Singing while balancing a Farfisa on your head helps dull those sharp notes.

I’ll fess up right off the bat.  When the three New York-area shows for The Mummies were announced I was one of those jerks who bought tickets for all three and cleared those days for vacation at work.  The boys were playing an early and a late show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken on a Tuesday night and then one show at Southpaw in Brooklyn the next night.  I was going to need the rest.  I mean, hell, even when I was in college, it was tough getting out of a show at 2 AM at Maxwell’s and walking the mile and a half or so to the PATH stop to get back to the city.

Expectations were pretty high for The Mummies’ first shows in the U.S. in 18 years — and the fact that the first was taking place at the site of the last one in 1991, you knew there wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house. Certainly not from those who dropped $50-$60 to scalpers after the shows sold out immediately ($15 face value for each ticket!).  But could anyone really miss these shows?  In fact, you’ll see those strange orbs floating around in my pictures.  Maybe they are the spirits of Mummies fans who have died in the intervening 18 years who wanted to cross to the other side see their favorite band?

For those who don’t know, The Mummies are/were a garage rock band from the Bay Area who wrap themselves up in guaze and generally act like idiots on stage.  Of course, that all serves to mask their talent, which is pretty obvious when they crank out Wailers and Sonics covers along with their own original Budget Rock (a phrase that they claim to have trademarked) such as “(You Must Fight to Live) On the Planet of the Apes).”

The early show started with the drummer coming out.  He warbled, in a voice uncannily similar to Joey Ramone (who started in the Ramones as the drummer), “You paid the money to see a professional show.  Let’s not waste any more time. . .let’s go with. . .professional show business!”  Then he kicked off a beat.  Mummy bassist came on and started playing, as Maxwell’s capacity crowd of 200 recognized the lines from “Food, Sickles and Girls.” Then the guitarist came on and started playing.  At this point people were chanting, “Food, sickles and girls!”  And then the lead singer/keyboard playing mummy jumped on and said into the mike, “Okay, everybody.  Grab your ankles.  You’re gonna get screwed!”  After hitting a few chords on his Farfisa, the band lurched into the song with full gusto and bodies both on and off stage jumped around like grubs on a hot plate.

The Mummies are known for trash talking as well.  Early on the singer said, “We’re gonna have to clear you guys out for the V.I.P. show,” referencing the later show.  “This microphone taste like shit. . .did G.G. Allin just play?”  About halfway through the set, a few songs after a version of “He’s Waiting” that blew apart, the bassist asked, “Hey are we skipping something here?”  “Shhh!” said the singer, “that’s for the V.I.P. show, man!”

Some in the crowd yelled for The Mummies to just stop the banter and play.

“You know, back in the old days,” the singer countered, “you know, when your parents used to come see us, they’d be lucky to get, like, 15 minutes of actual music, so stop fucking complaining, all right?”

Encore: “Zip a Dee Doo Dah” and “Justine.”

The later show was even more high-energy.  In fact, I can’t remember the last time I felt the entire Maxwell’s crowd moving that fast and in all directions.  This time, they all came onstage at the same time.

The bassist announced that they “saved all the good songs for this V.I.P. show.”  People were screaming pretty much anything.  “Don’t get too excited,” said the drummer, “you may be disappointed.”  The singer added, “Too bad you guys missed the V.I.P. show that happend a little while ago.”  Then he said, “You can feel free to sing along to this one.  Except Russell.”

The Mummies launched into a hi-speed and raunchy version of “Skinny Minnie” and the floor seemed to convert into a junction of moving walkways as torsos twisted and slammed against each other.

A few songs in, the bassist chided, “If you were here at the last show, please stand in the back so the other people can see.”

“This place is a dump, look at this!” said the singer, referring to the cups and other crap that people thew on the stage.

As the bassist tuned up, the singer said to his bandmates, “Let’s see how long we can make them wait.  The funny thing is, they can’t make us actually play, and they can’t make us play good.”

