-=The Universal - Surface Bursts=-

I showed up a little early this balmy friday night with no breeze. It had been a long week at my shitty day job and I was in rare form to blow off some steam and spout some shit - I kid you not, I was like a fountain.

Go Engine Now! Played first, and I admit I was a bit taken aback by their set. First of all, they were not who I had imagined them to be….my gray matter is old and spongey from years of cough-syrup and acid and I had them confused with someone else. It was a pleasant sort of mistaken-ness, for I ended up really enjoying their set. It was dreamy and spacey and gooey and dripping with something that convinced me that I would most enjoy this band if they came over and played in my living room while I made breakfast on a sunday morning.

While I was getting carried away spouting about bigfoot and the fellows who supposedly “found” a bigfoot carcass somewhere in Georgia (seriously…if you were 7′7″ tall, over 500lbs and covered with a think layer of matted brown hair, would you want to hang out in Georgia? It’s hot and humid and all the forests are covered with that virginia creeper shit - sounds hell of lame for bigfeet) suddenly it was time for us to go on, and I had not yet staged my drum kit. I hurriedly rushed inside and started setting up my kit, thankfully Go Engine Now had like 7 or 8 members and a small orchestra’s worth of equipment to load off stage so I didn’t feel like an ass for taking too long to set up.

We played a setlist something like -

Spaceman Blues

Vertigo

Of Science and Magick

Fleeting Protons

Beware The Sun

Dead Battery Accident

Happy Song

It was under a 40 minute set - there were 4 bands that night, otherwise we would have played 3 hours.

Next up was Exit 51 - who made a flyer for this show which they distributed around myspace that only included their band (funny? not sure). I found out what Sam (The VAC)’s “policy is on pissing in the bushes” thanks to one of the Exit51 dudes who was polite(?) enough to ask, helped someone at the water jug figure out why the water wasn’t coming out even though it was full (gotta open the top and let some air in), and giving a mini lecture on particle physics and pop science, and elucidated the difference between a “Hadron Collider” and a “Hardon Collider.” I was pretty well worn out. Exit 51 has never really been much my cup of tea - drunkpunk party music is just not my thing except in rare circumstances - they had a decent showing and seemed to play a pretty tight set - I just wasn’t “into it.”

Matt Hopper and the Roman Candles finished off the night with a jammy sort of set - lots of guitars with tight slapback delay and a tight rhythm section hanging loose for the most part. They played about an hour or maybe a bit less, and what I saw of it I really enjoyed. I had to leave before they finished as my head was throbbing and I was about to pass out from sheer exhaustion. I knew my 15 month old girl would wake me up early the next morning so I trudged home and crawled into bed - turns out I was right. She woke me up at 6:30am and would not go back to sleep despite my desperate, pained pleas.

We would personally like to thank everyone at the show who came and hung out, signed our mailing list, or bought some merchandise, and supported the VAC by drinking beer and wine. And of course, we thank the VAC and it’s incredible owners for once again hosting a killer show.

The first particle collisions are scheduled for later this year at Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider, a 17 mile long particle smasher on the Swiss/French border outside of Geneva.

“The detectors could see up to 600 million collision events per second, with the experiments scouring the data for signs of extremely rare events such as the creation of the much-sought Higgs boson.”
— Mike Lamont, CERN

The collider structure is buried over 400 ft beneath the ground, and designed to collide two counter rotating beams of heavy ions, propelled through a continuous vacuum by powerful superconducting magnets. Before they can do any testing, they have to super-cool the entire collider to a whopping -456.25°F !!! That’s cold. There are 27 stunning photographs of this marvel of science technology at The Boston Globe. Another interesting gallery with pictures of various phases of the assembly and construction process can be found at the CERN public outreach site photo gallery.

“The vacuum in the LHC is comparable to outer space, if it were a car tyre with a leak, there are so few gas molecules that it would take 10 000 years to go flat.”
— From “Interesting Facts” about the LHC, compiled by Hazel Morris.

People came out in droves for june 20th’s “Soulstice” party in downtown Boise in support of RadioBoise.org, soon to be sending out airwaves on 89.9FM as “Boise Community Radio.” It was a benefit not only to show our love for independent thinkers like RadioBoise, but to help them get the support and money they need to construct an antenna. This event was a success in that it brought the message to a lot (A LOT) of people about the importance of community radio, and that it brought a large measure of “mainstream” exposure for some of Boise’s best loved and underappreciated bands. Bring back REAL RADIO! Radio by the people, for the people and of the people!

