Phots by Aaron Miller, taken from cameraphonic.

Cryptacize is an awesome band. Their name suggests a mix between Jazzercize and the Crypt Keeper. I’m not sure what they sound like, so I’m not going to make anything up. I am also not attempting to write their wikipedia entry, but I would like to explain where they come from. If I get anything wrong you can bitch about it in the comments.

Chris Cohen and Nedelle Torrisi were in the Curtains together before Cryptacize. Before that, Chris was a member of Deerhoof. Nedelle is a solo artist and has an awesome new record on Tangram 7s called “The Locksmith Cometh.” Before her most recent album, she put out an awesome one called “From the Lion’s Mouth” on Kill Rock Stars. Nedelle and Chris, as their MySpace explains, met Michael Carreira by way of YouTube. They watched the video below of Michael playing the cowbell, and after they all met in-person, they decided to start Cryptacize. Charming isn’t it?

Cryptacize is playing Thursday at Edinburgh Castle. They will be surrounded by over one hundred balloons. Come out to see them.

My hilarious (and super straight) childhood friend recently wrote me about life on the road. I don’t know about you, but I think this blog is getting too faggy. So this is to balance it out. Enjoy!

“tour was the shit! we’d wake up at a myspace fan’s house at 10am and bounce to the next city. get there at 1pm, print flyers at kinko’s, go to the mall and promote and meet chicks (sometimes we’d even bring hotties straight from mall to show!). we booked all the shows and picked the bands so all the bands kinda kissed up to us – plus we’re sponsored by (brand omitted) energy drinks w/ 36 freaking cases to drink / hand out so we made lots of friends and we seemed like a major band. we met some pretty sick touring bands, drank a lot of booze, made lots of new fans, got in w/ cool venues and bookers (which i can hook you up with if you plan to go on tour), and i got lots of action from hot girly fans.

when we shoved off we were given $300 cash from (brand omitted), a surf clothing company. We spent that on gas and brought in about $60 / show on average. We played 12 shows in 14 days and at the end of it, we were very happy to break even. our singer is so pessimistic though, we had to kick him out. he’s also not good enough to act like a jerk but he thinks he’s great so we’re picking up someone younger, better looking and better at singing b/c we’re trying to make it big!”

But it was a totally fun toga party. Pictures!

See more on flickr

No matter where I am in life, questions about what to do next always surface. As a musician, I spent the first part of my life asking myself everything from “how do I tune my guitar” to “if I tried singing, would everyone laugh at me?”

Although those days are over, I still feel as clueless as when I started. Although the “how do I” questions are less personal, they threaten my ’success’ more than ever. I had an idea yesterday to write all these questions down… and after doing so I decided to post them here on WFISF… as a sort of Internet experiment. Perhaps some questions will be answered! I’m sure some of my fellow music makers will appreciate this discussion… if they’re okay with “selling out” of course.

1 How does a local artist open for a major act at a Clear Channel venue – say the Warfield, Fillmore or Bimbo’s?

2 How do you get asked to support a touring act without knowing the band or label directly?

3 How do you tour at the “inde” level without loosing money?

4 How do you attract, trap and keep a good booking agent?

5 How do you get written about by Pitchfork Media?

6 How do you get your music on a “modern rock” station, like Live 105?

7 Who are these music festival promoters and how do I meet them?

8 Why isn’t the punk circuit supportive and why is it impossible to break into? I mean, come on!

9 How do you get club night promoters to return emails?

10 How do you get support from ‘arts organizations’ in San Francisco? Why don’t they return emails or phone calls? And why do they pretend like you’re not talking to them when you approach them at one of their two buck chuck events?

R.I.P.

ROCKPILE!!! every 2nd and 4th Sunday 93.7FM at 2 p.m.
www.westaddradio.com!
Jeremy Smears and I caught this radio show waiting in the car for chicken wings and deeep dish pizza, we heard Rockpile and other cool stuff like Wreckless Eric, little did we know that this is Sgt. Party’s radio show!

Check it out!

Last night I was going to go to An Undisclosed Location to catch T.I.T.S. and Fuckwolf but I didn’t make it because I fell asleep waiting for friends to call but I guess they had actually called but my phone wasn’t working right. Technology is awesome, what did we do before mobile phones?

Anyway, that was a Colossal Cluster and I want to go to a show now. So Tuesday, at the Hemlock, a Colossal Good Time with:

Colossal Yes
The Mantles
Devon Williams

Yay!