I have pieces up for Lubbock, Atlanta, and NYC. Crazy routing! Nothing like the Dukowski booking method to get you in a lot of places in a short amount of time.

Lubbock
Atlanta
NYC

 

 

last night in columbus, ohio rob of common eider, king eider, caralee and i went to a goth/dark wave night at a club called skully's.
it made me feel like i had found a part of myself that i had forgotten. goth was the beginning of playing music for me and
regardless of the fact that i was wearing eternal tour fatigues of just jeans and a black inside out this song is a mess t shirt and most everyone else was in full bat wing, bloody clown wig, sex fascist, electrical tape gear, i still felt some how a part of things.
in that clearly everyone there did not like who they are and were trying so hard to be someone else.
and doing this, by again, dancing that feeling away. physically and emotionally pushing against everything in a painful, ecstatic almost deaf swivel.
the people there were between 18 to about 50 but all still blackened.
goth is wonderful in that way.
in indie rock you just look like you work at home depot when you get older. in goth you look more dedicated.
i think the hot, fantasy, younger goths there hated the older death rock types but they will eventually respect "the life" unless they are poseurs and get corporate jobs and are going to quit art someday anyhow. if so they are so wired for idiocy already, their prudish judgements are irrelevant.
it has been crossing my mind to stop playing music a lot as of late, out of fear, out of insecurity but last night made me realize that a normal life is a pointless and hollow pressure that has been weighing on me and hurting my heart for nothing. as one, oh, can choose to press on instead.
despite it being an obvious platitude but i have somehow allowed it to fade from view;
i hope this isn't silly but, for life, please. XOXOXOXOXOOXOXOX

 

alright,

this is a cheap free school posting. i am just linking a wiki article. sorry. alright, whatever, just to get your feet wet.

here is something to think about. maybe you can think about it in context w/ my camera projects, ches' recording projects, and the letters.

relational aesthetics

---

here is a grant i am sponsoring with my friend (if you have a blog, please post this):




---


I have been asked by the band if I could read Jim Lindberg's PUNK ROCK DAD: NO RULES, JUST REAL LIFE. yes, the pennywise singer's book. i am going to read it outloud to the jamie and ches and caralee while we drive. if someone bring's this book in, you get a special prize!

 

 

last night at our NYC show
a skunk was found back stage
it made playing surreal and musky
please be aware of your surroundings

 

This is crazy.

 

I've just started reading this book by Rebecca Solnit. It's good so far.

Come to the merch table. There is a goodwill next to this club in boston - so I bought a bunch of children's books. come to the merch table and read and look at children's books. bring some more to add to the library. let the library frow and fluxuate.

 

i am tired of fighting. our chiefs are killed. looking glass is dead.
toohulhulsoote is dead. the old men are all dead. it is the young men who
say yes or no. he who led the young men is dead. it is cold and we have no blankets.
the little children are freezing to death. my people, some of them, have run away
to the hills and have no blankets, no food. no one knows
where they are, perhaps freezing to death. i want to have time to look for my children and see how many of them i can find.
maybe i shall find them among the dead. hear me my chiefs, i am tired. my heart is sick and sad.
from where the sun now stands i will fight no more forever.

 

yep, he's in our room. i am sleeping next to him. Check him out with Common Elder on this tour.
Hello to Ed Saad in Birmingham.
what i meant to say a few days ago is that i am listening to the Tzadik recording of Morton Feldman's: Patterns in a Chromatic Field every day. I keep hearing what seem to be new sections. But shit, what do you expect? its an eighty minute piece.
thanks for your participating in y/our town.
you're nuts.

 

These two are opening up for Xiu Xiu on some upcoming shows at the end of the tour.

Check it out:

http://www.myspace.com/maryandjess

 

 

 

 

yep, he's in our room. i am sleeping next to him. Check him out with Common Elder on this tour.
Hello to Ed Saad in Birmingham.
what i meant to say a few days ago is that i am listening to the Tzadik recording of Morton Feldman's: Patterns in a Chromatic Field every day. I keep hearing what seem to be new sections. But shit, what do you expect? its an eighty minute piece.
thanks for your participating in y/our town.
you're nuts.

 

yep, he's in our room. i am sleeping next to him. Check him out with Common Elder on this tour.
Hello to Ed Saad in Birmingham.
what i meant to say a few days ago is that i am listening to the Tzadik recording of Morton Feldman's: Patterns in a Chromatic Field every day. I keep hearing what seem to be new sections. But shit, what do you expect? its an eighty minute piece.
thanks for participating in y/our town.
you're nuts.

