Lotta Ins, Lotta Outs, Lotta What Have Yous

Post-Thanksgiving primer:

1) The Silver Ages show at the Church was a flat-out happiness factory, and the BC Camplight show later that night at Johnny Brenda's was more successful than I hoped--especially the horn-section-accompanied "Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

2) The other double whammy, the very next weekend at Johnny Brenda's, also went swimmingly. I'm very grateful to Gianmarco and his band for letting me ride shotgun and contribute in a small way; the Adam Arcuragi set was unhinged and beautiful. It was a sing-and-pick-a-thon that approached hootenanny status.

3) Mike Kennedy's Christmas party/Pollyanna was a laugh riot. I had and relinquished both a ukulele and a large flashing robot. I got a paper clip holder. And a hangover.

4) The Wire is possibly the greatest achievement of American pop culture. People agree.

5) I got new glasses. A redneck told me I look like "Weezer". Confusing.

6) Recording for Adam Arcuragi's upcoming 12" EP has begun. He has been brave enough to let me helm the operation, which means an insane amount of harmonies and, oddly, no bass.

7) Recording/mixing/overdubbing/looping of the forthcoming War on Drugs full length continues.

8) Planning has begun for a January/February BC Camplight EP, as well as another UK tour. Bells on.

9) Mice have continued their ruthless and inexorable insurgence in my residence. Undeterred by the slow, sticky deaths of their comrades, these rebels routinely leave feces on my counter tops and in my frying pan. This aggression will not stand. Napalm options are being explored.

Christmas Round-up:

A quiet, wonderful holiday. Age has mellowed my parents oh so nicely--all traces my frivolous teenage quarrels with them have melted into a saucy stew of equal parts scrabble, cornucopia-esque feasts and Lebowski quote-a-thons. I saw some high school friends, lit the Christmas Eve Luminaria and hiked with Patrick, my great friend and world traveling Cosmopolite. Anne and Jeff were missed. Vibrating cell phones and emails were not. I really hope that everyone got to be with their loved ones, or at least have a moment to truly appreciate what we have in this insanely upside-down world of consumerist values and perverted 21st century pseudo-scientific religious morality.

Yourewelcomesgiving

Damn near familial bliss broke out in the round-on-the-ends-high-in-the-middle state this Thanksgiving. I ate a cubic yard of turkey and sizable portions of pumpkin, cherry, cape-cod and pecan pies. Classic movies (The Conversation), soothing songs (Townes Van Zandt, Andrew Bird, The Creek Drank the Cradle) and lots of gaming to fill the hours. The nuclear unit and I even did a good old fashioned Zoo trip to make sure we had all the bases covered. Let's do this all again in a month or so, what do you say? My only regret was that the whole Hartley-Bergen clan couldn't be together (Washington and Nebraska, our thoughts were with you).

Upcoming stuff: The Silver Ages and BC Camplight are prepping for their December 8th shows, at The FU Church and Johnny Brenda's, respectively. The next weekend (December 14th) Adam Arcuragi will be headlining JB's with the immensely-likable Gianmarco Cilli (of the National Eye, Windsor for the Derby, and the Silver Ages) opening. I've sat in on trumpet with his wonderful band of brothers previously, so there is once again a Double-Dragon possibility.

As always, pictures of all sorts of stuff on my Flickr.

What's the Happenstance?

After a whopper case of the trans-atlantic flu, I made my way up to good-friend-Zach's Sunnyview farm this past weekend for music and reverie. Its a bit of a historic spot (John Lennon held his rehearsals there for Rock and Roll) and nestled amongst flat-out beautiful hills. Lots of barns, silos, cows, horses and other curiosities throughout.

Tonight (Nov. 19th): Adam Arcuragi and I will be playing the World Cafe Live (downstairs), opening for Mike Doughty. The show is sold out, but sneak in. AA and company are turning serious gears regarding a vinyl release, string sections, and alternative recording techniques. Seriously.

