BEAUTY PILL
@beautypill
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That band that sounds like Beauty Pill. write to beautypill @mac .com
Washington, DC
Joined June 2009
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This horseshit is why I have to exit this fucking website.
I’m fading out of here soon, but you can find me on Bluesky and Threads and most importantly on Bandcamp.
I’ve spent my life enduring overconfident, mediocre white men and Elon Musk is a cliche.
🇺🇸 The Trumpinator Bobblehead
😎 I'LL BE BACK in 2024
✅ Click To Own Yours Now!
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@jgriffingraham
This is the same kid who yells “Witness me!” right?
Ma’am, I’m afraid to tell you this, but I do believe you’re raising an artist.
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Thinking today about Albini's infamous distaste for compression in the recording process.
Some of the people around me in the late 90s kind of decided to adopt this stance out of admiration for him. But I feel they missed the point.
[1/?]
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Found out yesterday that my heart donor was a woman.
A woman! I now have a woman’s heart inside beating in my chest. This is beautiful. I’m so grateful.
I’m sorry to inform you that if I survive, this will only make me sexier.
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My sincere proposal is Smiths fans should shift allegiance to a non-fascist, more feminist alternative. Harriet Wheeler is every bit as poetic and profound a writer. Spend time with the lyrics for nearly any Sundays song.
And she didn't turn into a fucking bigot.
Not kidding.
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This morning I am taking Pierce, my neighbor Melissa’s 5 year old son, to school.
On the way, he shouts numbers he thinks are too huge to add.
Pierce: What is 6 million plus 6 million?
Me: That’s 12 million, buddy.
Pierce: WHAT?!? HOW CAN YOU KNOW THAT?!?
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I keep flashing to some advice Ian MacKaye gave me about perfectionism.
"A chef who delivers a brilliant meal three hours late for dinner is a terrible chef."
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If I owned Bandcamp, I'd invest in marketing outreach to more people. The average person has never heard of the site.
The default assumption is that there's only a tiny sliver of the populace who would find it worthwhile.
I think that's a huge cultural and economic mistake.
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Hello, good people. I am alive another day!
I am in a very good hospital with very smart doctors. I have health insurance.
Some other good news: I am at the very top of the heart transplant list.
My current heart is a ticking time bomb, but I remain optimistic I will survive.
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Speaking for myself, I do not give a fuck.
My aesthetic is based in late-period Beatles and De La Soul etc. Less to do with "documentation" and more to do with imaginative transfiguration.
Eternal respect for Electrical Audio's passion for Truth, but I like MAGIC.
[3/3]
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Records sound worse now because budgets are absurdly low and people are sacrificing skilled labor. There is a lot of pressure on the artist to do this.
People have a romance for “vintage sound” because albums used to have budgets which allowed for skilled labor and studio time.
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It’s fun that Dave Brubeck’s house looks exactly like what you imagined Dave Brubeck’s house to look like, based on the music.
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Still trying to process the fact that John Lydon is a MAGA/Brexit piece of shit and Richard Marx is now a punk hero.
In a way, it’s beautiful.
What an ignorant, impotent, quivering shit-stain you are.
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From my vantage, Albini's issue with compression was it fundamentally interrupted his one true mission: to capture truth.
Compression essentially makes loud sounds quieter and quiet sounds a louder. Alters the gesture of the musician.
I think that's what Albini disliked.
[2/?]
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I try to make it simple: I have not ever once been paid by Spotify. At all. Ever. And I don’t expect to.
Whereas I have paid my MORTGAGE with Bandcamp.
is there a feasible way to make the general public value music monetarily now, or is spotify damage permanent?
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Hello. I am home and my dog is still adorable.
Love to you.
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I have been in the hospital 3 weeks today.
My big news today is I stood up and managed to make it to the chair without passing out.
Yay me.
Someone cue the Rocky theme song.
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@initcouture
@thisdiegolopez
Am I understanding this correctly?
You are blaming the black dudes?
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So the big news from me tonight: I “graduated” from the ICU.
I now go into physical therapy.
As soon as I am able, I intend to make an album with my band and Arto Lindsay that I hope can make you fall in love again with music and sound and ideas and sensations.
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When I worked on the Fugazi catalogue, sometimes (at seemingly random moments) the band would send me a check.
They didn’t owe me any money.
The check included a characteristically minimalist note.
“Thanks.”
Punk is as punk does.
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Yo: I know I should keep this shit secret, but I am bursting with too much joy.
ARTO LINDSAY will produce the next Beauty Pill album.
A genius and an idol. Have always loved his fearlessness and intelligence and commitment.
I could not be more thrilled. For real.
