From the Raleigh News & Observer:

May 30, 2007

Puppy stolen from animal shelter

CHAPEL HILL - A puppy was reported stolen from the Orange County Animal Shelter earlier this week, Chapel Hill police said.

Some time after 3 p.m. Monday, a tan-and-white boxer mix between 6 and 8 weeks old was taken, said Chapel Hill police spokeswoman Jane Cousins.

The last time an animal was reported stolen from the shelter was in February 2002, when someone took a kitten, Cousins said.

This is copyrighted material folks - not to be republished at all. However, I am giving credit where credit is due. The News & Observer, not I, put this news report together. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT AWFUL HEADLINE!! We must have something different to perk us up.

So I offer this -> The Feedback Farm No Future III Edition for your listening pleasure provided by some of the hard working folks at the WXYC blog.

It's the return of Videohippos plus an all local hip-hop throwdown. This feels like my own opportunity to expose some of the Baltimore awesomeness to a group of folxs who would most likely be clueless for the rest of their lives otherwise. Not that I feel a need to evangelize music, but when Juan approached me about having his birthday party at Nightlight, and it happened to be on the same date when I was planning on having Videohippos back down, I thought about how this could end up being really, really fun. Maybe they'll bring OCDJ back with them too. I know they'll be setting up a screen, so expect some whacked out TV Carnage style footage plus hypercolor fractal vision noise. MAY 5TH grrr.

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART HAS BEEN LEFT OUT-
although you think this is the first message, it is actually the last.


Thanks to Jason Crumer, and Ryan Martin, for organizing the festival. I'm sure that countless hours were spent sending emails, juggling line-ups, dealing with cancellations, all to produce what was a truly awesome line-up. Thanks too to Alexis, for doing alot of behind the scenes stuff, like finding places for all the bands to invade, securing the kegs for the artists, fronting money, making a nice sign for the show, and just all around looking good. For those of us who saw something amazing, we ultimately have all of you to thank. Although you may feel burnt, trust us when we say it was not for naught. Let's just take a second, and breathe. And take a nap, too.

Luv,
Charlies

Tom Grimley took a shitload of videos at No Future III - thusly, we have a bevy of visual reminders of what was, at once, the most musically complete and well regarded No Future ever, and the most poorly attended, especially in proportion. Promotion vs Attendance is still a mystery to me - between articles in the dirty local rag Independent, to mention in that glossy pop rag SPIN, there was no lack of attention from the print.

Although, now that I think about it, said mention in the Indy was hardly promotion - after all, I thought there was already a roundtable discussion in the pages of the Indy talking about what noise was, but Grayson revisited the discussion again, further extending the subjectivity of the art form by overworking the nuances of the genre, without spending much time celebrating the diversity of acts at No Future. By spotlighting harsh noise, quoting Crumer, disagreeing him, yes maybe the reader developed an enhanced sense of awareness of what will most likely continue to be endless discussions about what noise is and isn't, but the poor readers missed the whole point - that No Future III was as much about noise as it was in general about music and art and weirdos.

After all, Auk Theatre is not noise at all, period, and Noxagt play noise rock, but aren't a noise band. Harrius did something which might be called noise, but I'm not so sure it wasn't more in that category of music best called weird. Tom Grimley isn't really a noise musician as much as a genius, carpenter, electrician, and visionary. So ultimately, I just take issue with Grayson's article because I feel like it was more of a self-indulgent rant on the eternally vexing ins and outs of noise, and missed an opportunity to actually talk about the music which was to be on display - thereby leaving the masses of the Triangle to sit and read about a music form but giving them absolutely no incentive to get up off their couch ass-groove and check anything out.

Nevertheless, No Future III was hardly a failure, and if not enough people came to satisfy me or Crumer, it wasn't really just Grayson's fault - maybe we should have had more locals play? I had a blast, with Bloodyminded taking the cake by far. I managed to end up with their set list as a souvenir, and that in itself is worth all sleep anyone lost mopping up Rodger's blood and sweeping up broken glass. I listed the songs on the next post. Everyone needs a Macronympha set every now and then, it's not a big deal if it lasts til 3:15 or they take thirty minutes to set up. Helping Rodger pack his stuff back into his backpack after the set made me feel like a Boy Scout again. And yes, I did have fun during the Squelchers, thanks anonymous! American Band played what was an EPIC, unplanned set, Grateful Dead proportions, with the feeling of being strapped to the bottom of a prop airplane for an hour. Lee has a big drill.

