BALTIMORE!–CANCELLED!

***THIS SHOW HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO SNOW2012STORM!!!!!!!***

uninteresting advances in my technological life

while i can’t manage to update any tour dates on here, i did get a twitter acct: twitter.com/desark. so far i’ve posted a lot of bullshit inside jokes, if that kind of thing interests you.

the new record is in its final stages!!! lovitt records will be releasing our first full-length since 2005’s LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS this april/may; it’s called DON’T ROCK THE BOAT, SINK THE FUCKER. recorded by jonathan fuller (engine down/sleepytime trio/denali) at black iris & kurt ballou (converge) at godcity, featuring the ridiculously talented ashley arnwine on loud drums & ridiculously metered jonathan fuller on quiet drums, plus the ridiculously zen noah howard on guitar.

track listing:
My Saddle Is Waitin’ (C’mon Jump On It)
Girls Get Ruff
Bonne Chance, Asshole
Ashley’s Song
FTW Y’ALL !!!
Howard’s Hour of Shower
It’s Only A Bargain If You Want It
Two Hearts Are Better Than One

in the meantime, you can look forward to volume 3 of the solo WXDU sessions, recorded a couple of weeks ago by Ross Grady. i’m still editing out all the talking in garage band (sorry cantwell), and figuring out how to magically burn CDs with my mind, since my computer’s CD burner broke last week. ???

also, check out converge’s new record AXE TO FALL; i added some backing vocals to the song “Cruel Bloom.” you can’t really hear them, but you can take pleasure (as i did) in knowing i sang the most metal lyrics ever, including such phrases as “lifelong victims pound and claw at the ground” & “writhe in the cruel bloom.” writhe, people, i got to sing the word writhe.

from the jan15 show with ben davis:

thanks for the beautiful pics erik!

w/Johnny Ward (Pygmy Lush)

“tuning” an untunable piece of balsa wood.

i was wrong!

the radio show is at 4pm this Sunday, January 15th. listen here!

DC show tonight!

des ark, solo w/help from pygmy lusher
w/Ben Davis & The Jetts
Minor Stars
Pizza
@ Big Bear Cafe, 1700 1st St. NW, Washington DC
7:30pm

for a while there i fell into an uncomfortable downward spiral of writing well-adjusted easy going solo songs, until eventually all the lighthearted happiness started totally bumming me out. i’m referring to the unstoppable tornado of explosive creative proliferation with which i was wowing audiences worldwide, last year, 2009, when i wrote all of two songs, one for every 6 months, those two songs in major key where i sounded really bored, because well let’s face it, i was boring myself to death with all the relaxed self-acceptance.

but now i got a pile of new songs, and these new ones, they’re nothing like those two old ones. they’re fucking sad, & so i’m just writing to let you know that everything is going to be ok, that everything is back to normal. i’m done wasting your time with that sappy happy crap, kicked the bug from my system. i’m playing real songs again. it is time to fucking cry, y’all!

also: tune in to WXDU 88.7fm (durham, nc) on sunday @ 4pm to hear a live on-air performance!

last week the candle factory burned down. everyone just stood around and sang, ‘happy birthday.’ -steven wright

birthdays are the absolute worst.  like halloween, all this expectation leading up to the event, worsened by the dizzying ring of family & a couple of friends, hovering around, emotionally poking the fuck out of you “so what do you want to dooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?”

see because unlike halloween—when the witching hour strikes & the miracle 24 hour period of weirdo-tolerance descends upon america, making it not only admissible but the down right fucking reasonable norm to wake up, have a cup of coffee, crazy spray some moldy katsup on a damp trash bag & walk around all day with the stinking shit duct taped to yourself, under the jagged halo of yr aquanet hair (& let’s be honest, all yr really trying to do every halloween is creatively stick it to yr boss, in a refreshing i know that you know that i know that we both know you can’t do shit about my outfit kind of way)—anyway, unlike that, birthdays…people want to know, they need to know, they’ll have you convinced that out of self-respect to yourself, you really oughta have The Plan all worked out for them. as if you’re the kind of asshole who sits around for weeks, concocting bizarre ritualistic obstacles & activities for yr loved ones to celebrate your tired ass, as if you would ever do that, as if that would make your birthday any better, to know that you must demand their love. i mean damn, just dump a cup of robin’s vegan shitake gravy on a french fry po-boy (go to the place with the good bread), hand me a baker’s dozen of boston creams from vegan treats, followed by a coupon for a 30 day session at a detox clinic, a working car, an opening slot on the next springsteen tour, some new underwear, fill up the propane canister on my coleman, find my iPod & we’ll call it a day.

to use the old cliché, tour was amazing. thank you all for coming to the shows & putting up [with] 13 people. thanks especially for the vegan feast in atlanta, the 47lbs of pu-erh tea in richmond, the vegan chocolate mouse pie in NOLA, the gallons of free beer in abita springs, the killer brunch in gainesville, the 24hr vegan ice cream shop in gainesville, the plates & plates of vegan jamaican food consumed in gainesville, the freakishly spot-on $5 palm reading, ben davis’s smokin new keyboard player AND to the hoard of super insane Festerz who made the bananas 3am Wayward show a bodacious time. i thought i was too jaded to play shows that start at 3am, but i’ve officially been proven wrong.

watching two incredible bands, every night, for ten days of your life, it can really do some good things for you. ironically, going on tour with a bunch of old farts who’ve been “doing it forever” managed to relieve some deep-seeded apathy i’ve been carrying around. hallelujah i feel un-stuck.