We couldn’t be happier to have been asked to be a part of this, and we also want to thank all of the people who came and hung out, and all of the amazing artists who donated their time and talent to help promote this kick ass old-school-kickin-it-in-the-street show in downtown Boise:

• DJ Pat Benolkin
• The Very Most
• DJ Art Hodge
• Low Fi
• The Invasion
• Steve Fulton
• ATTN
• and yours truly,
  The Universal

The block party at The VAC on saturday was really off the hook. It ran from 12:00 noon to beyond 12:00 midnight, so there was just no way for me to have been able to be there all day, but this event was seriously jumpin’ off. There was so much to see and do and participate in that I was a little overwhelmed. I walked up to the place from two blocks away (where I was finally able to find a parking spot) and as I walked up the alley, the first thing I see other than throngs of people milling about was a big plywood wall with graffiti artists doing their thing. A small crowd of onlookers stood by admiring their work. There was a somewhat curious but welcome melange of people - a generous cross section of “burners”, bikers, artists, hipsters, and just curious people enthralled by the mass of entertainment provided by the burgeoning list of performers.

The block party entertainment lineup included:
Boise Hoopla
Kitty Club Burlesque show
Fire Kittens
Fyre Flys
The Maladies
Michael Ray Cox
Anna Sali

…and more! There was a classic car show, DJ’s, live art projects with Woman of Steel gallery, and tons of other unbelievable stuff to see and do.

Later into the evening the show went inside for the final three acts -
Revolt! Revolt!, The Universal, and System & Station. The VAC people originally had planned that the indoor show would charge a $5 cover, but in light of the circumstances, they dropped the cover entirely and made the indoor show free as well - which was good, because more people came inside for the show than would have if they had to pay $5, I think.

Revolt!Revolt! laid down their chops - Chris Bock and Jason Serna have some pretty stellar jams together - the songs are varied and interesting - both tonally and dynamically. The guitar tone was think and bassy enough to fill up the space where a bass player might have been otherwise, but this is a 2 piece band - Jason Serna was solid as ever, with drumming ranging from tightly controlled to all out manic bashing…pretty rad.

The Universal played next, and our set was pretty tight - things felt pretty good. There was a small contingent of biker types there who I am told really enjoyed us…which thrills me to no end. We did a bit of experimenting with the end of “Fleeting Protons” and a few other places as well…really just messing around where we could get away with it - jamming a bit here and there and going where the impulse takes us.

System & Station sounded great - I have always thought that they grew a few inches when they added Palmer to the lineup - I think he is a terrific guitarist. Their set was tight and stomped from song to song, unrelentlessly melting faces for about 40-45 minutes with their special brand of musicality.

All in all, this was a stellar night, and it was great to see this sort of public display going on in Garden City, of all places. Thanks again to The VAC for championing the cause and furthering the visibility of underground art in beautiful Garden City/Boise Idaho.

Hosted by the fine folks at The VAC. This show was great - the VAC folks really went all out in the green room - there was homemade hummus (which was delicious enough to warrant special mention), bowls of candy, beers in the cooler, fruit, pizza from Guido’s, and all sorts of other snacking fare…including my own beloved and oft-overlooked pineapple! The hospitality was nothing short of amazing.

Helvetia was great - some very trippy guitars generating swirly, etherial melodies that floated around the room, spreading their intoxication. Built To Spill closed the night with a solid and adored set…replete with some weird dreadlocked chick repeatedly (embarassingly) shouting out her undying love for Doug.

We had a killer time, the crowd was receptive, engaging and large. Not sure how we did at the merch table, but I did notice some new people on the mailing list - so thanks to whomever signed up on the list that night. Get ready for lots and lots of emails from overseas pharmaceutical companies! (Kidding….)

Thanks to The VAC, Helvetia, Built To Spill, and everyone who came out to this show.

NASA has decided to let people put their names inside a database, which will then be embedded in a microchip aboard The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

From the NASA site: “The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is the first mission in NASA’s Vision for Space Exploration, a plan to return to the moon and then to travel to Mars and beyond. LRO will launch no earlier than November 24, 2008, with the objectives to finding safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology.”

Yeah, that and carry our name (and yours) to the fucking moon!

To put your name in the database:

http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php

To see the official NASA LRO webpage, visit:

http://lunar.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Thanks to Blake for asking us to play on Tuesday. We had a blast. Both PussyGutt and Beautician sounded great, and it was cool seeing dudes shreddin’ (is that what you do?) on the half pipe. I saw several posters for this show, but loved this one the best:

That’s Blake at Halloween. Thanks to Too Much Distortion for having us on their Triple Thrash Tuesday.

The global population under centralized world government has collapsed into worldwide civil war. Everywhere it is man against man, blade to limb, scythe to throat, machine gun to head. The world is consumed by a lust for blood in it’s lust for sovereignty - societies crumble and give way to disorder and corruption - civilizations and their respective cultures crash headlong into each other at full speed.

Mankind essentially reverts to an ape-like being in a very short time, straying from technological pursuits to fight a war on more personal ground, a battle fought with sticks and stones. Neighbor against neighbor. Daily life is a struggle for survival on all levels. It seems that the entire world has gone completely bonkers and descended into complete anarchy.