Maybe No Future III was just a little too close to New York's No Fun 2007, in both geographic and temporal relationship, and to that end, perhaps some mid-Atlantic noise junkies saved their dough, opting to go see all the stars like Merzbow, Keiji Haino, Incapacitants, The Rita, Religious Knives, whatever. Hey - Crumer's playing with as part of American Band + Air Conditioning - that should be a hoot!

Whatever - yes - "Whatever". I invoke the choice term of dissatisfaction, apathy, and malaise for my generation to indicate that all this wondering about what did and didn't happen at No Future III may not matter in the end, cuz I've got the Farrior House Show on Friday to look forward to.

PEAS

No Future III - Lost and Found
1. polaroid camera - two pictures left
2. pair of blue vans size 10
3. some pedal
4. microphone with cable attached
5. girl's sweater - cream colored

I'm going a little bit blog crazzeeee these days, but then general craziness and malaise insists its own outlets, and therefore the spunk of detritus soaked neuron babble surfaces in keyboard logorrhea. Thusly, I abuse the format to bring you this news. I totally updated the schedule page with all the No Future hyperlinks that RAM just spewed us in a mass-email. But, just so you don't have to trigger your mouse too far from its present locale, I'll even do you the favor of republishing them right the fuck here! Get wild with deez links, cuz there are some beauties in there, and if you peruse, you might find enuff evidence to convince yourself of what is a total truth of the year - that No Future III is not just an erection of harsh noise acts, but there is a bevy of variety, including general weirdness of psycho delia or improvised naughtiness that deserves your attention. I claim no expertise, am not a virtual lexicon of information on the acts, but I can say that I know I am at least a little excited to see weirdness of Auk Theatre, Lexie Mountain (second time in few months - what a privilege), Squelchers (hope they don't blow), Harrius, yup.

Fri 4/20 - Laundry Room Squelchers, Noxagt, Angel of Decay, Leslie Keffer, Pop Culture Rape Victim + Tourette, Can't, Lazy Magnet, Black Meat, Clang Quartet, Ferveur Noire, Spool Ensemble, Boyzone

Sat 4/21 - Macronympha, Bloodyminded, Auk Theatre (Irene Moon), Damion Romero, Harrius, Goat, Climax Denial, PrairiePusher + Earth Crown, Tom Grimley, Charlie Draheim, Shallow Waters, Tusco Terror, Lexie Mountain Boys, Pax Titania, Haunted Castle, Villa Valley, Silvum, Is, Animental, Holy Family Parish, Joe Roemer + Jason Crumer

Two new photo galleries by your truly "mice".

Chickens of Puerto Rico - a few photos I took of what came to be the defining animal of our trip to Puerto Rico. Just as the stray dog defined Brazil and monkeys defined Costa Rica, so did the chicken embody the day-to-day venture through our little Caribbean friend. I'm no Ansel Adams or Richard Kern, but I think these photos, however amateurish your derision asserts, speak wonders for the simple beauty of roadside pecking.
Boyzone Thru-Out the Ages - a collection of BZ pics by countless unattributed camera triggers, all revealing what I really hoped mothers would be saying - "I don't want my kids hanging out with that Boyzone crowd". BZ opens up No Future Fest on Friday at 8:00 PM

I archive news like so many empty jars or old magazines, fabric scraps and pamphlets for travels long-forgotten.
The news of the weird and pseudo-relevance heightened interest swamps me and, rather than expend valuable time writing a bunch of nonsense, I'm just gonna laundry list them like CRazee and let you slouchs and work time diversionals peruse them at your pleasure. Short sentences clue you in to the wonders below. (links are in orange, silly)

Genre vexation is the way it feels when you get tired of trying to categorize bands. As Nightlight Booking Dude (artist relations?) it's a tricky thing. I write those little descriptions on the website and find it fruitless to try to pigeonhole many, many of the artists on our website into subgenres or genre amalgamations created through slash/slash/slash styled litanies.

This is a pet peeve or a point of continuous contention on my part, and maybe it doesn't bother you, but I get a little put off when bands describe themselves as indie/experimental/ambient, three terms that have been so overused that they are practically stripped of meaning at this point. It all seems so empty and false, so contrived and annoying.

So, I was super-pleased to find a rather eloquent explanation of a way of thinking that confronts this very problem in an old issue of Wire. I bought an old copy of the one with Mayo Thompson on the front at CD Alley in Wilmington over the Christian Fertility Weekend, and read Byron Coley's article about Victoriaville's Musique Actuelle on a TTA bus. Coley relates an anecdote:

At the end of this concert, a journalist asked Nels Cline what sort of music he played. "Well, back in the 70s they used to call it jazz rock," he said. Backstage, he moaned that he was not going to be able to stay and catch more of the festival. "It's just stupid to even bother with categories any more," he said. "Look at the people that are playing here. It's not about categories at all." To wallow in the entire muddy stew of possibilities is a whole lot more satisfying. And to allow yourself to be open to each and every one of the viruses found there is a Platonic ideal.

