Recently at a show in France, Dawn Landes and I agreed that the band name "I love you but I've chosen darkness" is only good if the band deliberately picked the dumbest name they could think of. Know another band name I think is dumber than dumb? ---oh, I better not say. They might be on my My Space friend list.

But I'm also a guy who's band names have been:

Less the band
Yow
a.m. Sunday
King Kong
Days Of The New
lovesauce and soulbones (lowercase letters as a kind of mission statement)
Goodnight Maxine
Janitors Of The Apocalypse
Edensong
Orbits
Java Men
The Bellarmine Jazz Trio
A.K.A. Dino
Bloo Zoo
L'Woo
Shades Of Jade
Coffeehouse Comatose
Escape (Journey Cover band!!!)
Dow Jones and the Industrials
Love Jones
M
This

....Also, if you've been looking for me here, sorry. I was out of touch for a bit and have been blogging on my My Space and less the band's my space. But I must admit. Having blogged elsewhere for a spell. I like blogging here better. The colors are softer and the mood more pleasant. Also, I'm not as sure people can find me, which is a plus.

Watch what happens

The title of this entry is one of my favorite titles for a jazz song or any song for that matter. It is by Michel leGRande. He played piano.

In the next 7 weeks, the critical jobs at hand are

1) keeping the bills paid and money tucking away
2) rehearsing with Less the band for the music portion of the Edinburgh Finer Noble Gases
3) recalibrating with a healthier orbit pattern, with more time spent on the ground
4) Completing a readable draft of Clinic Concert for a reading
5) Organizing a blowout Less show
6) Organizing four or five Europian shows in conjunction with Edinburgh
7) Launching the second Motherlodge installation
8) Organizing pr and LLC membership agreement stuff for Less

Things that will happen during this time:

1) Coat checking for the summer crowd at Lotus
2) Playing a show with Rev. Vince Anderson (June 30th)
3) (possibly) playing for a reading of a hip-hop Musical called "Kingdom"
4) Visiting Ursula and all in Maine
5) Spending a week in Cape Cod doing Essential Self Defense
6) Playing a show with Opus Ditty (June 17th)
7) Playing 3 shows with Lady Rizo and the Assettes (July 20, 22, and 23rd.)
8) Playing SIn-e with Dawn Landes (June 25th)

...All accomplished while enjoying summer with Traci, making and sharing sweet-ass love and good meals. (Tonight was pork and mango slaw. Ridiculous!)

If you're feeling kind you can wish me luck.

Ray

The children of Louisville

Danny told us of the two great things that happened at Mc Donald's, with a best friend's soon to be ex-wife, and their fifth child John Paul. There was a book handed to Danny, she had found it at the goodwill. The transferrence of spirit through stellar atmospheres and his father's handwriting inside the jacket. "You should read this," he used to tell Danny. Then, in the middle of Playland, the hand of John Paul on his shoulder, three years old and an ageless grace: "I'm doing great."

I have never known living people with the names Kaden, Tristan, or Baxter until now. It is not foolish to learn of a thing by putting it in your mouth.

My Dad is dehydrated. Could have been the oysters, he says. I drive his car from the hospital to our house on Shelby Park. Napkin (not real name) answers the door and tells me that Daniel will have to explain why there is wood in the door where there was once stained glass. I believe that blacks being killed every week in the neighborhood is too difficult a matter to sum up in conversation with family, but I tell my father-in-law I am certain that part of it is because we live in a world where it is much more acceptible for black men to die.

I'm sitting at old Louisville Coffeehouse. A band from Brooklyn is in town and playing with a local band. Peter, the owner, is a deeply supportive merchant for the indie scene. The first band (from here?) is better in the first 20 seconds of their set than 90% of the bands playing in New York City.

The mental leap of recorded rhythms in a live act is going to be easier to grasp when the effects of RFID's on warfare become common knowledge. We are progressing down the channel in microscopic sparks. Life is fine and worth the effort to enjoy.

Tonight is the last Open Air Transmission Jam session at Rudyard kipling. I'll be bringing it to the end with Scott who has taken the event into a direction that is deeply personal to him. I don't know what to expect but I am sure there will be more than just music to explore tonight. I hear there is a sexual element to it, and I know from many years of playing with him that Scott's deepest expressions come with a cathardic explosion that can challenge even the most open-minded participant. I'm looking forward to the exchange.

Bushwick in the Spring

Last night Traci and I were up until 4 after having our first sedar meal at a friend's home. Although she only got 2 hours of sleep before her intense day of work, I was sure that after the talking, gnashing of teeth and crying that it was the best 2 hours of sleep ever. Before she dozed she said, "I feel like we're a family." If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand.

Tonight I fixed a dinner of baked chicken, spinach, and deviled eggs and with windows open, we ate and watched "Dog Day Afternoon". We were seeing the film for the first time as residents of Brooklyn. The mounting tension of the film combined with the yelling from the street below unnerved us. I think this is because we could see in the film all the grades of madness that we see transfer from vessel to vessel in these parts. It may also be that we do not yet know what the thawing out from winter will turn our block into and tonight was the first night that the neighborhood was expressing its Spring side.

When the film finished, the voices outside were at their loudest, some cursing, some just shaking winter dust off their throats. Then the music started in the apartment below. Usually a thing of weekends and thereby much more tolerable, I am sure the good weather insisted they start a day early. In place of the usual latino dance mix came thunderous rap/metal basslines and deep voices intoning some pep cheer for misbegotten boys turned men. Through the walls it was as unintelligible as the spanish coming in from the street, but the feeling was intact: the natives are restless. Brooklyn had descended upon us.

