DJ Tom Hanks, Camerin Kelly and Trademark present a night of psychedelic rock at Footsies.

After the unprecedented success of “Metal Mondays,” ultra dive bar Footsies is now the home of, “Poundtown,” the only night in the City of Angels built upon the great legacy of 60s and 70s prog rock, krautrock, early electro-ambient, psych, fusion, and other forms of superior riffage.

If names like Le Orme, Dr. Z, Balletto di Bronzo, UK, Yes, Deerhunter, The Black Pine, Slowdive et al mean anything to you, you already know about this because you are one of as many six freaks in Los Angeles who cares. If not, you should come either way. Even if you like the Rapture and Kanye, you’ll appreciate this welcome break from the status quo.

As always, thank you for paying attention.

Good friend Aaron Frankel (Vibe Central, Outfits) is a fellow musician, he played bass on “No Down Time” on the latest LANTERN BLACK LODGE EP “Shine On You”.  He is also a autobiographically incandescent composer of relics, talismans, and other thelemic works of androgynous ornamental chains, soiled in esoteric sigil’s, sacred geometry, gangster kaballah, tactical magick and gravitational pull.  For more information email Aaron at Outfitissues@gmail.com

I visited Jayme in Toronto last week.  Maybe someday you can read about it.

After 2 1/2 years of existence, we’re pleased to announce a gift to you, our loyal cult members. On 24 February 2009 (next THIS Tuesday), we’ll be releasing Trademark XV, a compilation featuring every artist in the family (and a few friends).

With a track off of nearly every release we have done, including some that have yet to be released, Trademark XV is both an introduction to new fans and a reminder to those who’ve been with us since September 2006. We will release this digitally on Tuesday for a period of two weeks absolutely free*. We took our time compiling this, even convincing our great friends Lesbian and Moab to chime in with a few epic tracks. And we’ve included a couple of tracks that while available through us may have slipped through your fingers due to their super-limited nature (Science Friction, Samurai Dreams).

As always, we bow down to you, our fanatic cult members, because in the end, we’re in this together.

Always. Forever. Now. TRDMRK.

TrademarkRecordings.com

(*Free is an interesting word these days. To access the CULT section of our site and get the free album, you need the current password. And the current password can only be given to you if you sign up for our mailing list on this site. Don’t worry - we ain’t Nigerian scammers or spambots. Sign up, and you shall receive…)

Tracklist:
1. Lesbian “Bad Man” (Repo Man cover from the ltd. tour EP)
2. Moab “The Loon” (previously unreleased)
3. La Fin du Monde “Nascar Santa Claus”
4. The Motherless Children “Wicked River”
5. Lantern Black Lodge “Shine On You”
6. The Instant Messengers “iHuman”
7. Science Friction “II” (featuring some secret humans; email us for the details)
8. Akasa “Yomi”
9. Z F . Lantern Black Lodge “Zambique”
10. Samurai Dreams “Shadow Memory (888)”
11. Dynamite Walls “Spin In Circles”
12. The Jan-Michael Vincent Car Crash “North London Book Of The Dead”
13. Whitechapel “Living Splendor”
14. Castle Bravo “Acceptable Losses”
15. Swarming Hordes “Not A Mock Arsenal”
16. Conifer “Turning Sand Into Glass”

- I feel strangely shy outside of my own country.

- I am more open outside my own country and the country outside my own is more open to me.

- I have been listening and learning small things that I probably won’t forget.

- When it’s cold here, it’s colder than you think.

- Every day feels like a film from 1965.

- Dress shoes aren’t suitable birthday attire in February.

- Late night drunk eating Poutine is to Canadians, as late night drunk eating from a Taco Truck is to Californians.

- There is a hit single called “Drinking in LA” from the 90s which isn’t a hit single in Los Angeles apparently.

- Elevator To Hell and Wyrd Visions are two new favorite bands.

- The women on the streets are shrouded in layers but you can tell that they are beautiful.

- Everyone here is beautiful too.

- Everyone is a generalization of where my eyes travel which is not everywhere obviously.

- My eyes don’t have to travel far, for my company is beautiful.

- I went downstairs into a tavern to find live Bluegrass music and an all you can eat breakfast which to my company is the best thing in the world by the joy emitted across and inside the room.

- I bought a book callled “The San Francisco Poets”.  A first edition from the 1970’s which includes Richard Brautigan and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

- I am going to see “Friday the 13th” while everyone watches the Oscars.