I, for one, would like us all to take a second and have some muddy stew.

Arthur Magazine, a favorite of mine which seems to have gone defunkt, began a two part series on the history and significance of all-ages venues in this issue, the one with Ethan Miller on the cover. I think someone else wrote a book on the subject, but the title or author escapes me at the moment.

Well, one point of pride for Nightlight is that we are one of the few remaining all-ages venues in Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and maybe the Triangle at large. The Cradle has all ages shows, ya! But they average something like 14 bucks. Local 506 only allows those 18 and up, and if you're under 21, there's a $3 extra charge. Blend - I don't have a clue what's up with that place, but I think it's 18 and up. I also think it's a front for exotic animal smuggling, but I have absolutely nothing at this point to back that claim up. I'll keep diggin though. The Cave is 21 and up. Ditto Reservoir. Where else do you see live music in Chapel Hill and Carrboro? In front of the Post Office. And, ummmmm, the pool at Casa Grande.

So, we have tinkering around with the idea of expanding our beverage selection, cuz we love you like a coyote. But, we were worried all along that if a bar gets a liquor license, or a wine license, but especially a liquor license, that the bar must bar the wee ones from entering. Well, apparently that's just NOT TRUE! I was fuggin shokked too, and wondered why do all the clubs say no to the young ones when they implement their FULL BAR. Hmmm. Probably some kind of liability. After all, with all the clever age disguises available to an enterprising youngster (see left), there's no doubt you could easily impersonate a 42 year old person and purchase liquor at the age of 17, 13, or 6. And that would be awful! Imagine hordes of young drunk people, freshly invigorated after viewing some kind of perverse, subversive band like White Mice, Cantwell, Gomez, and Jordan, or Clang Quartet, roaming the streets in search of opportunities for bonfires, animal sacrifice, and devil worship. That would be worse that Over the Edge! We would have to be incredibly diligent in order to avoid such a catastrophe, checking everyone's ID multiple times AND preventing any drink sharing by only allowing intravenous imbibing at the point of sale.

More to come. (Image above inspired by the futility of ALE education programs).

Apex North Carolina.

Apex- Hit the national news earlier as a result of an unfortunate middle-o-da-night chemical fire. Not exactly good for town morale, but so it goes. The newest news out of this little suburban community feeding Wake County's burgeoning employment base with young professionals and service sector employees is that individuals with "alternative lifestyles" are causing another stinky, potentially toxic, but much cuter, nuisance.

David Watts of 205 W. Moore St (a .38 acre parcel) was keeping sheep as "roommates". Apex town officials knew what he was up to, but since the sheep weren't livestock, but rather pets, animal control officials didn't harass Watts too much.

I am a big proponent of urban agriculture. Since global warming is going to screw with our lives royally for the next few decades until/if commerce and governments worldwide can truly get it together and figure out how to try to reverse our fuck-up (thanks for the heads up Al), we'll need new and alternative ways of raising food in order to feed ourselves as huge regions of the world flood, dry up, and have drastic climate changes that stymie the collective knowledge developed over the years by those who work the land. My own proclivity steers me continually in the direction of curiosity over the potential for urban agriculture, and how I might be a little vanguard for small-scale urban food systems in these communities 'round here.

Robert Nuewirth talked about the giant squatter communities of the world's megalopolises in this internet video. Through sheer necessity, the people of these poor communities are showing us how to get it right. Suburban America doesn't yet have the legitimacy that Neuwirth ascribes to the squatter cities of the future. Rather, suburbia seems to enable only destruction, waste, and poor decision making. The squatters use hard times and no rules to take little and make it into a whole lot. They are using innovation and found materials, the crud of commerce, to create cities with services and goods, showing punk rock what DIY really means. Not to be romanticized, but to be studied and - lessons - they are - to be learned.

However, David Watts of Apex got it way wrong. He wasn't raising sheep as livestock, but because his practices were so derelict, livestock are now completely banned in Apex. A series of stories from the Raleigh News & Observer, which I will outline below, tell the tale.

