A Document of How I Spent My Winter, 2010/2011

In which I, John Francis Bittrich, writer of this blog, musician, critic and man about town, interview myself for my own amusement (and maybe that of those who would know me).


HEY, FLAX! HOW WAS YOUR WINTER?

Well, Boston was even more of an arctic hellstorm than usual, for one. The night it reached its worst, a day that had seen a high of four degrees, I found myself incapable of continuing amicable relations with my family, with whom I had been staying in West Roxbury after a great fall spent subletting in Inman Square. So anyway, I was asked to leave and I left. This is not the first time such things have happened, though, and the fam and I both feel we get along better from a distance. I'm staying in Brookline with my deer, sweet, generous friends Andy and Sharde right now.

Other than THAT craziness, I'm not too bad! I've been working a day a week at the box office of The A.R.T., slowly chipping away at a record noone will ever hear and writing a lot for the Together Festival and the Weekly Dig... I also got in a couple great DJ sets at Rise, Enormous Room, Red Tail and Savant Project!

OH. SO UM... YOU MENTIONED WRITING FOR THE DIG AND THE TOGETHER FESTIVAL... WHICH PIECES WERE YOUR FAVORITE SO FAR?

It just keeps getting more and more fun for me honestly, but doing this 500-word piece on Eli Keszler's recent Cyclorama installation was a real treat for me. Ditto my writeup on the opening of Armageddon Shop Boston and my piece on Ray Kurzweil's recent talk and film screening at the Coolidge. It was great to do my piece on Arp Instruments' local history, too.



SEEN ANY GOOD MOVIES LATELY?

Ip Man is a super cool Kung Fu movie set in World War 2. Valhalla Rising was another rad period piece, brutal but meditative. Honestly, I've been on more on a TV kick than anything else... 4 NBC shows and Archer on Thursdays, SNL sometimes, Skins season 5 in the UK (NOT THE US REMAKE ABOMINATION)... Modern Family, of all damn things... The Walking Dead... oh, and a lot of late-night Ancient Aliens binges!

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN READING?

Classic Science Fiction! Before moving from Somerville back to West Roxbury I bought very liberally from Lorem Ipsum's sci-fi wall, which is a treasure-trove. I read collections by Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Lin Carter and Algernon Blackwood. My dear friend Scott Taddei kindly lent me William S. Burroughs' "THE PLACE OF DEAD ROADS" and gave me Burroughs and Ginsberg's "THE YAGE LETTERS REDUX" for my birthday, both of which I ravenously devoured. I bought a copy of Gilles Deleuze's "Nietzsche and Philosophy" from a homeless person, and have been slowly working my way through it. I've also plucked THE WASTELAND and THE COMPLETE ENOCHIAN DICTIONARY from Andy's rather wonderful little library here in Brookline...



Comics-wise, I've revisited THE ULTIMATES and ULTIMATE X-MEN in advance of the upcoming wave of Marvel films. I'm also halfway through SUPERGOD, and am excited about where KICK-ASS 2 is headed. target="_blank">The Modern Mythology blog has been consistently top-notch, too.

WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING TO?

If you don't have the GATEKEEPER "Giza" EP yet you are missing out on some SERIOUS hot fire... Amazing this isn't a reissue of some 25 year old Wax Trax type band. Same goes for LONE's album and (especially) the "Pineapple Crush"/"Angel Brain" single. ALSO: listen to lots and lots of SHACKLETON. Every day. "International Fires" has been the track of choice for the past month or two... Been a number of very impressive rereleases yesterday by Cluster's HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS... Highly recommended... A lot of NICOLAS JAAR... The new EGYPTRIXX full-length "Bible Eyes" is making huge in-roads in my play count, and RAIME and DEMDIKE STARE, for those more on the dark ambient witchypoo tip, are KILLING IT!! Also, allow me to join in with the chorus on this one. No not KANYE (ok... him too) or ROBYN (ok, her too) but JAMES (MOTHERFUCKING) BLAKE! Come to New England soon, Jimmy!!! Speaking of New England, SOUL CLAP's SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 002 is a monster. They rep Boston hard even while residing in Miami. Get down with the get down.

