Blog: More than you really need to know about Birdmonster

Looking through some old notepads the other afternoon, I happened upon one that contained scribblings of a heretofore unrealized post about an Anecdotal Fast Food Manifesto. The idea was simple: like the undomesticated American Trucker, the Touring Band is often faced with culinary questions that bedevil even the greatest philosophers of our time. Will you choose the liquid-beef shit-farm that is Arby's or the poisonous gut-riot that is Bojangles? What is the true and proper order at Taco Bell? Is there a difference between Hardee's and Carl's Junior? Respectively, the answers are neither, crunchy tacos, and at Hardee's you get [...]

As you may have heard, the Golden State Warriors were sold today. Birdmonster's bid of $45 and a complimentary acoustic cover show comprised mainly of Kool and the Gang standards was rejected. We were saddened by the process but understand the outcome and wish the Warriors and their great fans the best of the luck. Further, we've decided to turn lemons into rock and roll juice drank and play tomorrow night (that's Friday, July 16th) at the Uptown in Oakland . Misirlou will be joining us and we hope you will too. The set will be dedicated [...]

It's 2010; it's officially the future. As a child, John Lithgow promised that this was "The Year We Make Contact", and, while that was a little ambitious, I was at least hoping for flying cars or a robot harem who would peel my grapes and fan me with palm fronds. Instead, we've got smart phones we can watch "The Jersey Shore" on. I'd rather not think about the ramifications. Beyond wishing you a happy year of the tiger, we're chiming in with news, news about a pair of shows and a compilation CDs that's for a good cause [...]

Greetings all, They say good things come in threes. The stations of the cross, for example, or the remaining members of Boyz II Men. Tomatoes, mozarella, and basil. And of course, triangles. Who could forget side angle side, angle side angle, the Pythogorean theorum? I could, as it turns out, so, really, let's just move on. We're emerging from our hibernaculum for a trifecta of awesome. Please enjoy the following: 01- B-sides Yes, yes. A while back, we recorded a CD. It was called "From the Mountain to the Sea." Perhaps you [...]

Greetings one and all. Just a brief note today to inform you that a) since I fell out of metal when Limp Bizkit hijacked it (all for the Nookie, so they say), installment three has taken copious amounts of research. By research, I of course mean watching videos in which half-naked women resort to cannabalism and goateed longhairs sing like a larengitis-ed Cookie Monster. It will be up shortly, as soon as I understand the difference between "Black Metal," "Doom Metal" "Sludge Metal" and "Sludgy Black Doom Metal." I'm barely joking. B) is simply a [...]

Lionel Hutz, as you should well know, was a criminally incompetent lawyer on the Simpsons. This was before Phil Hartman's wife got all stabby and they had to retire the character, thus setting back the cause of comedy for dozens of Rob Schneider-flavored years. Those were dark days, friends. There's this Halloween episode where Homer has sold his soul to the devil for a donut and the Simpsons hire Hutz to try and get Homer's soul back. After the Devil's prosecutor calmly asserts that Homer signed over [...]

(Part One) Consider General Ambrose Burnside: general, inventor, gun nut. Well liked in his day, Burnside is remembered as a somewhat inept Civil War General, known most for his bumbling failure at Fredericksburg and his frothingly patriotic "General Order Number 38," which made it a criminal act to express any opposition to the war. His postbellum life is marked by his invention and patent of the Burnside carbine, a device that prevented hot gas from leaking from a rifle (presumably a really good idea), and was tapped to be the first president of the N.R.A. And [...]

With the possible exception of ferreting through Dad's closet in search of his mythical porno stash, nothing is as overtly masculine as Heavy Metal. It's music by men for men, the natural outgrowth of the "Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS" club, the place where fancypants musings on love and loss are usurped by heady ballads about pillaging, nuclear war, and how kickass dragons are. Critics call metal "subliterary" and "banal." Fans found those critics and got biz-zay with some truncheons. Now, admittedly, this is the narrow view. Bands [...]

My Fellow Americans, About two hundred thirty three years ago, we, the fine citizens of the United States, fed up with Britain's tweedy aloofness and insistence on calling pants "trousers" and underwear "pants," decided to get our Independence on. So Thomas Jefferson took a break from having awesome hair and boning his slaves and wrote the Declaration, effectively telling Britain to take a dirt nap because the uncouth colonies were in charge of themselves now, thank you very much. Then, you know: the fighting, muskets, the French, Indians, Paul Revere, et al. After that: This [...]