Encore: “(My Love Is) Stronger Than Dirt,” (bringing things full-circle) “Food, Sickles and Girls” and “Show Me.”

It was kinda more of the same at Southpaw the next night, which, in The Mummies’ case, is a great thing!  The Brooklyn club actually had curtains drawn as the boys set up, so when they parted, as the drummer keeping a beat on the high hat, it was actually pretty dramatic.

They opened with a ferocious cover of “Come on Up” that saw the singer stand on his Farfisa, grab a ceiling beam and swing from it.  Of course, someone else in the audience later in the show got a boost from a buddy and did the same thing.  How original.

I have to say that the crowd of 500 were more vocal than the Maxwell’s crowds, although the latter were way more physically active.

When the regular set was over, the crowd chanted “food, sickles and girls!”  And they got it for the first song of the encore. Then there was “(My Love Is) Stronger Than Dirt.”  After that, the bassist asked the crowd, “Are you guys getting bored?” to a resounding “NOOOO!!!!”

The ultimate (in many ways) song followed, “(You Must Fight to Live) On The Planet of the Apes.”  The crowd continued to roar for more, but the boys were done, off to some shows in Europe.  Will they ever play in the U.S. again?

For more pictures, check out my fan page on Facebook.

No, not here, though I wish!

Hey, all, I want to let you know about an event coming up this Sunday.

Bad news: it’s not in New York City.

Good news: it takes place in Paramus, New Jersey!

More good news: I’ll be on a panel with the beautiful Wendy Lee and equally beautiful Sung Woo.

Sunday June 14, 2009, 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM

Books NJ 2009
Panel Discussion – The Immigrant Experience (yeah, bay-bee!)
featuring Wendy Lee, Ed Lin, Sung J. Woo.
Paramus Public Library
116 East Century Road
Paramus, NJ 07652

Grant Hart, a one-man band who knows how to wage psychic warfare.

Well a whole bunch of things have happened lately that I haven’t been blogging about.

I’ve seen The Vaselines twice again when they came through Manhattan and Brooklyn in mid-May.  I didn’t bother write about the shows because they have been so extensively covered I didn’t know what else I could add to it and also I wrote about their two shows in the New York City area a year ago.

I’ve also got another book coming out sorta soon, Snakes Can’t Run.  It’s the sequel to This Is a Bust, and it’s coming out in hardcover (my first!) on St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne/Minotaur in winter 2010.  I haven’t written too much about this because there are still some things that need to be done, including the cover design, which I’m sure will be an awesome graphic for a blog entry.

And, well, I recently turned 40.

Forty!  Jesus, am I really 40?

I won’t lie.  I was freaking out a decade ago when I was going to turn 30.  I thought it was going to be The End.  Y’know, the end of fun and the beginning of getting a will hammered out.

In all honesty, I have to say I have had more fun in my 30s than in my 20s.  I used to worry a lot more.  I’d work every extra overtime shift at the news service to try to make more money to move out of my large but ultra-crappy apartment in Boerum Hill in pre-cool Brooklyn.  What was so crappy about it?  Well, the month after I moved in the kitchen ceiling collapsed because it apparently had been holding a quantity of water that had leaked in from somewhere.  A few months later I had a flood that left two inches of water on the floor.  The worst part about that was there were mice parts (not whole mice, for some reason) floating in the murky water.

But it was there, on that then crappy place on State Street that I’d fire up my Mac clone and helplessly punch out a short story or another page to a another doomed novel.

It was tough.  It was the hardest thing in the world to do.  It would have been so easy to stop at the bullet-proof Chinese place on the way home from work and pick up half a fried chicken and french fries with Chinese hot sauce, and then zone out in front of the TV.  Or hit the PlayStation with my neighbors.  That happened often enough, but the fear pushed me.

Fear and worry.  Fearing that I wasn’t cut out to write a book.  Worrying that I wasn’t trying hard enough. I pushed myself like my parents wished I did for my piano lessons.  I spent many nights huddled in my futon, wondering if I could put together a manuscript before my apartment caved in and killed me and worse, knock out my hard drive.

