.


Wiring: Diode Distortion
Since I personally never, ever use the mid-cut switch (Switch D from earlier) so I wanted to turn this into a distortion circuit when activated. This can be one of two ways, either buy a “Black Ice” brick for $20, or make your equivalent circuit own using schottky diodes. Seeing as how diodes are INCREDIBLY CHEAP to buy, I went this route.

To make this circuit, connect two diodes together making sure that the black-color strips at the bottom touch the uncolored top of the other connect them together. To assure that these didn't make unwanted connections, I bought shrink wrap and covered them in it before wiring them together.

Remove the existing capacitor and discard it. Now that
you have an unused switch and your diode circuit, the rest is simple. The middle connection of the switches is effectively always on, so solder one end to where the capacitor was before. This will now activate the circuit when turned on. Next, solder the other end of the circuit to a ground (the one on the side is the easiest to get to).  It’s that easy.

Note: When activated, just a bit of volume is lost to the process. However with how strong my two pickups are it is relatively unnoticeable on my guitar.

Hardware:

Installing the Bigsby (via the Vibramate)
The Vibramate is one of the best little contraptions on the planet. It allows you to install a full Bigsby B5 without drawing any holes into your guitar. It’s a horseshoe looking little intermediary made of aircraft grade aluminum that sits between the tremolo and your guitar. Basically you just remove the tailpiece and replace it with the device with the two bolts supplied. This has four pre-drilled and threaded holes that allow you to insert the supplied 4 bolts holding it directly to the Vibramate. Past that, the rest is pretty self explanatory. The spring supplied sits quite obviously between the arm and the body of it and just sits there with pressure, there are a few supplied O-rings that allow you to slightly raise the arm of the tremolo if necessary.

Tailpiece Change

One thing to keep in mind with the Bigsby is that when it is applied you are putting a great deal of pressure on the nut and the tune-o-matic bridge. The tension on these is responsible for most of the concerns with the bridge not returning to the correct tuning afterwards. The easiest way to remedy this is to install a Graphite nut in its place and change out the bridge. Now there are two major options for the bridge, you can replace it with a roller bridge, which allows the strings to stretch over-top of a roller pin rather than sticking on a hard surface. The other option is using Graph-tech Stringsaver saddles, which is the way I’ve went.

Stringsavers for Tune-O-Matic

Stringsaver saddles are made of a Teflon like material that allows the string to more easily glide over the edge. I've been using Graph-tech Stringsaver Saddles for years and can vouch for them. I once broke one by over-tightening a screw on a Stratocaster, called them up and they replaced it for free. Good people.



Analysis:

Strung

I love the distortion option, its aggressive with zero sustain, but is very reminiscent of an original Big Muff Distortion (which makes sense because it's diode based as well). Plus it's WAY more useful than the mid-cut that existed before. It's fun to just flip a switch and have a dirty aggressive sound, but it's far from a proper overdriven sound. Going forward, I'm going to experiment with adding this to my bass as I think that would be a fun option.

I adore the look of the Bigsby, but in all honestly it's a bit more of an aestheic choice for me, but one I'm excited about and it does seem that if you don't overuse the tremolo, it does a fine job staying in tune. I can't really tell a huge difference with the Orange Drop capacitor, but the O-I-P does seem to make a huge difference when it's used with the tone dial on 5 or more.

Regrets:

Finished Product

The one thing I do regret and will soon remedy is not purchasing the Vibramate Spoiler. I've always read that Bigsby's are a pain in the ass and although I feel that is an over-simplification, the main issue seems to be with how hard it is to string. At the base of the Bigsby are little pins that you put the eye of the string into and it’s held by pressure.

This requires you to bend the string at a 90 degree angle towards the end. As you change the string you need to keep constant pressure on it which is a pain in the absolute ass. The Vibramate Spoiler mounts to the bottom and gives you easy access to change the strings. It too is held on by pressure, but it’s much easier to deal with than the stock Bigsby. Past that? I'm absolutely in love with this new configuration.

So that's my experience with my Stage 3 Fender Jaguar, I adore every change I've made and it's a far more useful and beautiful tool now.

