SHAKE THE SHEETS 20th ANNIVERSARY TOUR CONTINES

Announcing the final 6 mos. of long weekends, to wrap up a year of #STS20! Videos (from Portland, Or.) courtesy of the very kind @ktsummer

THIS WEEKEND in Atlanta with @macsuperchunk, then @jamroommusicfest in SC and @thefestfl in… FL
Get over to Jersey City for the last NYC area show for a while at @whiteeaglehalljc, followed by same deal at @thefillmore SF & @belascola LA!
Christmas shows with @aimeemann back in effect, this year in the northeast, with @pftompkins, @joshgondleman, Nelly MacKaye, and more?
Austin @mohawkaustin and @theorientaltheater Denver to start, then Buffalo at @recroombuffalo, @thegreathallto Toronto, @standrewshall Detroit, and @thegrogshop Cleveland; followed by an early spring in New England with @space538 Portland (Me), @fetemusic PVD, @colonywoodstockny Woodstock, and @ironhorsenoho Northampton.
Amid and after this all, it’ll be new record time, I hope?

PREVIOUSLY…

FOLKS, 2024 is somehow the 20th anniversary of our SHAKE THE SHEETS album, and I’m happy to announce some tour dates: full band, playing Shake the Sheets in its entirety (plus more, obviously), east coast, west coast, a little bit in between, spread out over pretty much the entire year. VERY EXCITED.

Now, this is where it gets a little complicated, though - the ANNOUNCEMENT is… now, Feb. 13, at 12 PM HIGH NOON EST; there is a PRESALE that runs from WEDNESDAY, Feb. 14, at 10 AM to Thursday at 10 PM YOUR LOCAL TIME, then tickets go on sale publicly on FRIDAY, Feb. 16, at 10 AM LOCAL TIME, so any time BETWEEN Wed & Friday, you can go to the venues' websites or tedleo.com/tour (where all the direct ticket links are), and get those tickets, if you want, by using the "artist's presale code," STS20. We’re very VERY excited to be doing the east coast with DC’s Ekko Astral, who I don't mind telling you, is one of the greatest bands I've heard in YEARS. I think they're a beautiful, heavy, punk, and dare I say, important band, and I'm honored that they're joining us for that leg. You also may have heard me wax on about Diners recently, because they put out a record LAST year that I absolutely loved, and that features two of the greatest power pop songs that I've heard, yes, I'm gonna say it... IN YEARS. Thrilled to have them join us, as well.

Here are the tour dates:

JUNE 19 ASBURY PARK, NJ at The Stone Pony w/EKKO ASTRAL

JUNE 20 WASHINGTON, DC at the 9:30 Club w/EKKO ASTRAL

JUNE 21 PHILADELPHIA, PA at Union Transfer w/EKKO ASTRAL

JUNE 22 BOSTON, MA at The Paradise w/EKKO ASTRAL

JUNE 23 BROOKLYN, NY at Warsaw w/EKKO ASTRAL

AUG 30 PORTLAND, OR at Revolution Hall w/DINERS

SEPT 13 MINNEAPOLIS, MN at the Fine Line

SEPT 14 CHICAGO, IL at The Metro

NOV 15 SAN FRANCISCO, CA at The Fillmore w/DINERS

NOV 16 LOS ANGELES, CA at The Belasco w/DINERS

NOW, you may be saying... that's not a lot of dates, Ted (if you're talking to your screen), and you're not wrong, but it's what we can manage right now at this point in all our lives. Most of the problem is me, because I just can't be away that much right now, but everyone in the band is in a place, doing other things, making other things, working at other things, to a degree that makes it tough for us to tour like we used to*; but for me (and for all of us, I think - and I hope you'll agree if you saw the week we did in the northeast last September) it makes it that much more joyful when we CAN get together and make it happen. There may be some festival dates that will get added to this list, and they'll be announced according to their own schedules, and it's entirely possible that a small handful of other things might crop up, including solo shows and an end-of-year holiday variety show tour with Aimee Mann on the East Coast this year, but for now, we're psyched to be able to do this series of shows, and I hope the presale thing works out for everyone!

*and when we talk about how we "used to" tour, please remember that for a long time, including the time period Shake The Sheets first landed and was toured on, we toured EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME, so... like... I know that St. Louis, Chattanooga, Houston, Denver, Winnipeg, Santa Fe, etc. exist - I've been there, and I've loved being there, and I dearly hope I'll be there again, just not on this go-around.

