REAL FAKE

03/20/23

My head is full of things I can’t imagine.

This has happened before and in these times all I can think to do is purge. If I can’t find the light I want to at least feel a little so purge.. on food, on belongings, on space. But not on coffee.

Plus the news. The news is fucked. Someone tell me something good. How was your weekend? Please let me know in the comments.

I think it’s just being overwhelmed. I have shows coming up next month. Two in the UK and two in Spain. Four days in a row. Naturally. I used to just show up at the airport and didn’t care how anything went and I’m still alive so it mostly worked out. But now there are so more people involved and more gear and more logistics and it can be trying as all I want to actually do is sing and play music. Although now that I’m thinking about it, my old approach of not really planning lended itself to me once sleeping in a tree in London. Not to mention the dozens of parking lots I’ve slept in, on the ground, from Japan to the USA. If it’s hot enough you can just put a jacket down and use the parking block as a pillow.

Many years ago on a poorly planned layover at Sea-Tac, we had to get the only room we could afford at a motel that had no memorable name. My bandmate at the time texted me asking me to come look at his room. To my surprise, and without the motel knowing they had just achieved peak perfection, the small cold cell was adorned with only a raw wood box spring... no mattress. Blood Lodges of the world, I’ve loved you all.

I didn’t know I was going to write any of that.

On Friday, Amy and I received the last entry we had been awaiting for the next Heartworm Reader which scrambled our brains for the next six hours in an attempt to transcribe and fit into the book. The author is a total legend and submitted a legendary entry. It just took us a legendary amount of hours to make it work... and we still didn’t finish… but I think today is the day. Because of our committee of two being wrapped up in dilemma, Ryan McMahon came by to hang out with Rainer while we weighed out the book options. We then all split a salad and pizza from Forever Pie. Amy, Rainer and I walked for a few miles. At night Ryan and I went to my studio downtown and ran through some Cold Cave songs that we haven’t played before to see if they might be added to a future set. I felt rusty and realized I need to be singing more as the future is coming fast.

On Saturday I was determined to not work. Rainer is fully engulfed in KISS again and asked for Dynasty on vinyl so I thought ‘Fuck It’ and took him to Amoeba. It was Saturday-packed and we entered determined for Dynasty. Tears were held back when we discovered it was not there. I told him there are songs on Destroyer he liked and we could pick that up if he wanted. We walked around the store for a while as he thought about it. I know the feeling of needing a record to listen to and spent my whole life in support of that. So we walked around for 45 mins looking at records. I decided we should pick up a couple records he’s interested in here and then head to another used store afterwards. He ended up getting a Joan Jett Funko Pop, Kiss Destroyer and Nirvana Nevermind & Unplugged. He’s been learning Nirvana on guitar so happy to encourage more listening. We checked out and the staff was nice and then drove down the street to The Record Parlour.

There was no KISS in the ‘K’ rock section. We walked around the store for a bit and Rainer was being patient and hopeful though was pretty sure we were destined for no Dynasty. In a last effort I started flipping through the thousand deep section of new arrivals. He stood by. After the first row I landed on Alive. Further back Alive ll. Than a thrashed copy of Destroyer. Next row Gene Simmons solo. Then Rock And Roll Over. Next row Ace Freely solo. Next two rows, nothing. Then on the final row as we approach the end of the new arrivals, boom, Dynasty. He cheered and then picked up a sealed 1979 Sesame Street LP, asked if we could work out a deal for it, and checked out. Rainer wanting vinyl is purge proof.

Then I started writing and working. And then Anthony Anzaldo stopped by. he mentioned he had just seen Funeral Parade of Roses screened at Braindead. I thought about Blind Beast. The picture at the top of this page is from that film.

Anthony said he was going to a show in an hour as it started on the earlier side. It was HIDE with Joe Cardamone / Skeleton Joe at Zebulon. I decided to go as I hadn’t been to a show in a few weeks. Joe’s set was great and it tripped me up for a minute as it’s very visual and part of that is footage Joe filmed of Lanegan in Ireland for a song they made together called “Sanctified”… and the first time Mark and I hung out one-on-one was at a Keiji Haino show at Zebulon. I’ve written about that before but basically we stepped inside for a minute and then spent the remainder of the night on the patio telling stories. I caught a few songs from HIDE and it was cool but wanted to get home.

Yesterday, Sunday, I spent about ten hours uploading clothing to our Grailed site. It’s all part of the purge. CCP, Rick Owens, M.A+, Yohji, Plokhov, Boris, Julius, Undercover and more. And it’s totally consuming and frustrating and every now and then I’d get a notification from Grailed saying a certain piece, some that were actually given to me by the designers, appeared to be inauthentic. So I had to send emails explaining that they were in fact legit and now I wait. I wonder if pieces are flagged at random or is there really someone out there using their limited knowledge to decide if a piece is fake? Anyway our username is Coldcave23 on there and there is a lot more to come.

This coffee is only kind of working and it’s 8:30. I want to go walk before the next two days of rain, which will be a wonderful opportunity to stay inside and conquer all. I need to figure out why the videos aren’t really uploading here. I need to eat as yesterday all I had was a little kale and tofu. I need to find a screen printer who can dig all over prints. Just wanted to say hello and let you know I was thinking of you and hopefully you are amused enough with my mundane.

Happy Spring to you. Spring is beautiful.

I’m not re-reading this, please excuse any errors!

More soon..