GAY GHOST are my favorite rock and roll band in the world as of late. I also like THE BATMEN and THE BOO JAYS. Get down, Portland! Of course I wouldn't be me if I wasn't constantly listening to Joy Division, The Swans, Crass, The Smiths, The Birthday Party and Psychic TV. Goes without saying. Oh, and where THE METAL is concerned I've been all about French black metal (see: HELL MILITIA) and technical brutal death metal. WOW, this is getting long-winded and I'm only cataloging one (long) winter! ...perhaps that's enough music for now?



PERHAPS. ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THE LAST FEW MONTHS WORTH MENTIONING?

Just thanks to all my dearest: Sarah G, my cousin Nick Bittrich, Francesco Di Stefano, Katie and Mike, Anthony Buda, Mikey, Ann and Scott, the aforementioned Andy and Sharde, Dennis, Alexia, Marko, Marco, Damien, Matt Carroll, Blair, Danny O, The Holts, my little brothers, Logan, Chad, Stormy John etc etc etc. Solidarity with uprisings in wisconsin and worldwide. Big ups to Japan.

BIG UPS INDEED. SO WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR SPRING?

PROTOKOLL reunion shows. The TOGETHER FESTIVAL. Plenty more for the DIG. More work on that record noone will ever hear... I'd like to get another rock band going... Regarding this blog, a lot more MP3 links/reviews and more "personal" style shit like this... Oh, and getting my health care back and getting a steady paycheck so that I can rent my own place somewhere and getting something cleared up in court... But I won't bother you with all that boring shit.

THANK YOU.

De nada.

When not on this blog, feel my presence @
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12/27: Neptune, Major Stars, Bugs and Rats @ Charlie's Kitchen in Harvard Square

It is common knowledge among promoters that the time between Christmas and New Year's Eve is a dicey time to have an event planned. Students are snuggled back into the cozy suburban nowheres from whence they issued forth in September, biding time between all the "holiday" festivities that have just started to fizzle out and the overblown, overexpensive disappointment that is every New Year's Eve... Not to mention the fact that it is generally cold as a warlock's balls.

The show I am here to tell you about, however, is in one any local promoter will tell you is an absolute slam dunk, calendrical issues be damned!!!


NEPTUNE


You see, nobody ever forgets the first time they see Neptune in concert... and that's a LOT of nobodies. Throughout several stylistic changes over their rather long reign at the top of Boston's noise-rock heap, the group have managed to sway, slam and clamor with homemade industrial implements and tense, theatrical stage presense for thousands of rabid fans from Boston to Bordeaux.

Just a scant two days after Xmas, we find them joining forces with local celebrities Major Stars, whose trajectory from instrumental wall-of-noise psych to wailing rock n' roll badassery has been well-documented locally and led to a fruitful relationship with stalwart indie label Drag City.


MAJOR STARS

Opening will be my all-time favorite Quincy-based rock group (and one of the MA's longest-held "best kept secret" bands) Bugs and Rats, in all of their sludgy, grungy fury.


CHARLIE'S KITCHEN

The show would be filled to capacity at nearly any venue you could throw at it, from Great Scott to Mass Art to the Middle East... But what better place to book such a facemelter of a three-band showcase during the collegiate diaspora known as winter break than upstairs at CHARLIE'S KITCHEN, a sweltering, overcrowded cheeseburger-joint-cum-karaoke-haunt which functions as Harvard Square's last bastion of unrepentant townieism!? Other than in the basement which once housed the HOSS, I think we all know the answer is "nowhere".

This will be a VERY crowded show, so don't be late. The bands are absolutely the type that will envelop you in sound... just as surely as the atmosphere will envelop you in a wall of hirsute, flannel-clad gentlemen and their too-cute-for-them girlfriends, and as surely as a fine bouquet of sweat, cannabis indica, spilled PBR and double cheeseburgers will envelop your lungs and nasal passages. Yeah, it's pretty much my idea of heaven, too...