Anyway, Presale: Wed, Feb. 14, 10 AM YOUR LOCAL TIME

Ticket links at TOUR PAGE

code: STS20

SHANE MCGOWAN

And Shane McGowan departed us last night. My friend Rax King said, “kissinger took shane mcgowan with him like the balrog snatching up gandalf,” and I can hear him growling, cigarette in hand, “Fly ya fooowells!” You’ll hear a lot of people telling you about his warm, kind, poetic heart, and my impression is that you’ll hear a lot of that because it’s true.

Contrary to how this usually goes, his work got/gets more important to me as I got/get older, and it was only around the time leading up to making The Tyranny of Distance that I hit my deepest groove with The Pogues. You might say, “Ted, that was a long time ago,” and you’d be right to say it, but folks - I was turning 30. And to credit Brendan Canty once again, he heard me singing the Sickbed of Cuchulainn and said, “You should do something like that!” So I did! Sort of. I leaned into the things that were trending that way within me already, and, along with the major Thin Lizzy lean that I was also in the midst of, songs like Under the Hedge, Timorous Me, and The Goldfinch And The Red Oak Tree came out. A few years later, with a short stack of those sorts of albums to my name, now, we got the call that I’d never dreamed would come: to open for the Pogues. I’m prone to being weepy about things, but VERY rarely am I “giddy,” and I wasn’t, outwardly, at this gift being given to us - in fact, I think I kept my cool pretty well. I did what I always do: rent the van, get the gear in order, figure out where we’re staying, what the set list should be, practice practice practice, etc.; but I’ll tell you, even as I write this right now, there’s an internal buzzing of giddiness that still flows like a small but too-deep brook at the bottom of a deep, deep valley, out of any direct sunlight. It mostly rolls happily along, quietly and at a good clip, and when it hits some rocks or something, it doesn’t stop or slow down, it just splashes right over and around them, finally making some noise again, that bubbles up and draws my attention back down to it, and I remember, and I feel that giddiness, and I’m happy for a minute.

It was just a few shows on the West Coast of the States. We didn’t have a ton of contact with the band, but they were friendly. Shane was up and down during this time (2007), and some nights thus wound up being way WAY up, and others a little bit down. On the night before the last show, I went and dropped off one of those short stacks of CDs in their dressing room, with a note expressing some of this (a lot less, don’t worrry) and saying thanks for having us along. Why do we do things like that? In some ways a cooler gift would’ve been a cake or a bottle of something - a gift that expressed the gratitude I was feeling, but without bringing it back to myself and my music (and without making a band on tour lug around another short stack of CDs); but it was a somewhat spontaneous gesture, and I didn’t necessarily expect them to listen through the stack, but I did want them to know that they’d had a hand in making it - that what they were putting out into the world brought forth other things, including what I was putting out into the world, and that it keeps going - what Shane and The Pogues have done will never die.

The last night, at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, all set up and ready to put the boot in, we were asked by their tour manager to hold off a few minutes. I was crestfallen and annoyed because we only had a certain amount of time to play and, I wanted to do it. But he told me Shane was on his way down and really didn’t want to miss us that night. “Oh!” I said/thought/felt. “Well, uh… sure thing, then. Uh… absolutely. Why don’t you just tell us what works for you!” And then he said to me, “Shane was really moved that you dropped those records off with the note. No one really ever does that.” And folks, it was then that I was glad for a few extra minutes because… I told you I get weepy. Well, I almost burst into rolling fucking tears. How in the world had “no one ever really does that” for him and them come to be? I’d been a little embarrassed about having left that stack for them, but Shane handled it with kindness and warmth and immediately gave us MORE in return. I think that’s why the valley, with the stream, and all that, dug itself so deep (to also lean into this over-labored image).

And so, he did show up, and we did go on. And I could see him the whole time, or the shadowy figure of him, anyway, out of the corner of my eye, in the left wings of the stage, in his all black suit and shirt, leaning on his left arm raised way up high over his head on the wall, head bopping, lit only by the red of his dangling cigarette.

And up bubbles that brook.

Rest in peace, Shane.

With gratitude and love.

Shane, mic in one hand, bottle in the other; smiling

LOWELL LINK IS UP

Folks, got the ticket links for festival and individual show tickets and am psyched to announce that I have the honor of sharing the stage with the Hungry Wolf, himself, bard of Los Angeles, the great John Doe. Join us!