Those days seem so long ago because they are — nearly two decades.  I need to thank that guy for all his effort because it helped instill the writing discipline that I have now.

My 30s were spent writing regularly and certainly at a more-measured pace.  I started going to a gym for cardio/upper body/lower body workouts, and I think I’m probably in better physical shape than I have ever been.

I also started going to see live music again.  I had stopped attending in my mid-20s EA Sports days.  I think it started when the Knitting Factory had three great shows in a row in spring 2004 — the Undertones, the Weirdos (with the essential Cliff Roman in the lineup) and D.O.A. It was awesome being there (although my wife still wants to kill me for exposing her to the “pit” at the Undertones show — it was a small place and there really weren’t any “safe” corners).

I have been to many more shows since.  In fact, in the last two weeks or so, I’ve seen the two Vaselines shows, Kylesa (who are awesome!) and Grant Hart.

One rule I have in going to see shows is that I actually attend early enough to catch all the support acts.  While this has led to stretches of pure agony (though such experiences are awesome for future writing material), I’ve also discovered amazing bands that are astoundingly good live acts.  Back in 1989, I saw Nirvana open up for Tad at Maxwell’s.  I saw Sunny Day Real Estate open for Velocity Girl in 1994.

This year I saw the BellRays open for the Damned.  And “damned” if they didn’t top the headliners in pure adrenaline, sweat and effort.

But I broke my rule on Monday when I went to see Grant Hart.  You see, Grant was opening for Death Vessel, a band I’m not familiar with and whose music doesn’t rub me the right way.

Grant, next time you come, play “Now That You Know Me”!

Grant was awesome, just him and his electric guitar (”One thing you can say about little amplifiers,” he chirped between songs, “They’re real easy to carry.”), starting out with “The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill,” from New Day Rising, one of 15-year-old Ed Lin’s favorite albums.  The last time I saw Grant perform was 19 years ago at CBGBs when he cranked out songs from his recent solo album, Intolerance.  I had asked him after the show why he didn’t do any Husker Du songs, and he had spat out, “If I start playing Husker Du songs, that’s all anybody will want to hear.”

But that wasn’t true back then and certainly wasn’t true Monday night at the Bell House.  Thing is, he now treated us to many other classic Husker songs, including “Flexible Flyer,” “Terms of Psychic Warfare” and “She’s a Woman and He’s a Man.”  He shook in some expected solo stuff, including “2541.”

The goofy and lovable Grant — a man closing in on 50 — belted out songs, clearly feeling the pleasure in playing songs he loves.  Watching him on stage made me try to remember what I was like in 1990 at CBGBs.  Even back then, although I was only writing two short stories a year, I wanted to write novels.  I had no idea how far I had to go.

After Grant’s set, I noticed that the top knuckles of my big toes were hurting for some reason (I hadn’t been standing on my toes, I swear).  Ed Lin from two decades ago would have stuck it out, seeing a band he didn’t necessarily like just to be true to the integrity of the show.

But I left.  There was no way it was going to be better than Grant Hart singing Husker Du songs and I wanted to leave on a high.

When you’re 40, you owe yourself some breaks.

I strongly suggest you attend this conference this Friday.  If I could, I totally would.  Info below, or go to http://aaari.info/2009america.htm

Date: Friday, May 8, 2009 Time: 9AM to 5PM

Place: 25 West 43rd Street, 18th Floor
between 5th & 6th Avenues, Manhattan

Fee: $20 (Non-Member) | $10 (Member) | Free (Student)
ID Required for Member & Students

Breakfast and Lunch is Included
Payment can be made on the day of the conference, by check or cash only.

Pre-Registration Required
by Wednesday, May 6, 2009 via email or phone.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: PARAG MEHTA – API COMMUNITY LIAISON, OBAMA-BIDEN TRANSITION TEAM

As the U.S. attempts to negotiate its gravest financial crisis in almost 75 years, Asian American communities must ensure that our concerns are represented in public debates around lightning rod issues such as education, immigration, social services, and fiscal reform. Against this backdrop, how can Asian Americans unify our voices? What are the barriers to effective coalition building and advancement, and how do we develop sustainable alliances and strategies to challenge those barriers?

