Archive for July, 2009
Make-Believe Machines: Buy a Book, Get the Album Free
As part of our new “Make-Believe Machines Cares About Community” program, we have decided to exploit homeless youth in order to draw attention to our incredibly awesome band. But in reality, we really are giving away free albums if you support the homeless youth shelters. Anyone who purchases the book, “From a Growing Community, Iowa’s Homeless Youth” this week and uses “Terrorhawk” for their middle name when ordering will receive a copy of our album, Moral Calculus absolutely free. “Ravenhammer” is also acceptable.
www.SowSomethingMeaningful.com
For those of you who haven’t already read the copious amounts of posts about the book here, it’s a compilation of stories from homeless kids all around the state of Iowa, where Justin and Rob grew up. The book also includes artwork and photography by Make-Believe Machines cover artist Wesley Norman and, of course, myself. $10 from the purchase of each book goes to shelters to prevent more tragedies from occurring.
P.S. “Beakwound” is also acceptable.
Photograph by Blake Brown.
No commentsMore Longbottom Leaf Art
The Longbottom Leaf album, The Everyday and the Unknown is out August 15th. I performed extensively on the album, and Wesley and I did the artwork together. Those beautiful photos are Wesley’s doing.
Artwork by Wesley Norman and Justin Norman
No commentsHealth Care Profits Make Us Sick
This is a video of a health care action toward Wellmark / Blue Cross Blue Shield that I took part in. While I’m not yet informed enough to know whether or not I agree with the single-payer health care plan the Catholic Worker advocates, I do believe that profiting at the cost of people dying is an absolutely awful thing, and well worth publicly voicing disdain over. (My preference is that the Christian church would perform its duty of loving neighbors to the point of providing healthcare for them, rather than trust a government that destroys human life through war and systematic torture.)
After weeks of holding vigils outside the company’s downtown Des Moines location, CEO John Forsyth was hand-delivered a letter requesting information be made public about where its profits are going. After giving Mr. Forsyth over a month to release this information, several people, including myself and several from the Des Moines Catholic Worker decided to confront the company head-on. The result prominently emits the typical emotion from protests – anger. This is something I struggled with for quite some time, but as I’ve thought about it more, it completely makes sense. When the stakes are as high as the death of human beings, how can people go on living as if nothing is wrong? Simply because it’s commonplace doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be upset about it. So we voiced what we were upset about in what I believe to be a way necessary in regards to the loss of human life. Nine people were arrested, including an eleven-year-old girl during our non-violent action. For more information, please visit the Des Moines Catholic Worker’s site.
Health Care Profits Make Us Sick
No commentsHomeless Youth Book: 500 Sold, New Video Interview
It’s been barely a month since its release and already we have sold over 500 copies of From a Growing Community, Iowa’s Homeless Youth. The response to this project has been amazing, and it’s really encouraging to see that we’re off to such a good start. Generally, I try to avoid cliched marketing tactics, but because this is for homeless youth, I really feel justified in continuing to say it: tell your friends. Get others to buy the book as a first step to helping with this problem. As Danny has detailed in his posts, the problems these kids are going through are very real, tangible things, that lie just outside of our line of vision. For us, the momentary pain of experiencing these events ends when we close the book or finish reading a blog post. For them, it continues to be an immediate and lasting issue. We’re off to a great start with $10 of every book going straight to the shelters, but there’s still a long way to go to reach our goal of selling 10,000 books. If we can do that, it means we can donate $100,000 back to the shelters, so keep at it, my minions!
And with that inspiring speech finished, I leave you with this new video, put together by Patrick Fleming.
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Please visit our new URL: SowSomethingMeaningful.com
No commentsLongbottom Leaf: Debut Album Out August 15th!
Almost immediately after completing my work on the Make-Believe Machines album, I was invited to hop on board a new rock project by my former Cardboard Canary band-mate, Blake Brown. He and Erik Brown (of Grimfeather) had begun a new band called Longbottom Leaf, along with drummer Jordan Krohn. My part of the album included writing and recording vocals, bass, and composing strings, along with recording other members of the band and mixing the project. The result is a 41-minute debut album called The Everyday and the Unknown, set for release at the first show at the Vaudeville Mews on August 15th. Much of the album consists of older songs which were written from 2004-2007, but a notable exception is the track, “Aporia”, which was written recently. I’m posting it here for you to listen to early. More tracks will be available for listening soon!