Also, tickets still available for the May Chisel shows, and I should warn everyone that, based on recent discussions, this *may* be a coda on the whole thing, so come if you can!

All those links are on the TOUR page.

CHISEL REISSUE AND OTHER SHOWS

So, 2023 is the 26th anniversary of my old band, Chisel’s, final record, “Set You Free,” and Numero Group is releasing an expanded 2xLP, remastered at Peerless, and with a booklet and essay by the great jj skolnik, who was there in person for many of our years as an active band. We obviously missed the 25th by a couple of months, but you can probably just blame crammed release schedules and pressing plant backups for that; and really, who cares. It’s just a pin to put on the calendar. We’ll be playing a few shows throughout the year, spurred on, in part by Numero deciding to host an actual festival in honor of their TWENTIETH anniversary (NumeroTWENTY) with us and many of our friends from the era, in February. There’ll be PRACTICING and a warm-up show in Chicago before that, then some northeast dates in May. Click through to the TOUR page for all those shows and ticket links.

IN ADDITION, I’ve got some solo shows coming up that, as I’m (fingers crossed) returning to life from my second bout of covid which caused me to MISS some important shows, I’m really pretty excited about - Largo in LA with another dear old bandmate and friend, Aimee Mann on January 23 and 25, and a free show at Union Pool in Brooklyn with friend and maybe-SHOULD-be-bandmate, Tami Hart, on January 31. Ticket links for those are also here on the TOUR page.

Hopefully see you there.

BUSY AUGUST

All those spring cancelation chickens have now come home to roost, and with the very exciting (for me, anyway) addition of a return to the outdoor series at DC’s Ft. Reno Park, I find myself, to sort of quote Cock Sparrer, “up and down the [northeast corridor] like a fiddler’s elbow.” I tore a calf muscle, so come see me performing from a stool while you can!

POSTPONING PORTSMOUTH & PORTLAND… AND PROVIDENCE

Leaving the below up re. Portsmoith & Portland, but now I have to postpone tonight’s (June 9) Providence show, too. The venue has an emergency situation this week that makes it impossible to host the show. Already rescheduled for the 23rd, though! Hopefully you can still come.

Welp, I’m sorry to say I have to postpone this weekend’s shows in Portsmouth, NH and Portland, Me. I’m recovering from covid, and though I’m safely enough into the era of testing negative that I was able to join the Majority Report for a few songs spread out over the course of two afternoon hours this past weekend, I just do not think I’m capable of playing a full solo set right now. Still congested, easily fatigued, and going to bed at 9:30 PM, which, you know, would normally be about when I’m supposed to be hitting the stage. I honestly don’t think I can pull it off yet. I’d be setting myself back, and disrespecting the audience by calling what I could probably achieve a “show.”

We’re rescheduling both shows for August, all tickets honored, refunds at point of purchase, links rearranged on the TOUR page. I hope you’re still around, thank you for your indulgence, and I’ll see you then.

A FEW MORE SHOWS, SOME MUSIC, SOME BENEFITS, SOME CHISEL

Folks - ticket RSVP for the DC show is now on line and active (again, it’s free but, I think, seated, so you have to reserve spots). I’ve added a show at the lovely Union Station Brewery in good ol’ Providence, RI. Links to those on the TOUR page.

I managed to get another three songs up for the latest Bandcamp Friday. That is HERE, and I hope you’ll enjoy.

I also wrote a new song for a comp put together by my old friend and Citizens Arrest bandmate, Janis Cackars. It’s a benefit for a Ukrainian org called RAZOM, that takes a creative approach to getting people together for community and mutual aid. That is HERE. I have more to say about the song, and I’ll try to add those thoughts when I can.

On April 14th, I’m part of a livestream called TO THE FRONT, benefitting The Frontera Fund, and the good work they do for people in Texas struggling, especially now, under the horrible restrictions on abortion access and care. There are so many great people helping out with this, and I hope you’ll join us.

Finally, for now, over the course of the next year or so, Numero is reissuing some stuff by my old band Chisel. I’m looking forward to… most of that! It’s been fun working on it with John and Chris from the band, and everyone at the label. As we remaster and collect relevant memories and materials, we’re getting some digital “singles” out month by month, leading to an eventual Numero-quality vinyl re-release. You can find the digital stuff all over, but why not try it in hi-res at Qobuz?

More to come.

