Skip to content

Posts tagged ‘the6149’

Sep 12

8 Comments

Kitschy Swag and Cheap Work-Arounds: I walk my talk and wear it, too…

I’m not trying to sell you anything. That’s not what this blog is about. Don’t get the wrong idea.

I was reading a music industry blog and came across a mention of a company called DizzyJam. They are an online service that allows indie bands, DJs, musicians, venues, and (now) music bloggers, to create and sell merch without any upfront costs. You sign up, set up a shop, upload your designs and you have an online merch shop. 

For an artists, this isn’t a bad deal. DizzyJam prints on demand, ships within 48 hours and you get 25% of the sales price direct deposited into your bank account. Hey, not bad for no cash outlay and if you have no means for production, but want to sell something. 

Like I said, I’m not trying to sell you anything. I thought, “cool, I wonder if I can make me some 6149 blog t-shirts”.  So I did. I figured I would set it up, create my Ts and buy myself a couple (and get 25% off!).  Yeah, it’s a cheap work-around for getting some kitschy swag, but what the hell.  

Dj6149

When I joined I had to create a “store”. I uploaded my blog’s logo, chose colors for shirts and printing and that was it. I was prompted to “describe my store“, so I thought I would have a bit of fun with it. If someone were to stumble on my 6149 store, why the hell would they want one of these Ts? Here’s why:

This is the shirt shop for The 6149. I’m not trying to make cash with this. I just wanted to have cool t-shirts to wear. Shit, if you like The 6149 blog and you like cool t-shirts…you are in the right place. If you should pick one of theses suckers, I suggest you wear it on these occasions: 

1. Every concert you go to from now on: How many times have you gone to a concert and said, “if I only hear “X” song tonight, I will die happy”? If you wear this shirt, I personally guarantee you that you will hear “X” song. 

2. “Seal the Deal” nights: Let’s say that you’ve been dating some chick/dude for a while and you finally passed the dry-humping stage. The next date you go on might mean you graduate to the full-frontal stage. Wear this shirt on that night and I guarantee you will will seal the deal (Guys, you can wear it under your collared shirt if you are going to a fancy restaurant). 

3. Court Appearances: Four out of ten readers of The 6149 are judges. If they see you wearing this shirt when you appear before them in court, they may go easy on you. (ok, I made that up…but if you do wear it and you do go to jail, this will be a GREAT shirt to wear on the day of your release).

Incentive enough for you? If for some silly reason someone buys one of these (other than me), I am going to take all of that 25% I get back and donate it to my music blogging friends to help them with their hosting needs. Guys, and you know who you are, don’t go putting money down on any new cars or houses just yet…

May 9

5 Comments

NOW: Chaos, Karma & Choice all rolled up into one big Neil Young mule kick… (Part 1)

I’m not big on holidays and birthdays or anniversaries.  I just turned thirty-eight last month, but honestly I might as well have turned zero. I am much more concerned with “now”.  Right now, I am banging out my 200th post on this blog. Is that something to celebrate? No, not really. What it does tell me is that right now, the last 199 posts were worth the effort. 

Damn straight.

I like to live life for the now. I’m not taking all that “live today like its your last”, bullshit.  That is an excuse for not taking responsibilities for your choices. If I’m twenty-one or thirty-eight, I’m still now.  I like that perspective. It is liberating and motivating. 

Chaos, karma and making choices…that’s my gig (now). This, my 200th post on The 6149, is about a collision of chaos, karma and choice. 

—–

“Through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars“.  

Fuck me. I can’t tell you how many times I have listened to that lyric before. These words are hidden gems in an treasure chest of symbolism, hidden meanings and stone-cold truths found within Neil Young’s, “Thrasher”

Thrasher. Ohhh, Thrasher. How many times have we seen the sunrise together? How many times has your lonely harmonica coda trailed off only to reveal the even lonely sound ice cubes clanging off one another after the whiskey’s run dry? How many times have I asked you tough, life questions? How many times have we shared tears and beers until we shrugged shoulders and flashed knowing smiles?
 
Many.

Why then…why have you held out on me?!  Was it for my own good?  Or was it to remind me to always keep my nose to the ground? Ok: same difference.