Topics will include: Asian American Studies Curricula in k-12 & Higher Education • Community Empowerment in a New Financial Reality • Sustaining Arts & Culture • New Media & Community Mobilization.

Speakers will include: Sewell Chan (The New York Times), Ken Chen (The Asian American Writers’ Workshop), Joanna Eng (Idealist.org), Chung-Wah Hong (NY Immigration Coalition), Vanessa Leung & Choua Vue (CACF), Glenn Magpantay (AALDEF), Sunita Mukhi (SUNY Stony Brook), Amardeep Singh (Sikh Coalition), and many more.

Pre-Registration Required via Email or Telephone:
info@aaari.info/212-869-0182

$20 Registration (Non-Members)
$10 Members & Students
INCLUDES BREAKFAST & LUNCH

MORE INFORMATION & REGISTRATION AT:
http://aaari.info/2009america.htm

I strongly suggest you be there!

Crocodiles, not bad, but definitely an off-night!

This was Asobi Seksu’s big homecoming gig, the last in a long international tour.  Somehow, though, something was missing.  I dunno, it just felt kinda joyless, if I may say so, though the music sounded great and Asobi Seksu (a duo of singer and keyboard player Yuki Chikudate and guitarist and vocalist James Hanna), rounded out with a touring bassist and drummer, were tight.  Or maybe it was just me who felt empty at the end of the night.

First opening band was Crocodiles, two guys, one who sings and the other who plays guitars and handles the drum/bass/keyboard programming.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t so great, either.  They sounded a bit like The Jesus and Mary Chain live — great songs played shittily.  In fact, I think both guys were sick.  The singer was spitting like an old man in Chinatown while the guitarist’s nose visibly leaked at regular intervals.

At one point, the guitar cut out completely, but the pre-programmed drums/bass/keyboards — and the singer — completed the song no problem.

Tyvek, I’m not into you guys.

Up next were Tyvek, from Michigan.  Female bass player and a drummer playing a stand-up kit, what’s not to like?  A lot.  This six piece looked like an intramural softball team that was thrown together with people who didn’t get picked by anybody else.  How did they sound?  It was like bad pop played at Minor Threat speed.  Their songs were frantic and about a minute long each.  And, boy, did they have a lot of songs.  I think they did like 30 of them!

Asobi Seksu, yes!

Before Asobi Seksu came on, the roadies rolled out huge sheets of white paper, either to go with the theme of the cover of their new album, Hush, or to cover up the phlegm that Crocodiles left on stage.

They came galloping out with “Sing Tomorrow’s Praise,” off of Hush, an odd choice for an opener, in my opinion.  Then “New Years” from Citrus (a favorite album of mine) crashed in.  “It’s good to be home!” Yuki exclaimed.  “It’s been a long time!”

The venue was pretty packed at this point.  If it wasn’t sold out, it was pretty darned close.  Whole lotta Asians there, very cool, and an incredibly diverse crowd overall.  The songs seemed evenly split between Citrus and Hush.

After “Strawberries,” someone yelled out, “Yuki, I love you.”  She answered, “I love you, too.”  It just seemed too perfunctory an exchange and that was when I started to worry.

My unease continued throughout the night.  I wasn’t sure what was bothering me.  The Hush songs meshed well with the Citrus songs, even though I’ve read that on the latest album they were trying to get away from the noisy guitar pop (Hanna himself was “sick” of playing guitar) that characterized their earlier work.

Before introducing the closing song of the regular set, Yuki noted that many of the bands’ family members were in the audience but her own parents were in L.A.  “Don’t hate me,” she added.  Then Asobi Seksu launched into “In the Sky,” which then built into a My Bloody Valentine-worthy maelstrom.  Yuki then took off her necklace, hanged it on her microphone and stepped behind the drum kit and slammed it like a madwoman.  John Zorn would have been proud.