INTO THE CONQUERING SUN

A benefit for Jane's Due Process and the Frontera Fund

I have to lead off with an apology for the delay between Spencer Ackerman posting this to his Forever Wars newsletter, and me offering it for wider release (which was always the original plan). I'd intended to start a Bandcamp page with this benefit, but found that an old label of mine had already established one using my name (without letting me know), and that kicked off the first series of bumps in the road that then began to compound on each other; further compounded because when one is doing daytime childcare for an infant, one has to time-box these things meticulously, and when one of those boxes gets moved, it's extremely hard to find a new slot for it. Add to that some other mundane bumps in getting this thing posted - things that should be easier for me, to be honest (like, getting the accompanying image within the specified image size strictures, navigating the financial back-end set-up, copyright, etc.) - and it starts hitting all of the same "I'll have to wait until I have a chunk of time" avoidance psychoses that mean I'll also never get to #InboxZero.

On the flip-side, the crises in healthcare and the patriarchal racism that patrols our borders in Texas aren't going away today or tomorrow, so I hope that as the media focus on events down there wanes for the time being, this may at least be a way to keep it in mind and provide a bump in funding for two organizations doing good work, on the ground:

Jane's Due Process - helping young people in Texas navigate parental consent laws and confidentially access abortion and birth control, and

The Frontera Fund - making abortion accessible in the Rio Grande Valley by providing financial and practical support regardless of immigration status, gender identity, ability, sexual orientation, race, class, age, or religious affiliation, and building grassroots organizing power at intersecting issues across the region to shift the culture of shame and stigma.

I'm posting it to Bandcamp and asking for a minimum donation of two dollars ($2.00), which will be split evenly between the two groups, but by all means give more if you can - every cent raised by this song will go to them, and for the time being, it will be the only item on my Bandcamp page that I'll be collecting funds from (the records you see there available from Touch&Go Records generate a different stream that goes directly to them - but hey, they're good records, too, if you just got paid or something).

HERE IS THE SONG

About the song, I've had the germ of this (literally the first few lines and melody of the song) in my brain for a little while, and it was initially intended as part of what I hope will eventually be another album from me, that was maybe going to be a song cycle about certain recurrent themes of racism, patriarchy, Capitalism, etc. defining America in ways that "we" (broadly speaking, of course) just still won't acknowledge (I realize this will come as so unsurprising an announcement to anyone who's followed me since… the late 80s?, as to possibly land in the realm of DISAPPOINTMENT, but there's always a lot to say), that I keep adding to in a notebook under the heading "The Decline and Fall of the Gnomon Empire" (stamp it, blackjack, 1-2-3 - that's poor man's copyright!), but I'm a bit adrift with no real time or goals or visible future for my life/career as an artist, so it's largely remained in the "continuously adding notes" phase for a while. Some good notes! Lotta stuff to draw on! But I haven't done much writing with it all, until I got the assignment I needed from Spencer Ackerman.

I'm a fan of Spencer's journalism AND TWITTER FEED, and when I saw him tweet about his then forthcoming book, Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump, *obviously* I was interested. I mentioned above that I'm adrift career-wise, and I bring that up again because one thing I thought I might be good at as a side-hustle is narrating audio books, or other audio content, and it was with this in mind that I cold pitched Spencer on letting me do that for him, and this book. The subject matter is an area I'm very familiar with, and indeed, has had a major part in shaping my adult life and my own art and career; and I think I can read well; and have a pretty good voice for broadcast, voice-overs, etc., if I'm allowed to say so.

Spencer said no. In fairness, he said he was actually going to do it himself, which, to me, is great and the BEST way for an audio book to happen! So we talked a little bit, and instead of the narration, he brought up the idea of a song to go along with the book release. I love this idea - I've done it a couple of times before, and it's a really fun assignment; and in this case, it grabbed me because I truly care about these things, and it felt right that after all these years, in the process of revisiting these toxic streams that come together to make this flaming flood of contemporary American history, I could work with someone alongside whose journey my own has ridden for the past few decades, with this particular part of the history looming so large in the work that we've done. It was also an honor to be asked, and I hope I've done that justice in the writing of this song, "Into the Conquering Sun," presented here as Ted Leo & Jeppesen Airplane (look it up), which is Spencer on drums and the great Sue Werner from the great band, War on Women, on bass; mastered by the genius Jesse Cannon. There's a lot crammed in here - to my mind, maybe deserving of something similar to the review of T.S. Eliot's "Wasteland," that called it "a scum of poetry floating on a sea of footnotes" - but hopefully it works, hopefully you'll enjoy it, and hopefully we can continue to raise a few dollars for Jane's Due Process and the Frontera Fund.