 

---
carla bozulich sound check
shirts blowing
from fan on the wall

---

FREE SCHOOL #5

OK, Free school is non directional, going in all places at once, not knowing where it's going, just rambled ideas rambling together in no where, there are no themes, just posited thoughts and ways to navigate with questions:

An Interview With Brian Eno - From Brussels With Love (album) - Les Disques Du Crepuscule (label)

This is easy, you don't have to read! just listen to this MP3! A brian eno interview, to extend "the interview" section of the free school...


click here click here

 

I have been listening to the Tzadik recording of Morton Feldman's Patterns in a Chromatic Field every day on this tour.

 

The Backroom (The Space Behind the Mink)
3718 Main at Alabama
Houston, TX 77002
Doors at 7pm

see you there perhaps?

 

Please come to the merch table and record speaking, music, or anything else onto my recorder. David Horvitz will have it. I am going to write pieces around the found sounds.
thanks very much.

 

hello,
Please ask David Horvitz at the merch table for "the recorder," and record anything you want. I will make percussion/tape pieces using the material, to be posted as mp3s on this blog.
thanks!!!!

 

on every dollar bill that comes through my hands on tour i am stamping this on the back side: A small distraction interrupting you from your everyday routine.

I made the stamp here.

You can download the file that I used here. You have to save it. It might not open properly if you just click on it.


---

FREE SCHOOL #3:


Seth Price: DISPERSION

go here to download:

http://www.epc.buffalo.edu/sound/mp3/sp/price_seth/seth_price_dispersion.pdf




-

will relational aesthetics save the industry?

-

Do you take risks?
Do you have faith in people?

-


-

An Action at Walmart in Deming, New Mexico at around 2am. Taking all the "Support Our Troops" magnets in the store "out of the economy" by throwing them in an inaccessible area in between the display shelves they were on. This was not documented (though, probably recorded by the store's surveillance system).

 

David and I, at least, are jogging after shows. Please join us.
An alternate plan is to run in place, let the earth spin, kind of like a treadmill concept. Sort of.

 

if you ever think of yourself as less than you are...
if you are ever worried about the
depth and talent of your
ability to make the object of
your fantasy feel as enchanted by you as you are of them...
there is a solution!
a field of measure called
COCKNESS
you can adjust it whichever potency or depth or grind you wish
woman or man or girl or boy, both or neither
COCKNESS is steady and malleable at the same time

you take a sample and then reform it to meet your assumptions

it is perfect

if you are wrong when wondering what they want

just add more or add less. do not worry.

COCKNESS serves you both forever my darling...!

 

Alright, so I am still figuring out what I am doing. So, you know like how when new technologies form, lets say photography, there is a whole process of it figuring itself out - it goes through a lot of experimentation and what not - until finally it has developed into a strong full form (or maybe, it just becomes fully adapted within a social order - which maybe it then has a potential of changing). Ok, I will stop. What I am saying is: I am still figuring out what I am doing. Should I post once a week? SHould I post when I feel compelled to? Who knows?!?!?!

I want to put this here now, which I mentioned last time.

To go with the tour:


Overcoming Tourism. Hakim Bey.

 

Throughout the tour I will post things here to read and think about. If you want, you can come talk to me at the merch table and we can discuss them.

Maybe I will do a theme. Or maybe I will do something varied. I don't know.


Here is assignment #1:


a)

Artist: Jens Haaning - You can download his entire catalogue for FREE as a pdf. Everything is included, all visual documentation of art works, and the essays. Look at this. A whole book for free.

b)

Selling Wine Without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net. by John Perry Barlow This is a really good essay about the internet and digital information, and ways to think about what information is. It was written by, I think, the guy who wrote songs for the Grateful Dead. He has an argument that the Grateful Dead were one of the biggest live bands around b/c they allowed people to freely record their live shows and freely distribute it, and thus the free spreading of this information basically was a kind of marketing that in turn generated larger profits for the band in other areas. There are many typos, so I suggest reading it really really fast, then your eye won't pick up the typos. This is filled with so many great ideas, I don't even know where to start.

c)

N.N., untitled by Stefan Heidenreich. OK, so I read this in a book called: In the Future No One Will Be Famous, which is such a great fucking idea. And something really interesting to think about. Can you imagine the social role of the celebrity dying. Like, becoming totally anachronistic. That'd be so hilarious. But, maybe that is what is happening. Ok, so this talks about the history of the artist-name - when the artist's name became important - how it is looked at in connection with a work of art - etc.... etc... This should be read with this Foucault essay on the role of the author, but I'll save that for next time.