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My band received a very kind, sweet email from Iggy Pop(!) today. I’m probably gonna be swooning throughout the weekend.
If you wanna reach me, just look up. I’ll be in the clouds…
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Today I got some positive health news.
I haven’t talked about it publicly, but for the last 7 months, it looked certain I was gonna die soon. I only told a few people, including my band.
But today I got some news that might save my life.
Huge relief ‘cause I don’t wanna die.
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Two pieces of personal good news:
[1] They have identified the exact infection bacterium. They’re figuring out which antibiotic is the best treatment.
[2] My echocardiogram from yesterday showed no infection around the heart!
TLDR: I’m gonna survive.
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Genius is complex, but it seems to me that main message of Lee Perry’s life is simple:
That thing in front of you? Make something out of it.
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People use the phrase “local band” as a term of diminution. The implication being “just a local band.”
But I’m from DC. Our “local bands” change the world.
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My favorite artists are unreliable.
PJ Harvey, MF Doom, Keith Jarrett, and Q Tip do not give a fuck what I want.
And Fugazi disappeared in the age we most need them.
Artists do what they want.
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To the motherfuckrs at Songtradr:
The direction Bandcamp needs is the exact opposite of what you’re doing.
KEEP the staff, KEEP the structure, but expand OUTWARDS.
What percentage of the world’s populace has even HEARD of Bandcamp?!
Yeah. I know.
FIX THAT.
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America's last words will be "So are we just gonna let this happen?"
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The most amazing thing about
@Bandcamp
is when people pay more money than you've asked for the release.
Happens a LOT.
Disproves a lot of cynical things the music industry presumed about music listeners. A lot of people who love music WANT THE MUSICIANS TO SURVIVE.
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Laurie Anderson has invited Beauty Pill to play a show. Next week.
Saturday 10/16/21. The final night of her Public Theater residency.
I know I swore we would not play any shows in 2021.
But… umm… it’s Laurie Anderson. We could not say no.
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full disclosure: I am struggling a bit today.
I am 6’4” and it is taking a while for my vast vasculature to adapt to the new heart.
So I am enduring some physical misery today. It’s rough.
I will make it through, though.
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I am being discharged from the hospital today. And now I am met with this surprise Marcus Moore piece(?!)
A good day.
I wrote about Chad Clark aka
@beautypill
, one of the most thoughtful musicians I’ve ever encountered.
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I believe this is my last night in the hospital.
I believe I will be in my own bed this time tomorrow night.
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Today is the 7th anniversary of me standing outside the Natural History museum when a young brother with a big afro pulled up on a bicycle.
He had a huge boom box on his shoulder, playing Kate Bush’s “The Sensual World.”
He yelled “KATE BUSH, BITCHES!”
I remember this vividly.
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I *produced* the Dismemberment Plan records and the production was clearly next level, but it never got me laid.
I’ve never been mentioned in any review.
Re: getting laid: There’s still time. Hope springs eternal. Hi.
I see that there’s dismemberment plan talk on the timeline . I once went to see them play just to get laid and it worked, happy Christmas
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I survived my heart biopsy. I’m on dilaudid.
During the surgery, I had a dream that I was sitting cross-legged (which I almost never do) on a floating cloud, rhythmically hi-fiveing friendly golden bears to the Beatles.
(They played an all-Beatles playlist during my surgery.)
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Hello good people: I am awake. Strangely, I am back in my hospital bed.
I have come out of anesthesia. Nobody has explained to me yet what happened. There are no doctors or nurses around.
My street clothes are gone, replaced by a hospital gown. I am pretty sure I’m alive.
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Good people of the internet, I remain improbably alive.
Love to you.
Gonna listen to “Rainbow Connection” on the way home.
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Update: Still don’t have a precise diagnosis, but they have put me on IV antibiotics because of my symptoms (shivering etc.)
I feel like I’m in good hands and I’m probably not gonna die.
I have come to hate hospitals, but I’m glad I’m here.
Thank you to all who reached out.❤️
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Six string rickenbacker are sexy when it’s 1999 and you’re a black dude opening for Modest Mouse in Seattle, fearlessly facing a white crowd who view you as an alien creature.
(Also: star stickers are cool.)
too many people seem to not understand that a twelve string rickenbacker is nowhere near as interesting as a six string rickenbacker. a rick six is your secret weapon, a scimitar made of chain link fence, a toy percussion instrument, and your best friend who smokes too much
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It’s my birthday. I’m having Indian food and drinking riesling.
Cheers to all of you.
Your birthday present to me will be you will vote every republican out of office.
Thanks in advance.
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“Beauty Pill. Really creative band. You’re gonna be hearing more from them.”