Thank you!

Into the Conquering Sun

Angel baby, martyr mother

I'm gonna get you a gun

And stick figures for the minivan

This is how the West was won

Angel make me father, brother

Forever the only one

Get in the car, the engine's on

And forever it will run

Won't you teach me how you taught her

Our fabled daughter, hoe she ought to

Go to Vichy, taste the slaughter

It's in the water, in the water

Let's roll down to the border, love

Drawing it as we go along

Drag that cane through the sky above

As we run

Into the conquering sun

Endless roads, melting radios

Everyone must sing along

To the metastatic static

That's our song

Stable claims need ersatz cover

Someone to wedge and shun from the hegemon

Label Cain's seed ersatz other

And the story is done, even as it's begun

Let's roll down to the border, love

Drawing it as we go along

Drag that cane through the sky above

Never done

Into the conquering sun

AN ALMOST HANDFUL OF SHOWS

Dipping my toes back into actually playing music live, which I think I still want to and am maybe still supposed to do?

I don’t know. We’ll see. Trepidatious about all this for a whole host of reasons that I’ve spoken about on podcasts over the past year, and I’ll write more about here when I have a minute, but for now, just letting you know I’m going to do a couple of solo things in places I feel pretty safe.

The Good Ol’ Black Cat in Washington, DC on the good ol’ day we like to call “9/11,” at which, in addition to just being with some of my favorite people at one of my favorite places, I am looking forward to possible ON STAGE HIJINX with the GREAT Algiers.

Stretching out into trying something new and playing THE LOFT at City Winery NYC on October 2, which is, like, tables and food and drinks, and should be free-wheeling and fun.

Each venue has its own covid protocols in place, but both include proof of vaccination or negative test.

Links on the TOUR page.

(Also, I realize that two shows does not NEARLY a handful make, but there might be one or two more coming at some point, and that would indeed be close to a handful.)

RIP PETE VENTANTONIO, RIP JACK TERRICLOTH

When I saw your teenage culture

My contempt turned to a torture

Had to change to make sure

I had nothing, nothing to do with you

But now what I see is the exact same

And you people aren’t supposed to be the same

And I’m ashamed

-from Sticks and Stones, “Contempt”

It took a little while for me to apply them in my life, but these lines from the Sticks and Stones song, “Contempt,” were a few of the first gifts that Pete Ventantonio, eventually also, and probably more widely, known as Jack Terricloth, gave me. There ARE those things that just stick with you, and in the summer of 1988, there was one particular Thursday night Pat Duncan show on WFMU, 91.1 FM, Upsala College, East Orange, New Jersey, that I’ve never forgotten. I don’t know why I remember this all so vividly over thirty years later, but I do - Pat played a live version of Agnostic Front’s “United Blood,” Ed Gein’s Car “Boo Hoo,” Tarnfarbe “Heroes of Today,” The Faction “Skate and Destroy,” Shudder to Think “It Was Arson,” Soul Side “Trigger,” and, obviously, hours of other stuff; but amid it all stood out this voice, plaintively singing the above in the intro to the song, over just a bass part, cymbal bell dings, and some ghostly guitar notes, and I was, as we said back then, shaken.

I didn’t know anything about Sticks and Stones at that point. I was mostly going to shows in New York. It was easier for me to get there than deeper into Jersey, so I didn’t really know The Court Tavern scene in New Brunswick, and only went to City Gardens in Trenton when there was a posse of people car-pooling down; but in 1988 and 89, the Pipeline in Newark was having tons of shows, and that was close - in the summer, I’d blaze down there five minutes before the show was supposed to start on my minimally-stickered Panasonic 10-speed. And that’s where I first saw Pete.