The feedback continued as the band walked off and then came back to slip into “Strings.”  Last song of the night: the single “Me and Mary.”

Then it was over.  Over over.  Only one encore.  My unease spread from my stomach up into my slumping shoulders.  Only one encore and no “Nefi and Girly“?  But that’s one of my favorite songs and definitely a signature song of Asobi Seksu!  So much so that it’s on the Live From Soho and Spaceland Presents live EPs.

I think Lemmy said it best in his rambling (in every sense of the word) autobiography, White Line Fever.  Basically, he’s done with “Ace of Spades,” but it wouldn’t be a Motorhead show if he didn’t play it.  And when he goes to see Chuck Berry, he’d better play “Roll Over Beethoven.”

Even if a band is just sick to death of a song or style, they should still play their touchstone pieces.  Asobi Seksu, I will buy (and have bought) all your albums and EPs and all your new music.  But when I go see you play live, I want me some “Nefi and Girly”!

I have the sense that many in the crowd felt the same way.

Kuroma, I wasn’t really into you, to be honest.

I don’t know about you, but I was psyched as hell to see that Scotland’s Primal Scream was coming to play.  I got on the bandwagon late, having been turned off by 1991’s Screamadelica, which I considered trippy hippy crap back in the day.  But I checked back on them for 2000’s XTRMNTR for two huge reasons: awesome bass player Mani (late of the Stone Roses) was now a full-fledged member; and I found a copy on double vinyl (thank you U.S. label Astralwerks!).  I was hooked right from the start with the annihilation funk of the first track, “Kill All Hippies” and loved the album all the way through to closer “Shoot Speed Kill Light,” lyrically inspired by Motorhead’s eponymous track.

Time hasn’t been kind to the Scream.  I’ve heard conflicting information, but this was their first New York show and American tour in years.  Mani said onstage that they haven’t played here in nine years, but singer Bobby Gillespie later said that “five years” has been too long to not play the city.  On top of this, the Scream’s new album Beautiful Future isn’t yet available domestically in the U.S. (not even on iTunes!  C’mon, Steve Jobs, you hippy!)

Opening band Kuroma came out with just two members, one on guitar and one on recorder and vocals.  It was a bit of a head fake, as the rest of the band piled in later, but it was annoying enough so that I kinda tuned them out.  Unlike most of New York, I make it a point to show up on time to catch the opening bands, because you never know what you’re going to see.  I got to see huge upsets, such as Sunny Day Real Estate opening for Velocity Girl at CBGB in 1994, and Nirvana opening for Tad at Maxwell’s in 1989 (with about 25 people in the audience), but tonight wasn’t one of them.

Bobby: “I’m gonna scream and scream again!”

About 9 o’clock the Scream hits the stage.  Bobby is looking stringbean thin, tall with black hair.  Christ, he even looks hapa!  Longtime guitarist Robert Innes has a jaunty hat and western shirt on.  With his graying hair, he seems like Captain Sensible’s older brother who is just a touch more reserved. Mani, with striped shirt on, is bouncing like a kid coming down the stairs Christmas morning. A nice touch is that he’s hacked out the “Marshall” nameplate on his bass amp and replaced it with “Mani”!  To his right is Barrie Cadogan on guitar, or maybe it’s 70’s Jimmy Page’s doppelganger.  Can’t see the drummer too well and a keyboardist is similarly hidden behind his equipment.

Maybe it’s too obvious to start out with “Kill All Hippies”?  But, whatever, man, it’s great.  “Miss Lucifer” makes an early appearance, as well, and sounds better than the studio version.  Innes riffs like hell all over the place and actually upstages Bobby in terms of providing visual enthusiasm.

You go, Robert Innes!

There were  John Edward (he of “Crossing Over”) moments on the choruses to “Movin’ On Up,” when disembodied background female voices chimed in.  There were some flourishes on the keyboards and someone (a male) back there waved to the crowd.