 “Through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars”.  Now I get it. 

(you might want to listen to “Thrasher” before reading any further)


http://listen.grooveshark.com/songWidget.swf

——

I didn’t want to go to work last Thursday. I wouldn’t have except for the fact that I couldn’t think of a lie believable enough to tell. Not a lie that my boss wouldn’t believe, but one that I couldn’t. I am not a liar; the truth is easier (thank you, HST). So instead of an aimless lie, I opted for a truth: Thrasher.

As I got ready for work, I dropped the needle on “Thrasher” off of a used vinyl copy of Neil’s “Live Rust”.  I wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics; I had heard them so many times before. 
 
This is right up there for me…it jockeys for the coveted position of my fave song of all time. Neil has always been on a solo trip. Even when he has led bands or stood in the shadows of them…Neil knows where his North Star points. Thrasher is a song about Neil…turning in his keys to the museum and walking out towards galaxies. He has always his own hoe to row...

You listen to a song so many times that sometimes words and the meanings walk past you like people in a grocery store; not until you stumble upon what you are looking for does the object come into focus and you grab it. Hearing a song for the umpteenth time causes a knee-jerk, sing-a-long reaction in all the right places…and then…WHAM! Like a mule-kick to the temple, you get knocked sense-full….not senseless.

“Thrasher” has been prodded for meaning and symbolism by many, many, many a Neil fan over the decades. If you haven’t given it the once over before, have a read of the lyrics and couch-session over on my fave Neil site, Thrasher’s Wheat. They do a great job of picking it’s bones. 

“Through libraries and museums, galaxies and stars“

Where the vulture glides descending 
On an asphalt highway bending 
Thru libraries and museums, galaxies and stars 
Down the windy halls of friendship 
To the rose clipped by the bullwhip 
The motel of lost companions 
Waits with heated pool and bar.

I hadn’t thought of this one line in this way before: “libraries and museums”…the past, stored knowledge, the finish line: “galaxies and stars”…the future, discovery, the starter’s pistol. Yes! This makes sense! You see…I have an itchy trigger finger. 

Long story short, my now is “this close” to happening. Through a mix of chaos, karma and choice, I am this close to galaxies and stars.  Fuck me. I don’t want to jump the gun (the starter’s pistol), but I feel ALIVE.

It is a fucked up thing to feel all of your passions and loves colliding, crashing and cajoling one-another into a lightening strike now.  My passion has always been about music, music, music, people, connections, friends and the love for my woman and the music we make. Passion does not sit on the shelves of libraries and museums. It is a living and breathing and blood-pumping now. 
 
Chaos, Karma, Choice…this is The 6149 in living color. I’m in no mood to strike deals with the devil, but I am walking up to a crossroads. It is here I will make my bones…make a bona fide decision that, good or bad, I will own up to. On the other side of this crossroad cum decision will be my own row…

I’ll be honest…it is 2:24 am on Sunday morning here in the UK. I’m haIf-drunk and full-on…and drowning the early morning hours in a goblet of red and earfuls of song. I am on the edge of my seat for tomorrow. Tomorrow…the breeding ground for now…“galaxies and stars”.

Should I go to bed or should wait to greet the sun? HA HA! Does it  matter? No…it does not. Not when now  is in the room.

—–

This ends part one of this post. Now is over, for now…

Soon enough, now will happen again. When it does…I’ll get full-frontal, full disclosure, guts-spilled, galaxies and stars…and tell you all about it then…which, will be now, then…

Ok, time to put he cork back in the bottle…

—–

In the meantime, here is Neil performing “Thrasher”:

Sep 25

4 Comments

“Some are building monuments and others are jotting down notes…”

_0x3c0ee30

“Some are building monuments and others are jotting down notes…((Tags: mind map, blog posts, Bob Dylan, London, Cafe, mobile, Twitter, Simply Tweet))

via SimplyTweet

_____

Update: This is a note for all you twitter/posterous users. 

I started using a new Twitter client on my iPhone: Simply Tweet.  Simply Tweet works well with Posterous (The 6149′s blogging platform). It allows you to post long tweets to Twitter that are simultaneously posted on your Posterous blog. The Tweet ends up being the title of the post as well as appears in the body text. 