A small group of human scientists, engineers, doctors, artists and other cultural representatives assemble a plan for escape and begin working in secret to further their aims. The central world government fails to take them seriously - branding them a “bunch of kooks and conspiracy nuts” and they end up being able to form a completely autonomous colony in a remote location in the South American Andes where they are free to develop unimaginable feats of technology - including rockets fueled by amazing dark-matter propulsion systems. In addition, they also design a fleet of semi-sentient robots programmed to preserve their creators’ DNA as well as a drive to complete the great work of their creators and escape the prison Earth had become with strands of human DNA intact.

An alchemist has been trying unsuccessfully for some time to cure his family’s illness - they have been stricken with a fever - “burning on the inside.” He has tried every tactic at his disposal, but the fever will not subside.

Tired and heartbroken at seeing his wife and only child stricken with this mysterious and seemingly incurable illness, he visits a hermit in a forbidden cave at the top of a treacherous mountain to seek his counsel. The hermit describes a “pure of heart” ritual potion that is extremely risky, but if carried out correctly can cure any illness.

The hermit tells him:

The herbs must be picked during a new moon, as the moonlight scares away the magic, allowing it to “see” the picker and hide itself.
The fire beneath the cauldron must burn only as the bluest star burns highest in the sky on it’s secret celestial journey. Homage must be paid to the star in the form of a heartfelt song of lament as it crosses the azimuth and begins it’s descent.
The solution must be boiled quickly first and cooled before it is steeped, witnessed by frogs, snakes, and lizards of cold blood, under cover of absolute darkness. The solids will float to the top if done correctly, and must be skimmed off with an acacia leaf, dried, and blown into a north blowing wind at the junction on a lei line.
When the potion has steeped for thirteen days, a strip of the purest silk must be soaked in the potion, careful not to taint the tincture by touching it with human hands. The strip of silk must then be carefully draped across the forehead of the person to be cured, and the liquid allowed to stream into the eyes. A feather from a golden hawk must be fixed in the hair, and a prayer to Ma’at the goddess of justice must be uttered ceaselessly through the night.

This he said, if followed faithfully and exactly, would cure their fire.

The alchemist sets off to gather the herbs by the new moon, picking them in a most careful and deliberate manner and uttering a quiet prayer as he places each bundle of herbs into his small goat leather satchel.

He sets the fire beneath the cauldron, sprinkling the coals with a special copper chloride compound to make the fire burn blue as the blue star passes silently overhead, reaching it’s azimuth just past midnight. The alchemist meanwhile sings his love for his family as tears of hope and misery stream from his eyes.

He goes out to the pond and catches several frogs and snakes and lizards in a woven bag and brings them back to this home to witness the boiling and cooling of the tincture.

He follows the rest of the hermit’s instructions exactly, and prays to Ma’at through the night while his wife and only son still lie in the grip of the fever. During the early morning hours, their moaning suddenly ceases. The alchemist, excited by this development, stops his singing and runs to their side where he finds that instead of curing their fever, the potion instead turned their bones to lead and left both of them dead.

Overwhelmed by despair and anger, the alchemist once again makes the journey to the hermit’s cave, this time seeking vengeance. When he arrives at the cave however, he finds no hermit, and no signs of there ever having been occupied by any animal other than mice and bats and other foul vermin. The alchemist slumps into a corner, absolutely stricken with grief. As his tears stream onto the ground, they wash away some of the dirt to reveal a small reflective piece of metal. He picks it up, brushes the dirt from it and gazes into it’s reflection with sheer disbelief and stupefaction - as the face he sees there is not his own, but instead the face of the hermit.

The ship has been lazily adrift in space for many years, and the robots on board had done their duty long ago when they jettisoned the corpses of their human masters. The humans had been dead for many years, but the batteries in the robots were still holding strong.

After the ship crash lands on a strange and remote world, the robots discover themselves lost in a civilization of robots who consider them to be strangers - outsiders - those without a designated purpose. The great robot city is a purposeful place - a totally utilitarian robot society where there are no humans to serve, and no robot is without it’s sanctioned purpose. Humans are at this point only crude constructs of a strange digital mythology leftover from centuries long lost in the green glow of lithium powered digital clocks.

After being banished unceremoniously from the great robotopolis, the two marooned robots wander aimlessly into the wastelands where they find another who was banned long ago for the most inconceiveable of robot sins - learning to grow and synthesize human flesh. In it’s greed to become more human, this ancient robot who taught itself to grow flesh had gotten caught in a loop and grew itself much too quickly and much too large to be able to move around - let alone serve any useful purpose.

The flesh growing robot imparts it’s folly and wisdom upon the two wandering robots, who understand the message and tell the giant being their story of being marooned on a ship built and occupied by humans, and that they carry perfectly preserved strands of human DNA.

The robots make their way back to the robot city from whence they had been banished. This time they are welcomed by guards who escort them to the royal robot palace where they face trial for the ultimate robot crime of “puposelessness,” from which they could be switched off permanently and their circuits recycled. During the initial trial process, the two marooned robots produce evidence of their human masters - the DNA - which ultimately convinces the robot jury that their purpose has been revealed - to further the great work of their creators and preserve the DNA of the human species.