Greetings, greetings. While we've got a few surprises in store for next week (such as obnoxiously long missives about things you may or may not care about and a July 4th barbeque at the El Rio with some local bands I adore with all of my heart and a sizable portion of my crusty, brittle soul), I'm just dropping in to note that we've got a show this weekend up in Sonoma Saturday night. Details: - Sonoma, CA - with the fabulous Deer Tick - 6 p.m. - at Gundlach Bundshu Winery. I just want [...]

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We live in trying times. Dick Cheney has emerged from his bunker to sneer ghoulishly at moral reason, California's Supreme Court is shitting the proverbial bed, and Kobe is two wins from the NBA Finals. Frothing loonies are everywhere. I am troubled. But nothing is more troubling than the global economic meltdown. Perhaps you've heard about it. American auto giants are crumbling, upstanding companies are claiming "oopsies!" on their balance sheets, and hordes of bankrupt rubes are wishing they read the fine print. In these dire economic times, what's a man to do? Get rich. [...]

So I was writing a missive about our Sundance experiences which was maybe the most hilarious piece of prose since Ben Greenman's "Blurbs" when my life devolved into a decidedly unfunny, splintered mess. My sulking time has been filled with the ever soothing Al Swearengen and Fionna Apple and, now that I'm feeling more human, I'll have that up next week. It's got chuckles in it, ya heard? I need 'em as much as anybody. I'd also like a mulligan on 2009. Let me know if you can make that happen. In the meantime (which, if I remember [...]

I'm here at work, patiently crafting the story of our journey to Sundance, a tale that involves Wynona Judd, urban camping in a Mormon stronghold, aggressive I-Spying of "That Guy"s, and the Stephen King-esque horrors of driving through an ice fog. But, since the following request is time sensitive and I don't think I'll have the Saga of Utah finished till later this week, I thought I'd shoot this out now. We here at Birdmonster are up for a vote to be in regular rotation over at MTVu, the last MTV station where the "M" stands for "music" [...]

Here's what I remember about music in elementary school: In third grade, there was this mousy woman who looked like a cross between Gilda Radner and Rhea Pearlman. She came twice a month with her plug-and-play Casio and we sang "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy" and "Rockin' Robin" and that song about the hole in dear Liza's bucket, dear Liza a hole. They were, in other words, some of the most annoying songs ever written. Because of this rather unfortunate introduction, making music didn't seem all that fun to me. You can only sing "It's a Small World After [...]

Touring always renews our faith in humanity. We're essentially a band of roving hobos (and, really, all hobos are roving hobos. I've learned that there are three brands of homeless people: bums, tramps, and hobos. Bums don't travel and refuse to work (see: San Francisco, Market Street). Tramps travel but also refuse to work. They are not to be confused with traveling college student. Then there are bums: they travel and work. Mostly, I think, they paint fences. That's what I've been led to believe). Where was I? Hobos. Faith in humanity. Right. We go to towns, we've [...]

Well done, America. A few months ago, you had me worried. Despite the selection of an aggressively ignorant rube as his running mate, Jowls McCain was leading in many major polls and I left for tour fearing unmitigated badness. However, our economy, a leaning Jenga tower when we departed, kept swaying, swayed further, and, while it didn't quite topple, the financial atmosphere last week felt like that Jenga tower but after somebody let a toddler high on Vault Cola and Pixie Stix into the room. Which is to say: precarious. In the end, some say that Obama [...]

Look: you're nervous. Me too. Tomorrow, 'Merica chooses between Jowls McCain and Ears Obama. I'll be out here on the East Coast, absentee ballot safely mailed, three hours ahead of my home state and the usual experience of going to sleep thinking a Democrat won and waking up to apologizing newsmen and a fistful of Zoloft. I will not be sleeping well. Part of me simply wants to avoid the television all together---the silly race to call states first, the color-coded, kindergarten-easy way they analyze the election, the panels of eighteen well-groomed say-nothings yammering at ever increasing volumes: [...]

Canada, that land of Michael Moore's wettest dreams and birthplace of the only sport to make prominent use of brooms (apologies to Quiddich), hates it some Birdmonster. As chronicled recently, we were yet again shut out of the country we share our northern border for reasons that can be best described as "arbitrary" and "asinine." The whole ordeal (in addition to a similarly infuriating adventure two years back) has turned me off to the whole country. I'd rather vacation in Bosnia. But we also realize that perhaps unlucky circumstances have conspired against us. Maybe we're being [...]