In my first post, I used email subject syntax to add tags to the post on posterous. The tags showed up as I wanted them too, but they also showed up in the body text (see above).  I didn’t want that. 

SImply Tweet responded to a tweet I made about this and gave me a solution…within 5 minutes of my posting this. Here is what they said:

@Judd6149 ah. So you want to set Posterous tags? Use hashtags. #SimplyTweet converts hashtags to Posterous tags automatically so you don’t need to use the email subject syntax. The advantage is if they appear early enough, they are included as hashtags in the tweet text.

That solves that. Great customer service from @simplytweet.  Give them a try if you need a (new) mobile twitter client.

And now back to our regularly scheduled program…

The picture in this post was taken at a cafe around the corner from where I am staying in South Kensington, London.  I was on the way home from the gym and decided to stop off for a double-espresso and some early morning sunshine inspiration.

I mapped out a flew blog posts ideas for The 6149 (do you think my blog knows I am talking about it in the third person?).  When I was doing this, I started singing the lyric that is the title to this post.  It is from Bob Dylan’s “The Mighty Quinn”. It is off his second volume of “Greatest Hits”.  

Here is some commentary from The Bob from his “Chronicles” book:

Dylan in his autobiography Chronicles Volume One (published 2004), makes further reference to the song: “On the way back to the house I passed the local movie theater on Prytania Street, where The Mighty Quinn (film) was showing. Years earlier I had written a song called “The Mighty Quinn” which was a hit in England, and I wondered what the movie was about. Eventually I’d sneak off and go there to see it. It was a mystery, suspense, Jamaican thriller with Denzel Washington as the Mighty Xavier Quinn a detective who solves crimes. Funny, that’s just the way I imagined him when I wrote the song The Mighty Quinn, Denzel Washington”

Indeed, Bob. Indeed.

Tune Tags

As mentioned in a 6149 post yesterday, I am introducing Tune Tags.  I have dropped in a Tune Tag playlist here for you to put your ears on. This one is chock full of different versions of “The Mighty Quinn”. 
  • The Bob version is really from sessions in the basement of Big Pink with the band. I love the lazy, slurry, jangle-y feel to this one.
  • The Dead’s version is a reminder of how much fun it was to go to their shows and anticipate what cover they were going to play. Great times at those shows (from what I can recall…I think everyone did dose when Quinn showed up.
  • The Hollies?  Yes, the Hollies did a folksy version of this, too.  Can you hear Gram Nash in there…?
  • Speaking of cover tunes…the curators of the cover tune, Phish do their best Dead doing Bob.
  • I had to include Manfred Mann, right?  There version is the widely know version.  Smart move covering Bob & Bruce.

Note: Apologies to @wolfgangsvault. Mate, I’ll get the Tune Tags up higher in the post next time (heh heh)

The Goods

Here is another new feature I am going to use on The 6149.  The Goods is the section where I will add links that reference the post contents. It will be links, images, footers, etc.  I’ll give this a go and see how it works in conjunction with Tune Tags. Let me know if it is “Too Much Monkey Business“. 
p.s. another technical note: I did not add the Tune Tag playlist via Simply Tweet. I did it in the editing of the post.

Aug 26

The6149 in Technicolor

The6149 is under my skin. More pics on the way. Almost healed. Lots of ink and a story behind each piece soon…

6149_tattoo

(inside biceps on left arm)

20090818 150408.m4a
Listen on Posterous

Aug 19

1 Comment

The Ink Slinger Strikes Again! (f@#ing-A…this one hurt)

The new tattoo (or addition to the current set) is still killing me. Five and a half hours straight will do that to you.  My arm is still swollen like a pig just back from the trough. 

Once it is healed I'll get some good snaps of the new additions…and now, complete "short sleeve" of tattoo.  There may be a few touch up spots, but for the most part it is finished.  

See any resemblance in my "in-process" tattooing work from yesterday and a little ol' symbol on this site?  Yeah, I can walk it as much as I talk it.  There is also a snap of the original stencils (sneak-peek).  More to come soon.

Img_0818
Old_6149_signs
Img_0816

See the full gallery on Posterous
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 576 other followers