[kj] Jack Endino namechecks KJ

[Tim Bucknall]

i'm subscribed to Jack endino's newsletter and he mentioned loving the new 
KJ album, so i'll forward it since its a slow news day



Subject: news from jack endino, may 2006


>
> Jack Endino NEWSLETTER 11.0 May 2006
>
> Sorry for long delay. I tried to write some newsletters but they were 
> boring, so I ditched 'em and went back to work.  This one's probably 
> boring too. But I finally had a day to think. So much happened in the last 
> year...
>
> Somewhere around one year ago, there was a Tsunami benefit show in 
> Seattle, and Alice In Chains, uh, "reunited" for the show. Obviously they 
> had other people helping on lead vocals, notably a guy from Damage Plan 
> (possibly the best one), a guy from Puddle of Mudd (embarrassing), Maynard 
> from Tool (quite good) and strangely enough Ann Wilson, who actually 
> kicked ass. They also did an excellemnt acoustic set. Overall, the entire 
> show was flawless, and Jerry did his half of the many harmony vocals, and 
> they even did some songs from the third AIC record such as "Again" that I 
> imagine might never have been performed live! Now I hear there may be a 
> tour this year but I haven't heard who will be singing. Doubtless there 
> are people on this list who are more up-to-date than I am... but ANYWAY, 
> it was a pretty cool show.
>
> Also, a year or so ago there was a preview showing of the long-awaited 
> Andy Wood documentary. The movie itself was pretty cool, largely for the 
> never-before-seen interview footage with Andy himself, plus plenty of 
> interviews with all the Mother Love Bone/Malfunkshun guys, family, 
> friends, even yours truly. After the movie we all retired to a private 
> club where a sort of Andy tribute show took place. Original Malfunkshun 
> drummer Regan and guitarist Kevin played a short set of three or four 
> M-Funk songs with a friend on bass (I regret I didn't get his name) and 
> none other than Shawn Smith on vocals, who NAILED Andy Wood's falsetto 
> delivery, and they finished by bringing the house down on "With Yo' Heart 
> Not Yo' Hands". Have to admit my eyes got a little watery. As far as I 
> know, the movie never got a distribution deal, and now I don't know what 
> the hell is going on with it. Maybe a DVD of it will appear someday. Kevin 
> Wood has an interesting website at (wammybox.com).
>
> Speaking of which, this year, a record company I've never heard of called 
> "Livewire Recordings" decided for some reason to release a "grunge" comp. 
> Title: "Sleepless in Seattle: The Birth of Grunge". (Yeah, not too 
> imaginative.) They got the "Deep Six" recording of "With Yo' Heart Not 
> Your Hands" on there, to my surprise... first time it's been available in 
> years I think. Livewire had help choosing tracks from Clark Humphrey, 
> author of the great Seattle music history book "Loser". While it lacks the 
> big names like Soundgarden, Nirvana and AIC, Mark Arm is represented by 
> Mr. Epp, Green River and Mudhoney, and I recorded 7 of the songs on the 
> comp. Skin Yard is on it with "Hallowed Ground", the title song of our 
> second album from 1988, although the liner notes incorrectly say it's from 
> 1992.
>
> (BTW, I recently remastered Hallowed Ground, VASTLY improving the sound, 
> but we have no plans to "re-press it"... for info on how to get a burn of 
> it from me, read on.)
>
> Jumping back to last year, in late July I went to Brazil for two months 
> and made a CD and a DVD of a 25-song live concert for my friends Titas, my 
> fifth album with a band who are a national institution in Brazil. It was 
> my first crack at 5.1 "surround" mixing and was a resounding success, and 
> the CD is already "Gold" in Brazil. I described the experience somewhat in 
> my last newsletter (October) which for some reason I never archived on my 
> website until now. In fact, I haven't significantly updated ENDINO.COM in 
> over a year except for little "what's new" notes and the regular additions 
> to the discography. I need to get on the ball... look for changes this 
> year. I'm looking very hard at making a proper "blog" and doing some 
> podcasts.... CSS... RSS... but in view of how busy I am in the studio, you 
> should probably be skeptical.
>
> Near the end of my stay in Brazil, Katrina happened, and I watched the 
> destruction of New Orleans on hotel TV. I emailed a friend of mine and 
> said "This is it. Bush is done. He doesn't know it yet, but he's done. 
> Just watch." Federal government incompetence was exactly as I expected. I 
> thought of my friends there in the band Supagroup...
>
> Right after Brazil, I spent a few days  doing some tracking for The Atomic 
> Bitchwax for something which may or may not have been released by now... 
> great band though... followed by Zamarro, from Switzerland, doing their 
> second record with me, "The Beast Is On Your Track", released in Europe on 
> a German label. If you go to my own MySpace page (myspace.com/jackendino), 
> my "Top 8" has links to tracks by Zamarro as well as several other bands 
> I've worked with lately.
>
> In October 2005, my third solo CD "Permanent Fatal Error" came out on the 
> tiny Wondertaker label from SF. Seizing the indy-rock bull by the horns, I 
> attempted to take as much responsibility as possible for the promotion and 
> mailouts of the CD, as it has been years since I've been involved in 
> putting out a record. I had amassed a pretty huge list of media contacts. 
> The CD got a lot of great reviews and some college radio airplay here and 