I want to say NJ Oi band, Niblick Henbane was headlining, but they played there all the time, so who knows. What I do remember is that it was possible for me to ride my 10-speed down there because I was almost certainly wearing shorts and a t-shirt. At that time, like some other rather wispy children, I was seeking belonging and affirmation in the tough boyishness of that skinhead/Youth Crew sartorial crossover that was so prevalent - boots and flight jackets in the winter, shorts and band shirts in the summer. I hadn’t yet gotten my head around some of the toxic macho aspects of that scene that I’d wind up, by the end of 1989, mostly abandoning. It was a confusing time in my life. I had a deep compassion for all living things and a desire for openness, yet I was trying to kill certain things in myself - partly to just be more acceptable and cool via not being seen as “soft,” and partly to actually not be soft - to be able to draw a line around myself that would be noticed, and not messed with. Part of THAT also came from being at least nominally part of a “crew;” from being surrounded by others who looked and thought like you, and amid whom you felt safe. I remember one big fissure in this way of thinking that was impossible for me to leap over was when, on the boardwalk at Seaside that summer, some SJS skins (white power, as far as I knew) came over to me and a friend of mine and started talking to this dude I was with like they were pals. I just stood there and didn’t say anything until they’d left, at which point I turned to my friend and looked at him with a “WTF, dude” expression. He said, and this is another thing that sticks in my memory, “I know, I know. I don’t agree with everything they stand for, but I know they have my back if I get into a fight or something.” There actually were a lot of fights back then, but that was a line that I could never cross, and it seemed utterly beyond reckoning to me that things like “scene,” music, clothes, etc., could trump things like, say, not being racist. It was also down at Seaside that summer that I remember some local straight-edge guys talking really crudely about a girl who I’d just met and quite liked - the classic misogynist hypocrisy of young men who would’ve jumped at the chance to make out with someone, viciously taking a young woman down a peg because she dared to actually make out with someone. This was all the same sort of crap that I’d seen the better-off preppy kids in my high school doing. A culture that, after sometimes having, to my eternal shame, participated in, often passively, sometimes actively, I was finally starting to try to separate myself from and put theory into practice.

And you people aren’t supposed to be the same/And I’m ashamed

As it turned out, the show started earlier than I thought it did, and I walked in while Sticks and Stones were packing up their stuff and leaving the stage; but here, in the middle of what had become a very aggressive and jock-ish scene, was what I saw: a keyboard, and an also wispy dude with a gigantic double mohawk, white powder on his face, and baggy New Romantic pants. Here in a tough club, in a tough city, on the edge of a tough scene, with a bunch of other tough bands, was the ACTUAL ungovernable force. Fresh in my mind was seeing a longhair get his face kicked in by a skinhead at the Ritz, stories of Wattie from the Exploited getting jumped while onstage at City Gardens and having skins pour beer on his head and smash his mohawk down, and me, myself, having gotten a little cultishly straight-edge, wanting to be included with what I was starting to realize might be just another group of cool guys to replace the earlier set of cool guys; but there was Pete V. Possibly slightly outré in that context but stylish as hell, not at all concerned with conforming to the currents swirling around him, defiantly himself; and again, I was shaken.

I bought two 7”s they had for sale. The one with “Contempt” on it had a picture of his guitar amp, on which lettering said “WORLD TO BE SAVED, SONG TO BE SUNG.” The back cover quoted Billy Bragg. The EARNESTNESS delivered with panache and aplomb - THIS was actually cool to me. The songs were melodic, whip smart, and they ripped. The second 7”, released only a year later, showed preternatural growth. No one my age, in that time and place, was doing anything as advanced. We were the SAME age, but he seemed years ahead of me in every way. Seemingly self-possessed in a way that I could only dream of being. And that mohawk - there was no fitting that in anywhere. There was no dressing that up (or down) for whatever normal function a shaved head could be sort of ok at. Glorious. And the memory of him standing on that grotty stage, became part of the glory of listening to those records later on.

We became friendly. I bounced back and forth between home and college in the midwest, then I moved around a lot; but I’d always see Pete somewhere, at home or on tour. We were label-mates on mutual Jersey friend Charles Maggio’s Gern Blandsten Records; first while Sticks and Stones was ongoing, and later with Pete’s, in becoming Jack Terricloth, ongoing magnum opus, The World/Inferno Friendship Society. One night in the mid 90s, long before the neighborhood became a brand, I wound up at his Keap St. studio in Williamsburg, and he seemed amused, but a little stressed. There was a presidential visit to the UN or something, and this is when I found out about his history with the Secret Service. As a kid, he’d called in a bomb threat to his school on the eve of a Reagan visit in 1984. It all got sorted out, but he would still receive check-ins from them when a president was coming to the area. “Hey, Pete. Just checking in, making sure you’re doing ok. No plans this time around? Ok. Talk to ya soon!” The definition of legendary.

