Amoeblog

Cruise to Mexico: Part 4

Posted by Job O Brother, November 1, 2010 01:22pm | Comments (2)
Day 3

Tuesday. September 14, 2010

CABO SAN LUCAS

 

corey scholibo
The Glamorous Life

I woke up too full from the previous night’s dinner for breakfast.

Since the boyfriend likes to sleep-in until it’s time to go to bed for the night, I gathered up a few essentials: my book, spectacles, a Sharpie® brand felt tip marker, and my iPod; with these I made my escape from our darkened cabin and braved the outside world of the ship.

My goal was to find some nook, some cranny of the ship that wasn’t imbued with jolly, sunshine-soaked “good times” – a place where a second-generation Swede with deeply-rooted angst and a taste for Michael Gira side-projects could curl up and relax.

First and foremost, I was gonna need coffee, so I headed straight for the belly of the beast: the ship’s main mall. 

It really was a mall – a mall with upper stories that revealed people’s bedrooms; an odd combination of your local “galleria”, topped with layers of motel. You could sit outside the mock British pub next to the Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop and watch sun-burned, middle-aged people change into their fluorescent, flower-print swimwear. …If you’re into that sort of thing.

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Swans Are NOT Dead

Posted by Aaron Detroit, January 11, 2010 05:20pm | Post a Comment

According to the group's official Myspace page, Swans are back! Michael Gira --who has most recently performed as Angels of Light-- has announced a reconfigured lineup for the group, as well as plans for an LP (their first in 14 years) via Gira's Young God imprint and a new tour.  Strangely, no mention is made of longtime Swans member/colloborator Jarboe.

From the Swans Myspace Blog:

principal players on the swans album are (and there will be many special guests):

Michael Gira / gtr / voice / mendicant friar act  (original swans)

Norman Westberg – Guitar (original swans)

Christophj Hahn – Guitar (mid period swans and most angels)

Phil Puleo – Drums, percussion, dulcimer etc etc  (final swans tour and most angels)

Chris Pravdica – Bass and gadgets (flux information sciences / services/ gunga din)

Thor Harris, Drums, percussion, vibes, dulcimer, curios,  etc etc... (angels, now also with shearwater)

Angels Of Light is temporarily on hold while gira pursues his “new” project...

Exciting and excellent news! Let's celebrate with video!!:

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(In which Job interviews Neal Morgan...)

Posted by Job O Brother, October 20, 2009 02:22pm | Post a Comment
Due to some unfortunate miscommunications between the staff here at the Amoeblog, two of us ended up interviewing the same musician, Neal Morgan, about his solo debut.

Fortunately, the interviews are vastly different, due to my professional and honed skill as a journalist devoted to hard-hitting storytelling and dedication to factual analysis, and the other interviewer, Miss Ess, who prefers a more “whimsical” and, shall we say, lying-er approach to writing.

You can read this other "interview" by clicking on this link right here.

Due to his tight schedule of touring and promoting the new album, To The Breathing World, Neal was under the weather and frequently distracted during the following interview, which resulted in many of his answers being garbled and unintelligible. (Confidentially, I think alcohol may have been a contributing factor to this. That’ll teach me to get drunk before an interview!) I therefore had to rely on memory and occasional paraphrasing in transcribing the following Q & A. Even so, I was able to capture the spirit of our conversation, from Neal's obsession with "crushing" to the revelation of his suicidal fantasies. Read on…

neal morgan
Neal Morgan before the plastic surgery

How did you pick up playing the drums? What is it that drew you to them so strongly - so much so that any other attempts to follow other dreams were crushed?