— Iggy Pop(!) on the BBC
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This is a strongly held preference, but it is only a personal preference:
Musicians recording at home: Please let go of the aim to "sound pro." Embrace the special characteristic weirdness of your personal home environment. Let that vibe come through in your work.
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BANDS/MUSICIANS: I can't stress this enough: Before you sign with anyone (label, agent, manager, publicist, lawyer, whoever) do this simple thing:
Try to have a quick, candid, private conversation with another artist on their roster.
It's common sense, but easy to forget.
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Juice over tech. Always.
Portions of the pro audio community are up in arms about Billie Eilish using an inexpensive mic in a bedroom and getting all the Grammys. I find it pretty hilarious.
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My current goal in the hospital is to get out of the ICU.
Doctors have one single criterion that will allow me to do this: They need me to stand up and walk over to a chair without falling or getting dizzy.
I try each day and so far no dice, but I am determined to make it.
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Here is an idea I'd like some music journalist to pursue: Find the DOOM imposters.
Interview them. Ask them what it was like. Ask them how they feel about it now.
That's an interesting topic, I think.
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Hey, there were some hospital scheduling complexities and surgery will actually begin at midnight.
Recommend following
@erinbalancing
, my humble and smart and beautiful bandmate, for updates this weekend.
This Twitter will likely go dark until Monday when I’m lucid again.
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Sequence of works in my twenties
Smart Went Crazy “Con Art” (1998)
Dismemberment Plan “Emergency & I” (1999)
Fugazi “The Argument” (2000)
Beauty Pill “The Cigarette Girl From The Future” (2001)
Dismemberment Plan “Change” (2001)
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Guy Picciotto once wrote me an email that opened with “How are you doing in this time of great insult?”
I think about that perfect line often.
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I had a great and sweet conversation with Ian MacKaye. He is being super compassionate and affectionate towards me. I appreciate it.
He said “Hospitals and airplanes… they don’t let you sleep and the food is terrible, but you gotta just endure the ride.“
Good advice.
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Listen, I need you to understand something and I ask you to retweet.
Trump declaring Antifa terrorists seems like another one of his silly dumb-guy-who-shouldn't-have-been-elected ideas, like buying Greenland.
But it has serious, dangerous potential consequences.
[1/3]
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Something I think all musicians want people to know:
Bandcamp Friday is very cool, but
@Bandcamp
on every other day is a fair and honest company. The fees that thy extract are perfectly reasonable and moderate.
This is in extreme contrast to the vampiric rapacity of Spotify.
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I am home from the hospital and I’m sipping a banana almond milk smoothie.
I’m on prescribed morphine. I am listening to “Revolver.” I am cuddling my (also injured) dog.
For at least a few minutes, life is bearable.
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I made it through the MRI!
Personal achievement for me. (My last MRI, I had a claustrophobic panic.)
I sang along and harmonized to the beeps and clangs of the machine.
I have an album in my head, I went from track to track.
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Watch this whole performance and catch the final moment of the clip.
Punk AF.
Remembering Nina Simone, born on this day in 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina. Here she is performing “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” in Montreux, Switzerland in 1976.
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My dad died tonight. Everything good about me comes from him.
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I’m told that
@Bartees_Strange
is shouting out Beauty Pill on NPR again today.
this is my take on that: Bartees is a prince of a human and wants to be good to everyone.
He consistently cites me as an influence, which is mostly because he is kind. Like Kurt Cobain was.
[1/2]
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This is absolutely the right statement and I concur 1000%
Albini will be remembered for his reliably questioning arbitrary industry "standards", his generosity in freely sharing his techniques and insights, his modeling of expansive empathy & critical self-relection, and innumerable beautiful records. Sending love to all who knew him.
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In 2004, a cop told me how easy it would be to make me disappear.
He said this because he was irritated by my demeanor. He thought I was too calm/smug about being pulled over. He wanted to remind me that shit could get very dark very quick.
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File under: Unexpected thrills:
Iggy Pop is currently name-checking Beauty Pill on the BBC.
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Sometimes
@kristinhersh
texts me photos of her pancakes to cheer me up. The idea is one day I will come over for a breakfast feast.
She’s beaming me hope. I feel it!
As love languages go, pancakes jpegs make for a pretty efficient transmission of affection.
❤️
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Waiting for surgery to begin.
Portrait of the artist as a “sexy android.”
Final Cylon selfie.
Here’s to the future.
Love to yous.
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The eternally adorable G-rated zaniness of Weird Al is pretty fascinating, sociologically. Like there's nothing he could do that I would find too corny.
There's this insoluble sweetness.
That seems pretty valuable to me, culturally.
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Should be noted:
@Bartees_Strange
, on the eve of his high intensity record release and tour, took time aside to call me in the hospital and tell me “you’re gonna survive.”