TONIGHT!!!!!

9:00 (show starts PROMPTLY @ 9:30–NO BS y’all!!!)
@ FUSE, chapel hill.  next to nightlight.
desark w/
pygmy Lush
old growth
12Xu
ghastly city sleep

this is our last show of tour w/ghastly & pygmy lush.  it’s been a beautiful thing.  i hope you can come out to support this show.  i’m leaving for some trip somewhere to somehow go do something, so this could be our last show for a while.

also on the bill are our wonderful friends 12xu, all the way from france, & old growth from portland (never seen them, but many people in florida are like “whoa, they are sooo my favorite band!”)

people will be playing short sets tonight, so hopefully this thing will not be super crazy for a tuesday night.  all of these bands are on tour…….for whatever that’s worth…………

updated venue info for tour!

finally.  god i’m lazy.  check out the “tour” page!  email desark [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions i will not be able to answer!

“you know the problem with the human body? not enough middle fingers.” -newsom

i’m thinking i will start a charity for those inclined to donate their cold hard cash to something utterly unrighteous.  for instance, my personal transportation needs.

my car is a dead.  well, technically it still runs, but the important thing to know is that i have to get a new car.  and as much as i want to, i’m not gonna sit here & think up some disgusting tasteless metaphor about what it’s like to watch yr partner in crime get kicked off its last leg.  instead, i’m going to do what any other normal depressed person would do: ignore all my phone calls & eat ice cream.

this whole dead car thing puts a real heavy wrench in my, like, “oooeeeee, i’m on a VISIONQUEST!! i am smart & amazing & i tricked the world into letting me quit my job & now i am my own fuckin boss!  i say yes to every show cuz i ain’t gotta ask nooooooooooobody.  me & my little car, we go everywhere.  i say–hey aimée, you wanna play this thing? and i’m like, hell yes, i would, thank you for asking so politely.  BOOY’ALL!!!” plan.  either way, tour starts tomorrow.  it will be a true pain in the ass to get there, but i’ve got tricks.  & the rest of tour is with the band, so it’s vanward bound from that point on.

anyway, shit will get worked.  i believe in magic.  & mostly i just needed to complain a little bit, on the internet, where it’s like you can complain all you want to & nobody is listening.  what a beautiful thing.

RICHMOND SHOW

i left for what was supposed to be a 4 day end-of-summer trip, but the trip just kept on tripping, and the impending cold just kept on colding, and suddenly it’s been three weeks and it’s winter, and it’s raining all the time now, and still all i got is this borrowed bag stuffed with summer clothes and a couple days worth of underwear, a swimsuit and a toothbrush, cold cans of lentil soup, almond butter, apples and a teapot. and at the fall of the sun each night i’m in a parking lot somewhere, digging through the trenches of my car, getting dumped on by the cold cold rain, pulling out any extra layer i can find to keep warm. but this is the life, my favorite life. it is a life whose survival depends on bonfires and blowing up chestnuts on an open fire, a life that finds sustain in shitty seven dollar acoustic guitars and in friends you’ve found over the years, your storytellers.

been on the outskirts of DC practicing tour songs with pygmy lush into the wee hours of the morning, in an unheated shack attached to a chicken coop; when the song ends you can hear the chickens scratching from the other side of the wall, and the sound is a lonely sound and it makes me feel colder somehow. and…ghosts. it’s like chicken ghosts of chickens passed. it’s some seriously creepy stuff.

i realize that we are on flyers all over the city of richmond, for a show that we actually cannot play, and never really could, but somewhere along the way the lines of communications went down and anyway, this shit happens. i’ve gotta be at a wedding in concord NC that day, and my bandmates have to work, but here’s how i’m gonna fix it. i’m going to the wedding, gonna stay just long enough to steal one of the inevitable disposable cameras and take some undertheshirt pictures, and then i’m gonna haul ass to richmond, to play some songs with pygmy lush. couple of my songs that they fixed for me, one of their songs that i’m trying to not ruin, and a cover song. it’ll be just like any other des ark show, i.e. under-practiced, sufficiently winged (anyone know the correct past tense for “winging it”?), short and intense.

new song! “which of you assholes ate christmas!”

never open christmas on somebody’s advent calendar if it’s only december 3rd, i don’t care how drunk you are. it’s a dick move.

here’s a new one featuring Chris & Johnny from Pygmy Lush, from the farmhouse show in Ashburn VA a few weeks back, on the beautiful outdoor stage Mike built, captured by Janelle’s iphone, which she got that day. or something.

pygmy lush & i will be doing a few songs together each night on tour. double the love, double the tears y’aaaaaall.