By the late 90s, Pete was Jack Terricloth, and his incandescent lounge-klezmer-sideshow-spiritualism punk World/Inferno Friendship Society was fully realized and underway, and my tenure with my mod-ish punk band, Chisel, had drawn to a close. I’d become pretty disillusioned with the biz side of the music biz, and had the spark of an idea about an art-punk collective that could coalesce around this new musical project called The Sin Eaters that I was starting with my brother Danny and our friend Sean, former bass player in my other brother, Chris’ band, The Van Pelt. I would never and will never say that Chisel WASN’T punk, but I wanted to do something that was more explicit about it - still melodic, but more aggressive and angular, more directly political in my lyrics, etc., and I wanted to bring other things under the umbrella - film, books, visual arts - maybe even have a compound somewhere with an actual roof instead of just said umbrella. We never did much of that, but we did tour Europe with the Van Pelt, and on the strength of all our past work with other bands. Forty-nine shows in fifty days, squats and youth centers all over, including the still very Eastern Bloc-era Eastern Bloc, a handful of what you might call “clubs” in a few places, and a bunch of dates right in the middle (starting in Potsdam, if my memory is correct), as fate would have it, even in Europe, with the World/Inferno. This also took some time to sink in, but it was the second of the great gifts Pete V gave me. I was coming into this a little bruised, a little fragile of ego, a little feeling the need to prove myself; and every night, I was trying to ram this idea of perfection that I had through my soul and into reality - never a good idea, to ram like that, but especially bad when part of what you’re trying to do is prove yourself to, for example, the members of Doom who you drove around the UK with, or the elder Citizens Arrest fans out to see what you, the legendary first guy, so briefly in the more legendary band, was up to ten years later. I actually think The Sin Eaters were a pretty great band, and I’m quite proud of what we did, even with those pointless weights I was carrying; but while I was obsessing over my broken tape delay and twiddling knobs trying to coax the perfect sound out of whatever guitar amp I was using, The Word/Inferno just got up and played. I mean, literally. You got a bass amp and it works? Great. Oh, don’t plug the guitar into that one, plug it into this one? Cool. Can you hear the violin? How about the accordion? Yes? Fantastic. Boom. And they WERE perfect. Because they weren’t trying to do anything - they were just doing it. Obviously, they had a concept that was well thought out and almost all-encompassing. Obviously, they APPRECIATED when things sounded good and worked FOR them. But from where I stood (on the fire escape in Potsdam), they didn’t have to ram anything. The music was their concept and their concept was music. Their spirit was their totality and the totality conveyed the spirit. And Pete V/Jack Terricloth was the channel, the emcee, the demiurge, and the dramaturge. Too much? Maybe… But you weren’t there.

They very well may have argued about who did what wrong and who wasn’t bringing who’s vision to the stage correctly when I wasn’t around to witness it, but the point is that how they hit me, at that point and from then on, was as people who didn’t seek perfection - they just allowed themselves to be perfect; or at least just allowed themselves to BE in a way that made every moment FEEL perfect.

The third great gift came very soon thereafter, when the Sin Eaters had blown up and I was back to traveling and playing alone again; depressed, sad, and angry; bent with resignation, but also rising with something of a renewed spirit of defiance, all of which I felt echoed in the memory of another Sticks and Stones song.

My mind’s been shut so many times

That I don’t even want to open my eyes

‘Cause yeah, I’m hungry for something in this world

But I don’t really want to be a part of your world

My morals taste of rust too far stretched

And I’m too smart to trust

And I’m not happy, my mind’s still gone

Learned a lot from the past, and it was all wrong

This is how far I’ve run

This is what I’ve become

Still wearing my boots

Still ready to erupt

Yeah, still pretty fucked up up

What I see, living outside you

It’s hard - I hate - it’s almost impossible

Is it worth the pain and the sorrow?

Will I crack today, or will I crack tomorrow?

Do I tolerate them, or do they, me?

Are they totally blind, or has blindness struck me?

It’s just too much work

Just too much work to be free

Oh, to be free

Some people pretend to have authority

While being bludgeoned into conformity

I can’t say that right is my way

When I just want my check on Friday

You ask why action appeals to me?

Because passiveness has failed so miserably

Passive change is the same as decay

That’s why the world is so violent today

And I will never be the same

-Sticks and Stones, “Blindness”

I started covering it in my solo set, and it made me feel good. It made me feel right. It helped me see a through-line, and it helped me to not feel crazy for still being ON that through-line and for sort of wanting to remain on that through-line.