“Country Girl” on the first encore was great, if coming off as calculated.  The second encore was an extended “Accelerator,” ending with, what else, bass and guitars against the amps, pouring feedback over the crowd.

It’s only 10:30 pm on a Saturday night and the show’s over, but not for me.  Not until I buy my “Kill All Hippies” shirt from the merch table, put it on and head out into the rainy New York night.

Yeah, you guys!

Okay, so you’ve left your tiny American label Merge and gone on to 4ad, so I guess this stunt was to generate publicity for that storied label.

Yeah, I called it a stunt!  You book two shows at tiny places in New York City and they sell out immediately (and creating buzz as people scramble to get tickets).  One at Mercury Lounge (an old trick for that venue — Echo & the Bunnymen played a semi-secret show there in 1996 when they first reunited and Swervedriver played there in 1997 when they switched to label Zero Hour) and another at the Bell House.   What the fuck is the Bell House?  Nobody’s even ever heard of it!

So when both of your March shows sold out immediately, the “fans” who snapped up your tickets started hawking them on Cragislist and eBay immediately — at 200%-500% markups!  Those jackasses are your fan base now.

Remember when you played the South Street Seaport in 2007?  I couldn’t make it, but it lives on here, here and here.  That was cool!  Dude, you played a free show!  For the people!  For your fans!

You know how much I love/loved you guys?  I have your fucking albums on vinyl!  Do you know how hard they were to find?  Really hard!

I pushed your songs on everybody I knew!  I even forced my wife to listen!  She hates much of the music that I love!  She still wants my head for forcing her to go to the Undertones reunion show!

I wasn’t ready to be heartbroken, but now I am.  <sniff!>  And one thing’s for sure — I won’t be seeing you live, not this month, anyway.

A Korean chain opens their first American outlet in America! In NYC! Kimchi and hotdogs and bulgogi all in a wrap!

And speaking of wrap, here’s a wrap-up as to why I haven’t been posting as of late.

I’ve been busy, mostly holed up writing and watching many, many movies.

Yes, I said writing!  The sequel to This Is a Bust is coming out on St. Martin’s/Thomas Dunne/Minotaur in Winter 2010, but the specific “pub date” has not yet been set.

Whew!  I have never written a sequel before and though it was possible with a Chinatown mystery, surely there could never be a sequel to one of the best books ever about Asian American/coming of age/sexual discovery ever?

In any case, it’s been great hanging out with my old pals Robert Chow, John Vandyne, the midget, Paul and of course, Lonnie.

But if you, my real-life pals, miss me — and I mean really miss me in the way that I do you — I heavily suggest you spend your next 66 minutes wisely and go here and watch me.  It’s a reading and Q&A I did last week at Hunter College.

By the way, like many Asian-American studies programs on the East Coast, the administration is messing with the one at Hunter and I strongly suggest you go here to get the full scoop.

In other news, I’ve put up a link for Ed Lin merch.  No, I don’t get any money from this, Mr. IRS Man, but I’m glad to have loaned my image for a good cause.

More soon.

I’ve read in the Harvard Business Review that successful people take the time to celebrate their victories.  So here I am celebrating with the greatest woman in the world, my wife Cindy.

Shucks, I won the Member’s Choice Award for This Is a Bust at the Asian American Literary Awards ceremony on Monday.  This is the second time I’ve won it, the first being back in 2003 for this dirty little book.

I’m very humbled, since this is the one award based on votes from members of the Asian American Writers Workshop.  The other awards are judged.  I’ve already run them down here.  Thank you to everyone who voted for me, but more importantly, as I mentioned in my speech (”so presumptuous of me to write one!” as I mentioned up on the stage), thank you for taking the time to read the book.

One doesn’t have to read books.  Most Americans who do read read only one book a year.  The average American reads zero books per year.

Don’t settle for average.  Especially with our new President coming in, let’s make a commitment to raise the bar, America!  Let’s all read two books in 2009!

Sounds like a slogan already!  Two in 2009!  Yes we can!