Everyone is nice.  Jayme is a cordial host.  We walked the freezing streets sometimes talking when it felt right.  A car drove by and splashed water and it missed me and hit her and I felt bad.  Besides the gutter water, everything is really quite all right.  It’s my birthday, I am 28 far from California in mid winter and I am in bed about to listen to Coast 2 Coast.

Trademark News . March 2009

Be back in a week.

Last night I had a small discussion over the word “irony” and the epidemic that has spread from it’s initiation into contemporary art, cinema and music.  No matter how hard I gaze into the pool of cynicism I find no reflection of myself, or anything that I represent as an artist and citizen of the world.  There is nothing attractive about the disconnect from reality that is taking place in our country and beyond.  Why is “sacred” becoming a taboo?  It’s abject and completely disappointing on behalf of everyone who buys into it.  In a day and age where everyone needs support and a helping hand, we turn our back and laugh at everything that matters most.  Am I thinking like an old man?  It has nothing to do with age, it’s has to do with the fact that many of the artists are not artists at all, but critical bullies who feel that just because they can “rate” a youtube video, that they are contributing to the collective structure of modern times.  Everyone wants clever.  Instant gratification.  I’m sorry but it’s depressing.  You are wasting your time clicking buttons and using big words when you should be out actually making art, “working” in the fields and pastures of life, and until you step up to the plate and get your hands dirty, you will be nothing, and you won’t have to be forgotten for no one will have remembered what you said in the first place.  Passion is a wonderful thing, what is there to be afraid of?

Clever: superficially skillful, witty, or original in character or construction; facile: It was an amusing, clever play, but of no lasting value.

Here is an excerpt from an Interview with a great young filmaker named James Gray on the topic of his latest film TWO LOVERS and the reaction from his audience.

Gray: You’re completely right. You’re more right than you know. When I show the film to older audiences, almost always I find that they get it. And when I showed the film at USC about two weeks ago, they seemed to like it but they had a very different reaction. (Without getting into specifics, Gray talks about how the younger audience laughed at a key emotional moment at the very end of the film.) And I thought, “What is it with you guys? Why are you so afraid of embracing what is part of life, which is disappointment and melancholy? Why are you so distanced from art - if I may use that word - that it’s all a big fucking joke?” I don’t understand that. What is that? And I thought maybe… if there were a draft and they had to go to war, maybe the presence of danger would bring back a sense of longing. Longing, for example! It seems to me that it’s a generation totally not attuned to the idea of longing. They think it’s bullshit. Now, I could be the idiot! Maybe they have it right! They live a happier life; they don’t have that sense of longing that I’m talking about. And that’s a better way of living. So maybe they are more advanced in their thinking. But I’m not that old. I’m thirty-nine years old, so I should be in tune with it. But I don’t feel like I am, and I don’t know why that is. Maybe you can tell me, because I don’t know.

It’s later than I’d like it to be and I can’t sleep.  My bed is inviting, but I tossed and turned for two hours before giving up and migrating cross the arctic tundra of my kitchen tile to the computer where I find nothing but a desolate ocean of insomnia.  A beer to slow my mind and the pitter patter of rain is seducing.  It’s definitely February in Los Angeles.  I can hear it in the silence between splashing puddles and the lack of warmth eminating from the hallways of my mind.  Tomorrow will come, and I’ll be tired once again.  I’m off to sleep once more.

Here is an essay by one of the creators of Rocket Fuel, Ex L. Ron Hubbard Cohort, and Black Magician. His name was Jack Parsons and he is one the most important humans of the 20th century. When I first read this text at 20 years old, it forever changed my outlook on reality. I don’t expect that to happen to you, but you still might find it interesting.

Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword

I realized today while listening to the Demo Versions of some new Akasa material, and while visualizing oceans splitting in the wake of Moses, planets crumbling under the vast fingers of a comet, lovers embracing at the grip of death, babies reaching for their Mother’s breast, castles burning distant from a crucified wolf, a funeral in the dark rivers of limbo, a kiss that leaves you forever wanting something greater than the mundanity in which we live every second of our lives.  I realize that Josh Benedict is letting me experience these abstractions in the ageless form of music. I am very lucky to have these small pockets of time to work with him.  Thank you eternally Josh.

Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain.  That’s magic.

For those of you who tuned in, thanks so much.  Hope you enjoyed.

Sean Meehan invited me to a screening of one of my favorite Director’s James Gray’s (Little Odessa, The Yards, We Own The Night) latest film “Two Lovers”.  Pure tragedy pitted against fantastic hope and the mundane truths of reality.  I can’t say that everyone will like this film, but I will say this,  James Gray has proved over and over again that he is one of the most distinct visionaries in the field of Directing.  I loved “Two Lovers”.