AntiCurrent Video Archives Vol 1: The Complete Ghoulardi Collection

Ghoulardi

I've gotten a ton of feedback through the last few years about people digging my AntiCurrent.com Archives. If you're not familiar, A.C.A. is a series of bootlegs that are either out of print, hard to find, or that I personally have recorded. I release them here on my blog for free for the love of the subject material rather than personal gain (a lot of record stores charge a small fortune for these). Well, the popularity of it got me thinking... not only do I have a small library of rare albums, I also have a TON of bootleg VHS, DVD and digital recordings of often sought out material. So, here we go, the first edition of AntiCurrent.com Video Archives is of the Classic Cleveland Horror Host Ghoulardi.

Horror Hosts:
Back in the earlier days of TV, local networks didn't have the budget to carry only programs from the major networks. So in addition to normal programming, they also produced a fair amount of in-house entertainment for the local broadcast area. One of the most popular things to do to fill the midnight hours when only few were watching was to run and re-run old movies that were, quite frankly, atrocious. This was common practice because they cost very little to purchase the rights to air them. To draw in viewers to these programs, it became popular to have local, colorful personalities host these videos in funny and campy ways, thus, the Horror Host was born.

Ghoulardi:

Cleveland's Horror Host (or at least the first of them) was a character named Ghoulardi and was played by the notorious Ernie Anderson. Ernie had somewhat of a disdain for authority and brought a touch of that young rebellion to the beatnik inspired and beloved character. Every late Friday night for damn near 3 years WJW's Shock Theater aired the crappiest of Horror Movies which were openly scoffed at by Ghoulardi (Plot holes so big only the Swiss could love it!). But the movies weren't the only thing he mocked... he also openly made fun of the management for being cheap, neighboring conservative communities for being uptight (Parma!) and even the Mayor of Cleveland himself. Ernie lambasted anyone and everyone he chose to in the guise of Ghoulardi and it frightened the shit out of "the powers that be".

My Original Ghoulardi Poster

But beyond just pushing boundaries, he was also a massively popular character who cornered nearly every market of audience. Children stayed up late, both white and black adult audiences loyaly tuned in, and he even had a massive Cleveland marketing campaign featuring promotions at local restaurants and his face plastered on bus's (I own an original Ghoulardi Manners poster my Mom bought me in a Cleveland flea-market). The Cleveland Police Department even said that juvenile crime dropped 35% on Friday nights due to his show. His influence can be seen most predominantly by the band The Cramps who dedicated their genius album "Big Beat From Badsville" to his memory after Anderson died in 1997.

Letter from WJW asking Anderson to
refrain from riding his motorcycle
in the lobby.

Stories vary over Anderson's decision to discontinue the character, but many point to the WJW station management's constant bickering (even to the point of having to post a notice stating that motorcycles may not be rode in the building after Anderson apparently did). So he packed up, moved to Los Angeles to reconnect with friend Tim Conway, and had a huge career in announcing shows such as Star Trek and the Love Boat. It would seem that after years of creating well-deserved havok in Cleveland, it was just simpler to be a small fish in a big pond and make a boat-load of money.

Cool it with the boom-booms

As a personal note, my own influence from Ghoulardi can be seen in my second-short film from college "The Final Episode of WEBZ's Shock Theater" in which I have a horror host introduce a crappy Sci-Fi movie that we shot ourselves and contains commercials we also shot. In the background of all hosting segments, a Ghoulardi poster can be found. Additionally (also in college), I located digital encodes of old reel-reel tapes of Ghoulardi hosting "The Walking Eye" and animated the character to it which can be found here. Side, side note: I now live off of Oxnard Street! How cool is that! Ova Dey!

The Video:
As to this video, over the years I have purchased numerous Ghoulardi bootlegs and have a treasure-trove of digital bits. This is my attempt to take the best source of every nugget I have and put them end to end in one complete video for you to enjoy... and I hope you do. I imported all of my DVD's and VHS's into 1080p (overkill I know) then desaturated the black and white footage to remove annoying VHS color artifacts, added a slight sharpening filter, adjusted the white/black levels, and outputted it via h264.

 Stay Sick!!!