Good, good, and yourself?

Here's a couple few things.

Ecstasy Mule played its first gig since April, 2009, at the most righteous bookshop Word Up in Washington Heights on August 19. The first piece we played can be seen right up there. Big thanks to Lena Adasheva for the video. We'll be playing again on Sept. 25 at Downtown Music Gallery.

I've interviewed the masterful Keith Rowe three times. Or tried to, anyway. The first time I was supposed to meet him at Newark airport to chat during a layover in his flights, but I couldn't find him. The second time I interviewed him on the phone just before a hard drive crash and lost the whole thing. Damn it all. Those were both several years ago and I finally got another chance to speak with him for the New York City Jazz Record (a free pdf of which can be downloaded here.)

I've also been super happy to be working with Northern Spy records. I wrote liner notes for the amazing debut by Spanish Donkey (Joe Morris / Mike Pride / Jamie Saft) and had the superdistinct honor of producing and writing notes for the first Haunted House record in more than a decade! Damn. It's so good. And I curated a cassette release with tracks by Aki Onda, Nonhorse, Bonnie Jones and Jason Lescalleet.

I'm in the Czech Republic right now, covering the Ostrava Days festival and having a great time. I feel kind of weird missing the hurricane, like I deserted my city when it needed me. If I would have been there, all 8 million of us could have linked arms and refused to let Irene in. Would that work to play Red Rover, Red Rover with the weather? I'm pretty sure it would. But I wasn't there so it doesn't matter.