Ongoing: The crafting of the War on Drugs label debut--photos on my Flickr of AG's knob-twiddling genius.

Upcoming: A very special evening with the Silver Ages, Philadelphia's favorite (and only) Foodie-Indie Rock Glee Club on December 8th in the magical Chapel at the First Unitarian Church. Very small, very intimate, overflowing holiday vibes.

Double-Dragon Alert: On that very same night, BC Camplight will be headlining the venerable Johnny Brenda's in Fishtown. Come hear Brian's real-deal songs, with a Superman-appearance chance at about 38 percent.

The Temple of Convenience

Positive vibes, great shows and ample catch-phrase coining in the UK. I especially loved the general topography, the green hills, hamlets, and the endless succession of Gandalf-worthy cottages. It's an ancient, foggy, exceedingly polite culture with a contradictorily high tolerance for flat-out crass media. The tabloids are insane, even by US standards; full nudity and news-less rants fill every page ("Heather (Mucca) Mills is a back-stabbing, money-grubbing, gold-digging trollop", i.e.) of gossip. On a major network TV station, 30 Rock was immediately followed by an shockingly explicit "how-to" anal sex instructional segment.

I'm fully on board with tea-time and tea culture, but the jury is still out on the traditional English breakfast. Believe me, bacon, sausage, eggs, hash-browns, baked beans, stewed tomatoes and lard-fried bread (that can be wrung like a sponge for grease) are tasty, but somewhat of a gut bomb.

World's sweetest pub (sorry, JB's): the Temple of Convenience in Manchester. It's an old public toilet right down a flight of steps right in the middle of the street--hilariously small, social and with a super precise jukebox.


The Brits also seem much more aware of the imminent, looming worldwide environmental disaster and more willing to take action than us Yanks. Its easy to see why, though, the cities are dense and the air quality is low. There are a variety of emissions-related initiatives in the works and just a higher general consciousness about environmental consequences. That said, it is still a very consumer-driven economy with a disturbing focus on pre-packaged foods. I also read an article claiming that the import of food-stuffs in the UK is so carbon-consuming that walking or riding your bike is ultimately worse for the environment than driving, because the burned calories would force you to eat more food. Not sure if that's true, but it certainly shines a light on the cost of shipping and the consumption of imported goods.

Lots of pictures of random curiosities and the band on my flickr. I'll be heading to Columbus for Thanksgiving--lots of projects and such developing in the meantime.

Riding the Taker's Thunderbolt

I'm leaving for the UK tuesday; my first show with BC Camplight will be on Halloween Night in New Castle. I am dressing up as Superman. Post-ubermensch, we will be hitting about 8 cities in 12 days, and then cruising back over the puddle on November 10th. A short little jaunt, with longer ones planned for later this winter.

Last night The Silver Ages made its triumphant New York City debut with the Swedish pop star Jens Lekman. Amazingly, the packed crowd (1200+) listened attentively and appreciatively to our set of obscure 60s pop. 1760s pop, specifically. Jens and his band of Swedish beauties were kind, generous and put on one of the most commanding and unassuming performances I've seen in years. The New York Times agrees. For the encore he brought us onstage to back him up on 'Paris, Paris', a bouncy number mostly in French. Super fun. See it. Again. From a different angle. Heresay. The Philly show was great as well. Here is video of that.

Still more self-congratulation: I played a 503-point Scrabble game last week, including a 203 point play. I wouldn't normally toot my own horn so blatantly, but come on, that is a truly planet-aligning move ('belaying', on two triple word scores, with the 'y' on the double letter, plus the 50 point bonus) giving me the best game of my young career. Is it possible to have a scrabble career? What's the tournament circuit like? Are there back-alley scrabble gangs? Imagine 'Hud' only with more dictionaries and a complete lack of hyphenated words.



Late breaking: I'm sitting in with Gianmarco Cilli's wonderful band tonight (10/28) at the Khyber on trumpet and percussion. Mitch Fiction and the Buried Beds are also performing, there will be buckets of love in the room.