> there, and the reviews are still trickling in... but getting US 
> distribution was like pulling teeth. IDC and Carrot Top were first on 
> board, and then Lumberjack-Mordam took some, but each of these 
> distributors probably only took a couple boxes of CDs. In Canada, I had no 
> distributor luck at all. In contrast, Cargo in Germany got all excited and 
> ordered a thousand, and have already paid us for a good chunk of them, and 
> I got a huge barrage of press all over Europe. Go figure. So I've had to 
> rely on zine reviews and the web to get the word out in North America. 
> Print advertising is pretty much out of the question, as the expense is 
> way out of proportion to the sales it would generate. If you go to 
> Endino.com right now, you may notice that my "front page" is now a 'hard 
> sell' for my CD, with a sampling of the reviews it got. That's because I'm 
> proud of the record and frankly want people to know about it. Four of the 
> songs are streaming at myspace.com/jackendino  as well. MySpace, while 
> being a huge time-sucker (you know what I mean), has helped a lot in 
> getting the word out. I may shortly have it available thru iTunes or 
> eMusic... I'll publicize if/when it happens.
>
> If you order a copy of "Permanent Fatal Error" with PayPal from me via the 
> "garage sale" on my website, or for that matter order any Skin Yard CD, 
> I'll throw in a CD-R burn of the remastered "Hallowed Ground" as a bonus 
> if you remind me.
>
> After my record came out I did a short West Coast tour with the mighty 
> Dirty Power as my volunteer backing band. For some reason their bassist 
> couldn't make it so I assumed bass duties each night for a Dirty Power 
> set, and then Patrock and I switched instruments and they backed me for a 
> set of songs from Permanent Fatal Error with me on guitar/vocals. I must 
> hereby give huge props to Patrock, Steve Perrone and Jeff Potts for 
> learning my twisted rock tunes and playing so well. We had a nice little 
> mini-tour, and then we spent 4 days in a studio here in Seattle cutting 
> tracks for a new Dirty Power album, which we will be mixing pretty soon.
>
> Then I moved to a new house for the first time in ten years, which was 
> traumatic. Too many books, vinyl records, CDs, recording equipment, 
> gadgets, tools, computers, magazines, and junk. I still haven't really 
> "unpacked" six months later because I work too much. If you sent me a demo 
> last year, it's probably still in one of those boxes. My existing client 
> base has kept me working solid the last 12 months while hardly taking on 
> anyone new. (And here's advance word for all: I'm taking some extended 
> time off this summer, and I am going to FIRMLY stick to that unless 
> someone of the magnitude of U2 calls me... yeah, sure!)
>
> 2006 has been interesting. Winnebago Deal came over from the UK and made 
> another record with me, this one for the Fierce Panda label. Nick Oliveri 
> (formerly a Stone Age Queen) visited and added some "guest vocals" to a 
> couple songs, and it was cool meeting and hanging with the gentleman. The 
> record will be called "Flight Of The Raven" and it is even more loud, 
> noisy and violent than the last Winn Deal record... mission accomplished, 
> in other words. I love my job!
>
> Couple weeks ago I found myself in Vancouver BC as a guest of the "New 
> Music West" conference, giving a two-hour presentation to a paying 
> audience, billed as a "Master Producer's Workshop". It was partly 
> sponsored by the Vancouver Film School, so I had a sort of 
> theater/classroom to do it in, with a computer and Protools rig that 
> projected onto a huge screen. It was basically studio geek talk and 
> interesting anecdotes from my career, plus some more technical 
> show-and-tell stuff, followed by questions/answers. The two hours went by 
> way too fast. After my thing was a similar two-hour thing with Garth 
> Richardson (aka GGGARTH), and meeting him and shooting the shit was a 
> highlight for me, as we both had to "Not worthy!" each other repeatedly, a 
> pleasant surprise as he's got way more platinum records than me. 
> Apparently he left LA some years ago and established a residential studio 
> on the Canadian coast... see (www.thefarmstudios.com)  for a look!
>
> I will be attending the annual TapeOp conference in June in Tucson, AZ, 
> and doing a couple of panels. For more info, see tapeop.com.
>
> There's a picture of Bruce Dickenson in a recent issue of KERRANG... and 
> he's wearing a Skin Yard T-Shirt. Good taste, the man has.
>
> The new Neil Young album is out, "Living With War", and I have to say I 
> found it a total delight. Go, Neil. Also, the new Pearl Jam CD (on Clive 
> Davis' label!) sounds pretty good so far, and the new Killing Joke also.
>
> And on a final note, The Seattle Weekly, our local Village Voice 
> affiliate, just held their annual readers' poll "Seattle Music Awards", 
> and I got an award for "Lifetime Achievement". I was so busy in the studio 
> that I didn't even realize I was nominated, so the whole thing was a 
> pleasant surprise. You can read about it here:
>
> http://www.seattleweekly.com/music/0619/winners.php
>
> Apparently, I am Synonymous With Grunge. ;-)
> As Chad Channing put it in a congratulatory message to me, "Lifetime? You 
> still have some mileage left!" Damn straight!
>
> 'Till next time,
> JE
> (c)2006 endino.com
>
> "You can't polish a turd, but you can grind it into the carpet." - Ben 
> Perrier, Winnebago Deal
>
>