ONE - some of the 80 sheep on Watts's property get loose and are seen nibbling on flowers at the Apex town cemetary. Animal Control is alerted, and immediately they know - it's ole Mr. Watts's flock. The sheep are rounded up and his house investigated, where it is found that many of the sheep are in such poor condition they will have to be euthanized. Apex had no ordinance preventing the keeping of livestock of pets, and Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly claims that the complaints about the smell had stopped much earlier. The neighbors disagree, noting that Watts was a weirdo leading "an alternative lifestyle", which must be a nice way of saying he let a sheep population explosion shit and piss all over his house. His neighbors experienced not only the smell, but also the horde of flies, which I know from my pig farming days can be a "real bummer".
TWO - Watts will be charged with animal cruelty. Bad husbandry practices and neglect had led to serious problems for the sheep, including prolapsed uteruses and hoof rot. He hadn't been trimming their hooves back, or controlling their breeding, which led to a population explosion he couldn't handle. Watts's house, which is in downtown Apex, had the bottom floor reserved for animals and the top floor for himself. A vet commented - "Animal hoarding is really one of the worst challenges we face. Often it is women and cats, but in this case it was a man with sheep. It's OK when it's Barbie dolls, but when it's animals it never turns out well."
THREE - Watts gets tips on how to care for sheep from a veterinarian. Apparently Watts has animals on three separate plots of land, all poorly cared for. A swatch near Moncure was home to chickens, llamas, and cows, all belonging to Watts.
FOUR - An opinion piece by N&O columnist Barry Saunders gives town officials the third degree for not passing rules earlier, or reining in Watts's apparently obvious mistreatment of animals.
FIVE - Apex Mayor Weatherly seems to not be in the best position going into a fall re-election campaign. Between issues surrounding the chemical fire and the sheep incident, he is getting ribbed in public, and most likely slandered in private. A Holly Springs councilperson suggests that the toxic chemical smoke is affecting Weatherly's brain. Poor guy. I guess he deserves it though, since he commented that Holly Springs would be a more likely place for this type of incident to occur. Those small town leaders sure can show a lack of discretion in times of sweaty uncertainty. Interestingly, the text of the article seems to suggest that Weatherly is chummy with Wendell Murphy, a well-known North Carolina hog farming magnate.
SIX - Apex town officials defend their mistake, offering that they believed that Watt's much maligned operation, the source of numerous complaints over the years, was not a livestock operation, but a mess of pets. Now - a livestock ban is imposed beginning June 1.

Which means I'm definitely not moving to Apex to begin an urban farming project of the future. It's a sad conclusion to a mess that originated because Watts couldn't care for his pets properly, or make proper decisions about controlling his flock. Now Apex is left with the difficult task of determining what animals belong as part of the ban, and what critters are still approvable.

No such ban in Africa yet.

Nightlight has always been beer only. You know this because you continually prostrate yourself at the throne of Pabst in rapt anticipation of stark inebriation and social ease. Although you may buy soda if you please, it is the province of the daytime biz, the Skylight Exchange, and as such, our beverage display is still only beer and that beverage with the eternal trump card, water.
However, beer, despite all its glory and taste, beauty and vigor, aluminum and glass, is not the end-all-be-all of alcoholic beverage choices. Why, there are a multitude of options for those questing for thirst satiety, and we feel that our limited array of options is, well, un-American. Not truly - after all, I could give a fuck - what has all that variety gotten us but colon cancer, cavities, and wasted time in the snacks aisle. But certainly the sentiment of some customers is that they do prefer other colors and mouth feels over the swish and fizz of beer. Some folx say they prefer wine, with it's sleepy drunkenness and sex appeal. Others go for the instant gratification of liquor, or the rush of throat burn that comes with whisky, and so on.

And truly, from investigation of the recycling buckets at Nightlight, I know what you're up to. I've seen the empties - MD 20/20, Jameson, Gallo Wines, Old Crow, King Cobra. You, the poor, sneaky drinker, are quietly smuggling in other beverages that are not on our menu for your own pleasure. Or you're smuggling in shit we sell, but in the wrong vessel - e.g. Pabstsesses in a can. Don't you know that shit is illegal and we plus you could get our asses in a bind if ALE walked in and caught you, the underage-smuggler-looking-for-foggy-brain or poor-but-of-age-drinker with the foreign beverage hidden in your jean jacket? Perhaps you don't care, and I wouldn't either if I wasn't worried about getting shut down for gross and blatant disregard for "da lawz". "Da lawz" by ALE are themselves largely gross and blatantly disregard a fundamental respect for human decision making capabilities (18?21?99?), but to not try to follow them is to go down in flames and bullets at the hands of kevlar armies of law-enforcing ALCOHOL LAW ENFORCEMENT androids.
Hmmmmm. Yet another quandry. Do ya think if we expanded our selection you would drink our wine instead of your cheap fortified mouthwash?

To be continued, again. (FYI, the accompanying illustrations were all made by da author inside a Budweiser distribution facility on the outskirts of east Raleigh. They reflect the futility of ALE education programs for alcohol vendors.)