At a moment when he could be thinking exclusively about himself and his career, he called me to be kind. ❤️
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Neighbor’s friend: So what do you do for a living?
Me: I’m a musician. I also produce records and I create soundtrack music. Mostly underground, independent stuff. Non-mainstream.
Neighbor’s friend: Like Coldplay?
Me:… ummm… Yes. Like Coldplay.
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Love
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@zerobot
@initcouture
@thisdiegolopez
I see.
So the white guy who seems rude and vicious and arrogant is actually hapless and innocent.
And the (off-camera) black guys who seem blithely bemused by his foul behavior are actually the sinister masterminds of the whole scene.
It all makes so much sense to me now!
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It’s interesting how well you’re paid for music that is attached to something else (a film, a commercial, etc.) and how little you’re paid for a record.
Music is mainly valued when it’s helping to sell something else.
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I am taking a small number of mastering clients this fall.
For a decade+, I was a full-time mastering engineer. I’m good. I remastered the entire Fugazi catalogue. Then I got very popular and I burned out and I stopped.
These days, I do it only when I feel like it.
[1/2]
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Working with Fugazi reinforced my belief that instruments amplify people.
Want to start a great band? Find the coolest, smartest, most alive people you know and learn to make music together.
Instruments amplify people. That’s what they’re for.
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If I survive this, I will have had 3 hearts in my lifetime.
The BBC should have cast ME as the first black Doctor Who!
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I am admittedly self-interested in suggesting this, but couldn’t this time be viewed as a time to re-center albums in our lives?
Like, in a time when live music is essentially decimated, why not just celebrate recorded music?
I haven’t seen a single article to this effect.
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Had a conference call with my band where we acknowledged that my summer in the hospital shattered our momentum.
My bandmates were unanimously positive and optimistic. Everyone’s vibe was like “We’ll figure it out. We can adapt.”
This was a huge relief to me.
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I have an unusual Steve Albini story. He was a personal hero in my life. I'm not sure he even knew that.
I wish I'd told him. I always figured I'd hang out with him someday.😢
I wrote about this in the Beauty Pill Bandcamp space, free to join.
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PSA: I’m mastering again. Because I want to.
During the decade I disappeared as an artist, I ran a mastering studio. I mastered great music… the entire Fugazi catalogue, Mary Timony, etc.
I’m good.
I stopped ‘cause I got burned out and needed to be an artist again.
[1/2]
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Upon our reunion, Stanley got so happy he started crying. A combination of happy tail wagging and whimpering sounds.
It occurred to me he thought he might never see me again. Then I remembered I had thought that was possible too.
So his crying made me start crying.
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People in general have been very kind to me. And it means a lot. Thank you.
This shit is scary. It’s nice to not feel alone.
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A wild wave of excited
@99piorg
listeners crested on my band last week when people discovered the “Describes Things” album via
@romanmars
passionate recommendation.
As a result, my monthly medicine expenses have been covered.
Life changing in a direct way.
#grateful
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Greta Thunberg’s thing is “Don’t fucking tell me I’m ‘brave.’”
Radical seriousness.
I’m so into it
I’ve wondered this as well. Men of a certain age seem *really* ruffled by her. Is it her confidence? Imperviousness to nonsense?
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@cbarnard82
@kirawontmiss
Are you suggesting that a black man should just Trust Our System Of Justice? 😂
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I met Laurie Anderson this weekend.
And she is just the loveliest, kindest woman. She charmed the fuck out of my whole band.❤️
And she joined my band onstage to play one of our songs.
Those are all true statements.
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For some bizarre reason, my spine does not hurt this morning. I am able to stand fully upright without pain.
I am on no pain-killers at all.
I’m able to walk around like a normal person. It’s amazing, but suspicious.
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Still amuses me that Inner Ear Studios was shut down in order for Arlington county to build “an arts district.”
Quick: name me more famous or lasting Arlingtonian art than Fugazi records.
It’s fucking absurd.
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For those keeping score at home, it’s
Chad 3, Death 0
still undefeated
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In my strong and correct opinion, the extant Throwing Muses catalog belongs in the Library Of Congress alongside Coltrane and Bernstein and the canon of Great American Art.
Don’t just fawn over great musicians when they die. These weirdos are alive and making vital shit. Now.
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An Infectious Disease specialist doctor has been assigned to me. I like her. Serious, smart. Iranian. Accent difficult to decipher sometimes, but asking the right questions.
Means business.
End of the conversation, she says “We will solve this.” Smiles for the first time.
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It’s like when people said “Can you believe Billy Corgan turned out to be such an asshole?”
Yes. I had heard his music.
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