“Aporia” by Longbottom Leaf. Cover art by Wesley Norman.
No commentsTorture for Freedom?
Protesters attacked in Iowa on 4th of July
Spurned on through the recognition of humanity in the suffering of war victims, torture victims, and victims of corporate economics; four people celebrated independence in protest at Raccoon River park and Lions Park in West Des Moines and Urbandale on the fourth of July. One person handed out leaftets explaining why a person might be opposed to military recruitment. One person dressed as a Guantanamo detainee carried a sign asking, “Liberty for Torture?” Another waved an Adbusters American flag which has corporate logos where the stars typically are.
At Raccoon River Park the protesters were actually chased down by handfuls of people who yelled, cursed and threatened them with physical death. This is the same place where a lady pulled a knife on Renee Espeland and Eddie Bloomer of the Des Moines Catholic Worker last year. Bright spots in the afternoon were those moments where a person or family would come and offer support. In West Des Moines and Urbandale, Iowa the freedom for dissent comes at the cost of withstanding verbal and physical attacks as the protesters were to be shown at both places.
Groups of 10-12 people formed perimeters around the protesters at Lions Park – some asking questions and having conversation, while others in the groups surrounding the four protesters would holler and all of that. One young man got so angry that he lunged upon a protester and a few minutes of utter chaos ensued. Surprisingly no one needed medical attention after the attack.
Encouragement came when a sister and mother of a soldier killed in Iraq came to talk to the protesters. Tears were in the mother’s eyes as she told them of her dead child and left saying she respected what the protesters were doing. The exchange was a solemn occasion underlining the grisly cost of war. The red haired sister was maybe 7 or 8 at most.
Two very different views of liberty came to a head at two regular old parks in two regular old towns in Iowa. One view says that human life is an acceptable cost in the overall price of war, torture and economic disparity. The other says that human life is the cost but it is a price not worth paying and it is a price that in paying one loses liberty. It is with the refugee, the torture victim and the poor that our liberty is bound, and it is them; the other, that we are free for.
An older version of the Adbusters American flag.
No commentsMake-Believe Machines: “Damp Triangulum” Live MP3
Amidst my work on the homeless youth book, I’ve also found time to write and perform with Make-Believe Machines, the orchestral group I formed with Rob Ogden in summer of 2007. We had been scheduled for a few months to make an appearance on the Scented Vinyl show with Daniel Bosman, but we hadn’t planned on performing until just recently, when I met local violinist Becca Smith. She bowed her strings. I plucked my bass. Rob strummed his guitar. And then we all took the electronica train to Rowdytown. Population: three badder-than-ass classical composers and one crow. Things blew up. Stuff happened. Rowdy stuff. The kind of stuff captured by Mr. Daniel Bosman on his radio show, which you can listen to below.
Photographs by Wesley Norman.
Interview and “Damp Triangulum” live by Make-Believe Machines.
2 commentsMake-Believe Machines: Media Blitz
Hello again, friends!
As we begin writing our second album, tentatively titled Crow Apocalypse 2: The Loins of Hell we have simultaneously started a freaking media blitz. Do you hear this? It’s going to be @*$%ing insane. This Monday we will perform a live interview with Daniel Bosman at Mars Cafe and press the play button on our CD and look awesome as we stare at the spinning disc and nod with a smug look plastered across our faces to indicate, “Yes, that is us you’re hearing.” 7pm. Mars Cafe. Des Moines, IA.
Second, riding the wave of intense arrogance that this has brought on we will send this link to you about an article published in a local juice-enthusiast magazine. The writer apparently believes we gorge ourselves on mangos in our free time. He is right. We do this. Read the full article here.
Third, we have created a @$*%ing Twitter page. Now that we are becoming intensely famous we know that you will all want to know what we are doing at every moment of the day. Just look at this example of our status messages:
“Hunting mechanical grouse with wooden forks.”
Who wouldn’t want to read something like that every day? Subscribe your asses now.
Also, Justin completed bass/vocals/strings work on the new Longbottom Leaf album and Rob is finishing up a novel. Damn we’re awesome. We’re going to ride this wave of glory all the way until reality tears off our smirking faces! More on that stuff is soon to come!
Article by Joe Lawler. Click to enlarge.
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