In the last two decades, I’d *still* run into Pete not infrequently just walking down the street, or sidled up at a bar I didn’t usually go to and I don’t think he did either. And this is where we exchanged what I think was the fourth level of gifts. When I heard Pete had died the other day, I pulled up Jack Terricloth in my phone to see the text thread. It was empty. It’d been that long since we last corresponded on purpose - not in one of our serendipitous meetings around the world. But I did have those serendipitous moments with him. And while I, of course, am kicking myself for that text thread being empty, the gift that he gave me during those encounters was the gift of that earnestness of his. That honesty and open-heartedness, made all the more poignant by the fact that so many of these meetings WERE chance encounters. I know that he knew that I cared for him and admired him, because I got to tell him to his face, more than once; and I know he felt similarly about me, because I got to hear him tell me to my face, more than once. Boozy, dreamy nights, ear-to-ear grins, and a rare connection; free of ego and full of love - love for the lives we’d chosen, love for the way we’d lived them, love of the music we’d made and the people we’d become. That was a gift.

And as I sit here writing this tonight, in May of 2021, I realize the fifth and greatest gift this giant, this genius, this courageous, utterly unique, warm loving wispy human being gave to me: All the validation I guess I’ve ever needed. It was right there, and I always felt it, but I didn’t understand it until right now.

I don’t always feel like what we do matters, but I once had a person tell me they discovered Sticks and Stones via my cover of “Blindness,” and that it ALL mattered to THAT person, and what Pete and Jack did mattered to me. At 50, now, I all of a sudden find myself with a five month old daughter (all of a sudden as of five months ago), and she sometimes actually likes it when I play guitar and sing to her. She’s not as interested in the tear-jerking quiet Irish lullabies I specifically spent a bunch of time learning for her, as she is when I do something like mimic Dio, singing “Rainbow in the Dark,” or try to play a Discharge song on acoustic because I’m going out of my mind trying to keep her entertained, only to find that, right along with the theme of this series of memories, it tends to work better when I don’t worry so much about that and throw caution to the wind (she likes “They Declare It”). Today, I picked up the guitar and, from memory, managed to play and sing “Blindness” to her. It should’ve been corny, but it didn’t feel corny. It felt like it mattered.

I love and miss Pete. The world is bad, but it’s better for having had him in it.

Finally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong or embellished here, but if there is, any embellishment was done with earnestness (if not panache and aplomb), and I think Jack Terricloth would approve of that.

- May 14, 2021

Oh to be free

a podcast

Though I think we always thought of it as a podcast (I’m certain we always refered to it as such), I guess we have the people at Maximum Fun to thank for this actually BEING a podcast, more than anyone, since when we started recording conversations with some friends and acquaintances we admire about how they work, why they do what they do, what art is even for, especially in these mean times, etc., we had no real plan. Over the last year of being on the road, when we’d find ourselves together, we were just trying to grab an hour, pulling out our clunky Shure 58s (Shure - get at us) and begging people to try to handle them as quietly as possible (even with the poofy foam pop filters that professional Paul F. Tompkins kindly forced us to take from him after our sit down), while recording into my laptop with the battery that won’t hold a charge and the track pad that doesn’t work. We talked to a broad array of people from many backgrounds and many regions of the creative spectrum, including musicians, of course, but also comedians, speechwriters, screenwriters, illustrators, painters, authors, directors, producers, and more than a few who maybe lean one way or another, but are ultimately pretty hard to categorize. It was fascinating and fun for us, but, done sporadically over the course of pretty much the entirety of 2018, it wasn’t until we looked back recently at the body of interviews we’d collected, that it seemed like something real, that made sense and hung together as a series. It hasn’t been an easy time for many among us, and one of our selfish goals was to learn from those we admire how they remain creative while navigating the labyrinth of abandon, depression, elation, inspiration, and most importantly for us, work, structures, “process.” We hope you’ll find it entertaining, and if it’s even just a little bit as enlightening for you as it’s been for us, then… WE’LL KEEP GOING?? There’ll be TWO debut episodes, one with Wyatt Cenac and one with Rebecca Sugar, released on Monday, January 28, with successive episodes coming every OTHER Monday thereafter. You can click on the image above to get to it on iTunes, but you can also listen and subscribe at Stitcher (I’m a Stitchy-preem person, myself), maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.