Inspiration for all us guilty liberals can be found here. How Orwellian can we possibly get? A new benchmark.

Pennssissippi Valley

I just returned from beautiful Narvon, Pa where I photographed the Wanner family farm for a Sundance Channel documentary called "Big Ideas for a Small Planet". The farm has been passed down from one John-Arthur to the next Arthur-John for 9 generations and has been a successful experiment in sustainable agriculture all along the way. The 600-odd head of dairy cows unknowingly produce enough poo to power a large turbine generator fueled by the resultant methane fumes collected under large white tarps. Who knew what poo could do?

Mrs. Wanner didn't like my city-slicker looks too much at first and kept me on a short leash--when I asked if it was ok to wander the grounds to take some shots, she replied that "no, sir it is not ok". The Wanner's are visionaries and idealists who are understandably wary of outsiders and the increasing amount of media attention their farm has garnered.

Of course, once I showed an interest in their agricultural practices and dropped some rural colloquialisms Mrs. Wanner started to warm to me. After an hour or so she was showing me old family photos and invited me to come stay in one of the guest rooms next summer when they open their bed and breakfast, once again proving that anyone over the age of sixty is utterly susceptible to simple, innocent inquiry. Anyways, I got a lot of sweet shots, many of which will be on my Flickr soon.

Tangentially: Montesano Brother's Catering and Italian Market, food not to be trifled with;
Philadelphia POPPED! Festival, which is white-hot right now; The Plaid Pony, my round-the-corner vintage emporium; and The Tragedy/Hope of Zach Sowers, a high school classmate of mine, one of the all-time sweetest guys and a victim of an utterly senseless act of violence.

Upcoming:

Burned Hands Teach Best

My trip to Maine was a fabulous, revitalizing experience. My days were built thusly: eggs, coffee, fire, recorded music, photographs, books, films.

You can see photos of this trip @ flickr.com/photos/davidjohnhartley/.
I will update this website from now on as regularly as possible with photos of my journeys, both at home and abroad.

Music: I stopped playing with Pepper's Ghost a few months ago. We are still the closest of friends and future-collaborators on a number of planned of endeavors. My energy is now focused on the upcoming, newly-signed-to-Secretly-Canadian War on Drugs record commencing next week (www.myspace.com/thewarondrugs), a short UK tour with BC Camplight (www.myspace.com/bccamplightmusic) from October 30th to November 10th, a live EP with Adam Arcuragi (www.myspace.com/adamarcuragi) and some high-profile Jens Lekman dates with the indie-rock all star Glee Club The Silver Ages (www.myspace.com/thesilverages) @ The FU Church in Philadelphia and Webster Hall in NYC. Lots on the plate, lots of strands to keep in the ol' duder's head, lots of ins and outs.

Maine Street

Peaks Island, Maine is like a chunk of Smallville-cum-Norman Rockwell heaven; self-service honey stands and bike shops, picket fences, unlocked doors and tattoed-on smiles are par for the course. I've been here three days, walked all of the island's three and a half mile circumference four times and taken almost a thousand pictures. It's incredibly quiet. The wind's been calm so the nearest to hubbub status it gets is the far off echo of the ferry horn ever few hours.

I've done my best to blend in with the "locals" (tourist-season holdovers??), but perhaps the three layers of flannel is taking the when-in-rome thing a bit far. I searched high and low but finally this afternoon I found an axe and a pile of wood that I suppose could be cut into smaller pieces to increase the surface area for faster burning. Elizabeth has been a saint, as has her pooch Ganzey. I wish I could say the same for Ganzey's sister, Esther, a terrible dog who bit me in the back of the head a few hours ago and has been coughing and sneezing up my hair ever since. I am considering poisoning her. Musically I am inspired but not anxious, contemplative but comfortable--I like to think I'm making my Led Zeppelin 'III', although I never made a 'I' or a 'II'. I could weave some serious Tolkien references into my lyrics though.