If you want, look at these for now.... COme talk to me. Think thoughts already thought and generate your own thoughts which are probably being thought by other people at the exact same moment. The free school. Free ideas. If you go to a real school, ask your department if you can take my course as an independent study and get real credits for it! Dupe the system! Fuck everything!

Next week: Foucault. Maybe a Hakim Bey essay on tourism, to go along with the "tour." And maybe another artist to write/think about? Who knows, next week!!!!!!

---

I just put this show thing together

 

 

and we forgot to list this show but is jogging and happening
8-18 albuquerque, NM launchpad

 

hello!
the question of the week is gone!
the tables have inverted
now it is time for
QUESTION OF THE TOUR!i!I!I!Ii
THE
directions are
instead of me asking you questions please,
if you see us at a show,
in a self addressed stamped envelope
written on a piece of paper
with room for a reply,
ask me or anyone in
xiu
xiu
a
question
and we will
poste haste
post an answer
back to you in the provided envelope.
the question can be about anything:
food, advice,
music, xiu xiu ,
personal questions,
philosophy, cats...
ANYTHING
we will do our best
to satisfy your quest.
THANK YOu

 

i am just thinking that the concept of stealing something is probably going to be very outdated soon. i'm not presenting some radical critique, i think i am postulating something that is happening. it's more of a prediction than a criticism.

when things shift (paradigm shifts?), everything gets contradicted.

shit, is this sounding vague? or, is it sounding clear?

--

i had this really interesting conversation with someone who just got back from some internet conference with google and they said people are predicting that there will be a reversal in where money is made. people won't buy music anymore. instead, people will pay money to put music online. like, not bands. i mean, like fans, like someone will put up music they listen to online and pay to do it... like using myspace or something - but paying some fee to upload the music you like so that other people can here.

this sounds a little crazy?????? but it's really interesting - b/c it's a total reversal. and it is valid enough for some people to actually discuss it as a potential future.

---

this has nothing to do with anything:

there's an interesting statement in an hans ulrich obrist and marina abramovitz conversation where abramovitz says that in the future artists will not use objects but will transfer energy directly from them to the audience. not in a "conceptual art" material less art-making practice - but purely about energy. so, it's like being a shaman, maybe. and that is like dealing with magic. but then, these seems so elitist also?

i had this thought that might make a bunch of people mad, but the idea of making art that uses mass production (using materials from the world, and turning them into some kind of material) should outweigh the negative effects that production entails. Like, the idea that this is "art" isn't necessarily good enough as a form of justification for the production of a ton of books or cd's or posters (all things that essentially use up resources and inevitably turn to waste), the "art value" of it must be greater than the fact that it's not just waste.

ok, i said it, people are pissed at me now? but, you know what i mean? i just printed 1000 newspapers. they look cool. they are "my art." but they will end up as trash soon enough. did something meaningful enough happen that outweighs the fact that these newspapers used a bunch of paper and ink and some process that will probably give someone cancer and then turn into trash?

but this is why i love digital. it doesn't create waste. and it can be reproduced infinitely. or like live music, there is still some kind of energy there.

 

 

in the future everything will be free.

there will be no stealing because the idea of stealing won't exist anymore.

it's not that you can HAVE anything you want.

that is not it.

it is that everything will be ACCESSIBLE.

like air.

ok, not everything.

those things not accessible will bring back into play the role of magic.

-

http://www.left-bank.org/bey/immediat.htm



iii.

For art, the intervention of Capital always signals a further degree of mediation. To say that art is commodified is to say that a mediation, or standing-inbetween, has occurred, & that this betweenness amounts to a split, & that this split amounts to "alienation." Improv music played by friends at home is less "alienated" than music played "live" at the Met or music played through media (whether PBS or MTV or Walkman). In fact, an argument could be made that music distributed free or at cost on cassette via mail is LESS alienated than live music played at some huge We Are the World spectacle or Las Vegas niteclub, even though the latter is live music played to a live audience (or at least so it appears), while the former is recorded music consumed by distant & even anonymous listeners.

iv.

The tendency of Hi Tech, & the tendency of Late Capitalism, both impel the arts farther & farther into extreme forms of mediation. Both widen the gulf between the production & consumption of art, with a corresponding increase in "alienation."

