Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

my music

Make It Special

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Every time we have an Arcati Crisis show I want to make it special.

I can’t help myself. When you play in the same city to largely the same crowd over and over again you have to keep it interesting. Spice things up a little.

Well, tomorrow night at the Tin Angel (7:30p, $10, you should come) is going to be spicy enough – it’s our first show with both Zina on drums and Jake on bass. It’s also my birthday show. It’s also our nearly annual Fall Extravaganza.

I decided that wasn’t enough special for one show, so it’s also going to be a CD release party…

Thanks to brand new mixing software and a few quick car trips and a week off from work, Arcati Crisis is ready to release our fifth totally DIY album at tomorrow night’s show – and it sounds really, really, really good. I’m in a bit of disbelief that we played it or that I mixed it. It’s a 10-song, 18-track LP of one of our first shows with Zina on drums at Philly venue The Fire, and it’s only available as a fan appreciation reward from the band.

What that means exactly I’m not sure. I’m going to figure it out while I’m asleep.

Of course, even with a week off I’m going to be up until the wee hours of the morning before a show burning these suckers, but that’s the price I pay for instant gratification.

the gift of me

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Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

Alright, how do I do this without being insufferably both maudlin and self-congratulatory.

Fuck it, it’s my birthday.

Over the summer I received a phone call. I was sure it was a prank or mistake. From what I could make out from the rapid-fire message, someone wanted to interview me for a magazine.

As it happened, I was jumping through a lot of life’s other hoops that week, so I didn’t return the call. But then I got another call. This was a real person, and yes she was looking for Peter the musician. She wanted to do a brief profile on me for a local indie music mag called Jump Philly – yes, a physical magazine, not just a blog.

Now, I’ve been featured in media before. Probably the best mention was during one of the Blogathons, when I was quoted on MSNBC. But that time and all of those other times I was being mentioned in relation to something I was helping to produce.

Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

This time I was being mentioned for producing myself – in particular, my songs for Eric Smith‘s novel.

I had an amazing, hilarious conversation with my interviewer Lauren over sushi on South Street. I coached myself on staying on-message before-hand, but it was no use: get me in front of someone who keeps asking me questions about music and see how well I stay “on-message.” I wind up telling anecdotes about Jem.

(Lauren immediately inquired with glee, “That was on the record, right? Because I am totally using that.”)

The one message I managed to hammer was spelled Dee Aye Why. Every answer dovetailed back to how I did something myself. Taught myself guitar. Got the keys to Drexel’s recording studio with just one term of classes. Self-recorded every song of mine ever released.

The issue came out around Labor Day. Before I could see it, someone at a wedding told me they had picked it up and seen a picture of me. Me!

The photos were taken some weeks after the sushi. Eric, Lauren, and I chased good light all over South Street with photog Ashley Hall until we found our spot.

She snapped away. I coached myself on staying on-message. With my body-language, I mean. I notoriously hate just about every photo of myself taken by anyone except for E and, apparently, MikeyIl. Everyone catches me in these gawky moments between moments. And I don’t like to smile with teeth, because it makes me look silly.

To say I was awaiting the issue with trepidation would be an understatement. There was so much message to be off! I’d probably come off sounding like an ass and looking like Goofy.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. And, let’s not misconstrue me here – I am not bragging about being phenomenally on-message in my interview and photo calll.

Photo shot by Ashley Hall, courtesy of Jump Philly.

No. First, I was in the hands of professionals who cared about getting my story right.

And, second, my life as a whole is what I want it to be, so what is there to get wrong? Lauren talked about my many musical endeavors, all true. Ashley shot a trim and – dare I say – slightly muscular looking version of me beside the ever dashing Eric Smith.

I had nothing to object to, and I have nothing to object to today. As far as I am concerned, thirty is a signpost on a road of awesome goals achieved and dreams realized. It means I’m old enough to call out petty bullshit for what it is, and for people to know to take me seriously even when I am proposing the most outlandish thing.

That’s a far cry from turning twenty, ten years ago, when I blogged: “The world is the container of a finite amount of possibilities both big and small, and i don’t think any chain of events will ever make me truly happy even if you substitute in all of the right jobs and friends and lovers where there are just empty spaces right now.”

Tell that to the guy in these photos.

Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns

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I am radically Do-It-Yourself when it comes to music.

Since Gina is also a dedicated DIYer we always go that route with Arcati Crisis with no questions asked. We record ourselves, design our own graphics and websites, rehearse at home, and are now working on creating our own merchandise.

Filmstar is different. They DIY some things, but not others. They’ve been to a recording studio, used a rehearsal space, hired a photographer, and are even discussing working with a manager.

I try not to unduly influence the band with my mutinous DIY ways, but when it came to dropping big dollars on studio recording when we had never been through the process before I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. The result was last month’s drum engineering session in our dining room, which I spent a big chunk of yesterday mixing down. [Read more…] about Filmstar Double A-Side: Drum Mixdowns

30 for 30 Project, 1992: “Precious Things” – Tori Amos

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Tori Amos has a new album out today, Night of Hunters, released just a few months shy of the twentieth anniversary of her seminal solo debut, Little Earthquakes.

I spent this morning tweeting my reaction to the new album, a classically set song cycle heavy on mythological themes. The music is bold and haunting, but the lyrics are largely obscure and off-putting.

Little Earthquakes was practically its opposite, all about clever wordplay even when the piano was reduced to music box simplicity, quoting the same lines again and again, or utter silence, on “Me and a Gun.”

(Watch me cover “Precious Things” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post or view the 30for30 tag for all of the related posts.)

I remember Tori’s debut tickling at the fringes of my consciousness that year, maybe on MTV. [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1992: “Precious Things” – Tori Amos

30 for 30 Project, 1991: “Losing My Religion” – R.E.M.

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You can read a lot of different meanings into “Losing My Religion,” but to me it has always been a song about the status quo, and how some people are better at changing than others.

I’ve never been good at change. Not in the short term, anyway.

In 1991 I had the opportunity to leave my small, private, religious school to attend a magnet-school program at Masterman, which was (and is still) the best public school in the state. I wanted to stay. Why attend a magnet school with other smart kids? The MG program I used to go to was lame. Wouldn’t this simply be all lame, all day? Yet, clearly I needed to leave – my grades were dipping as I grew increasingly bored with my classes.

In 1991 my interest in music waned. I was much more interested in reading. This might have been because records began to be phased out in favor of CDs. I remember the last vinyl LP we bought was Madonna’s Like a Prayer in 1989. We didn’t have a CD player in our house until 1994. I didn’t want one; I didn’t want to have to buy my cassettes all over again. Yet, clearly I fell behind – when I look at the hot singles and albums from the intervening four years, much of it is unknown to me.

I’ve never liked losing my religion, but eventually I learn how to move on.


(Watch me cover “Losing My Religion” on YouTube. For more info on my 30 for 30 Project, visit my intro post or view the 30for30 tag for all of the related posts.)

(1991 was one of the trickier years for me to choose because of my LP-to-CD gap. It was always going to be this or “I Touch Myself.” I would not be surprised if you hear Arcati Crisis covering this tune now that I know how to play it. I never realized it was so simple! I memorized all the changes in about twenty minutes; this was my first play through the song.)