Physical Subculture

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Workout:

Heavy Cleans. Work up to a handful of singles in the 85-90% 1RM range.

Deadlifts from pins (hand-and-thigh lift style, only a few inches of movement)/snatch grip high pulls. 125% 1rm for deadlifts, at least, and hold that sucker for 5-10 seconds, the, on a lighter bar, 5-6 high pulls.

Buelers/Farmer’s Walk. 8 per side/120 feet. 4 sets.

Not Really Fitness Related

I sometimes pretend I’m a musician. Sometimes someone thinks I have enough skill to want me on their project. Usually my dire need for attention and love has me saying yes, no matter how it might effect my schedule or how badly it may screw up my training or sleep patterns. I’d accept being called a whore, but whores make money. I usually do not. I’m just starved for acceptance.

Sometimes these projects produce something decent that I’m proud to be part of. Sometimes the result is spell bounding, truly artful, and i wonder if I’m worthy to be associated with it. Recently my lifelong music friend Christian Kiefer asked me to appear on some tracks of an album he was producing. Only due to my friendship of Christian’s did i say yes, since, as I’ve mentioned, his approval is important to me and my fear that he’d abandon me as a friend if i said no keeps me at his beckon, like an insecure mistress on the top list of his speed dial.

Christian and I work well together when the project has to do with either experimental jazz* or loud, pounding drums. He often takes projects elsewhere when the drums are meant to be beat-keepers to an otherwise pop-ish recording.

*(in the article linked here, although Ben Masarrella is listed as the percussionist, on the reviewers two favorite tracks, I’m actually the guy beating stuff)

So when he asked to drag me into a project for a ‘folk/americana’ band, I was initially hesitant, except that Christian’s own music is often categorized as such, but when we play it live, it turns into what I’ve dubbed ‘banjo core,’ some sort of punk art project under the guise of what some call ‘alt-country’ (think Flipper and Kyuss make sweet love to Wilco or Califone). So when he mentioned that his goal for me on this album was to ‘do my thing,’ I knew he was taking this poor band in a direction that would possibly be scarier than they imagined. They were usually a three-piece, sans drums, and often accoustic, but if they were bringing Christian in on the project, the number of instruments being used was probably going to triple and the dynamics were going to take folks on a roller coaster ride.

Also appearing on the project was another common player in Christian’s pantheon, Scott Leftridge, who has, on many occasions, rode waves of sonic mayhem with yours truly. This was no longer a ‘folk’ album, to be sure.

Now i hold the album in my hand. Your Ghost Fits My Skin, by Silver Darling. It’s good. Real good. Perhaps my connection to the album should dissuade me from writing about it, so I won’t.

But damn, it’s well done. From the vocals to the songwriting, this disc contradicts the age of the band members. These three guys are of the age of the current hipster generation, but unlike their vacuous chronological peers, there is thought and emotion here that hints at a dark sagacity usually thought to be reserved for souls of a hardened material called experience.

But I’m not going to tell you that.

The CD release show is at Harlow’s, Sunday Sept. 7th, opening, appropriately, for Damien Jurado. Several of us who played on the album will be joining the band for the show, helping to relive the dynamic ride that the album contains, or at least we get to pretend we’re rock stars. Come be our groupies!

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USAW Club Coach certification, October 4th and 5th. 2 days of working with Jim Schmitz learning the art of the Olympic Lifts. Many of you have talked about coming, so email Jim (schmitzjim@earthlink.net) and get on the ball.

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The DVD

Not sure if we’re making a workout video or a home version of Jack Ass, but Josh was in town this week, so on a day where the thermometers migrated to cooler climes, we were outside filming a small segment while standing on broken concrete slabs in 104 degree heat. Hoisting heavy kettlebells and leverage clubs. And doing burpees.

For about 3 hours.

This racked in about 9 minutes of footage. Good stuff to be sure, but with the proverbial ‘kids, don’t try this at home’ label. If we’re not killed by heat stroke, I should be getting this thing wrapped up by November, just in time for the kiddies at Christmas.