 

What I hate Most: I hate that my dad died... and that I never got a chance to tell him how much I loved him, and how his sudden passing has left such a gaping hole in my house with literally hundreds of well wishers coming through and trying to be a part of it all - I don't like this vibe, I feel they are feeding off my grief. What I love Most: I love the fact that this recent event has really made me look into things a lot more... i don't believe in what the government tells me, and I've been looking into the institutions that are kept a secret and how much information they let us know, and i love that I'm no longer one of those people that has been left in the dark.

 

hi YOU!
it got back to me that some people are unhappy with the bonus tracks
not
being available on the above mentioned cd or lp.
i am very very sorry about that.
there should have been a way for people who bought
the cd or lp to get those tracks
as well without having to buy them.
it is totally
reasonable consideration.
on our next release we will make that possible.
thank you!!!!!
xoxoxoxoox
jamie

 

it is getting astoundingly difficult for musicians to tour internationally
as airline restictions for baggage become tighter and tigher.
now one can check one bag and carry on one.
it had been 2 carry ons and 2 checked with a wink and a nod if you were
polite and went over until very recently.

shahzad ismaily is a musician that ches plays with frequently.
he sent this to ches...



i will say yesterday was the very first time i thought i had gone over 
the line, so i was actually a bit nervous (rare for me), but i made it 
nonetheless . . . no checked bags, just  NINE carryons,  including:

an electric bass
a banjo
a Moog-sized backpack
an over the shoulder bag full of pedals
a small medicine bag
a drone box
a small bag full of recording gear
my laptop
a ukelele

S.I. i salute thee
xoxoxoxooxoxoxox

 

 

as you may have read above this is the final
vvvvvv.xiuxiu.org
question of the week
8
8
8
then it will become a new beast/creature/gosling
qUestIon Of thE Tour
but more on that later

my life has changed and now i want to change.
but i wish my life had stayed the same and
there are some things i realize that
i do not want to do away with. i am not all bad...
perhaps?

in one sentence each-
what do you hate most about your life?
what do you like most about your life?

some answers will be posted on this blog
for the last time when i mutha fried room
and board get them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!IIIIIIIIIIIIii
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!i!II!IlllllllLlLlLlLlL
lLlLLlLlLliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
please send them, the answers,
to
willitburn@hotmail.com

 

 

hey come see us play a show:

Xiu Xiu
August 2008
14 - Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista
15 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista
16 - Tucson, AZ @ Solar Culture - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista
19 - Lubbock, TX @ Tequila Jungle - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista
20 - Austin, TX @ Mohawk - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
21 - Houston, TX @ Orange Show Center for Visionary Art - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
22 - Birmingham, AL @ Bottle Tree Cafe - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
23 - Atlanta, GA @ Drunken Unicorn - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
24 - Charlotte, NC @ Milestone - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
25 - Baltimore, MD @ Sonar - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
26 - Providence, RI @ Living Room - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
27 - Boston, MA @ Paradise - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Common Eider, King Eider
28 - New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom - w/ Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Prurient, Common Eider, King Eider
29 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Garfield Artworks - w/ Common Eider, King Eider, Prurient
30 - Columbus, OH @ Milo - w/ Common Eider, King Eider, Prurient
September 2008
1 - Cleveland, OH @ Grog Shop - w/ Common Eider, King Eider, Prurient
2 - Pontiac, MI @ Crofoot Ballroom - w/ Common Eider, King Eider, Prurient
3 - Chicago, IL @ Bottom Lounge - w/ Common Eider, King Eider, Prurient
4 - Dekalb, IL @ House Cafe - w/ Common Eider, King Eider, Prurient
5 - Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon - w/ Common Eider, King Eider, Prurient
6 - Minneapolis, MN @ Triple Rock Social Club - w/ Prurient, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone
7 - Fargo, ND @ Aquarium - w/ Prurient, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone
10 - Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey - w/ Prurient, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone
11 - Portland, OR @ Backspace - w/ Prurient, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone
13 - San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill - w/ Prurient, Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Mary Halvorson and Jessica Pavone
October 2008
11 - St Petersburg, Russia @ A2
12 - Moscow, Russia @ B2
14 - Helsinki, Finaland @ Tavastia
15 - Oslo, Norway @ John Dee
16 - Gothenburg, Sweden @ Nefertiti
17 - Stockholm, Sweden @ Debaser
19 - Faqra, Lebanon @ Panorama
21 - Berlin, Germany @ Lido
22 - Leipzig, Germany @ UT Connewitz
23 - Prague, Czech Republic @ Meet Factory
24 - Vienna, Austria @ Brut
25 - Krakow, Poland @ Unsound Festival

 

click the red button

 

and this