Traci told me of the madmen she has encountered in the morning going to the subway. The first stared her down and spit "Morning BITCH!" in her face, while today's dandy encounter had no direct eye contact but violent tendencies. Traci said he nearly flung himself off the platform and onto the tracks.

Tonight I missed Louisville with specific desires for where I would be if I could be. On the porch, with a bourbon, listening to the quiet street of St. Matthews. Or Buckner. Or Shelby Park. A train, please. Not a subway.

Baby talk on the Vanguard

Words that look nice

Words that see God

gone in the transcription

A meadow, a medal, a meadow, a medal

The new melody goes ,kasjfcqkwjfeccsuidhfakwenfckjfhlakhfv;mlakwfeemc

Sleep in the fur of the wounded

lose your extra weight

align

I don't know why it is that I cannot sleep, or that when I find myself online, all the intriguing things I'd considered looking up are shot from my mind. There is toothpaste in my head many hours of the day. It makes the lucid moments special.

We are
believe
something special

Terrible document
What do you mean?

I push against you like another dimension
And harden from the friction
There is no satisfaction
a more elegant hunger
is all

(Carriers upon the rock
Are named Carrie or
Something after birds)

We are not all thieves, we are not all liars
We might put back everything we take
We may abandon, but we do not forsake
(Words of John, Joni and Willy the Shake)

Nothing has changed upon this rock
All the words seek recognize
What is passing - designs of
treelines
windchimes
beelines
lunchlines

The Great Eye Soaking In Fredonia

Norther of here, and close to borders
The signs are less frequent for drivers, divers
Feeding on bread from after hours
The leftover slam: hand, dough, heat, throw
I got these pink boots for free

New-clear crystals of snow
They claim the countryside
For joggers in pink spandex
Their hats pastel. Detuned guitars
Everything coming in the room is a birthday present
Everyone coming in the room is a birthday present
Happy birthday

Where will you land tomorrow?
Detuned traveler, sight of phoenix spinx, venus
Risen and taken like bread from the cupboard,
And edible roots from the fridge
It will be late in the day and you’ll be long away
Before they’ll recognize what’s missing
If anything

If anything you’re my partner. Not a boy or a girl.
You’re my happy birthday
The best I got

Now in the crest of the approach
On what was the forbidden trail
North from northers a pace so funky your eyes blink in cartoon frames
If a child is the best we can do, we can do anything
But if a child is best
If only a child
I may be lost
Upon the crest

Crisis
Christ is
my sis-
ter
like this?
Miss her
likeness
Cries this
psychic
Mister
light chest,

Hold my hand when I’m crossing the street
Hold my hand we’re crossing the street

Today LEO Weekly in Louisville KY printed a memorial I wrote for my friend Nathan. Below are some writings that I did in preperation for the piece. Combined, they mark the time I have spent mourning and enjoying my friend after learning of his passing.

Enjoy.

Two words: Come together. A month after his death, Nate Robinson’s friends remember

BY RAY RIZZO

I cannot tell you about Nate in 500 words. I will try to find him in a few haikus printed in a paper that I am pretty sure he never read. Not that he disliked LEO. I think Nathan appreciated LEO because his friends and the musicians he spent his time working with read it, if only to see their names written inside.


Nate Dawg Robinson: “S’up?” Photo by Todd Smith
It is good for the paper — hell, this city — that Nate’s friends are among its community.

It is good of this paper to give 500 words to Nathan Robinson: sound engineer, musician, friend, brother, son, grandson. All over the city this week, many of Louisville’s Most Eccentric Observers can gather upon this memorial, smoke a Red or a Green, toss back some Makers and ask our newest space traveler, “S’up?”

It isn’t good that we’re here and Nate is gone.

For those who didn’t know him, Nate would like you to take these 500 words and rearrange them in any manner you see fit so they may work for someone you know who might leave this world loved but with not as much in print.
Now you know.

For those who did know him, 500 words aren’t enough. And yet — Nathan: one word opens a universe. Nathan, a memory: “Let me eat it!” Nathan, a sign: “Peace!” Nathan, a sound: “The bass tone is the fuunk!” Nathan is reaching beyond his body now. That is some wild shit, Nate. It’s crayyyzy!

You better cut this out and put it on your fridge. Because any place of Nathan’s was a place worth gathering. Dog shit on the floor, ashtray runneth over, fuck it. In Nathan’s home, pizza from last night’s crew was daily bread. You bet your ass I gave thanks to have it. Nathan showed me there was nothing in the loaves, ya dummy. It was the people you broke bread with. He also tried to talk me out of eating stale pizza.

Nathan never sat at a table, a bar or recording studio where he didn’t take you in as a friend. I believe the ledger of Nate Dawg balanced all debts, graces and minor thefts in the currency of essence. Now, Nathan would be first to say that “essentials” like friendship, sonic alchemy and laughter were not as good as cash when you are starting your own recording business, but he was just starting to get calls from people who understood his worth. In his presence I always felt lucky.

I’ve thought about Travis Meeks a lot this week. The day Nathan died, Travis told me he saw Jesus once. In Los Angeles, late into an emotional night. Travis looked upon his couch to see Jesus sitting, smoking a Marlboro Red. When he outed Jesus from his disguise, Travis says Jesus sat back on the couch, got real quiet and grinned a shit-eating grin until the sun rose.
Nathan, the word in Hebrew: “God has given!”

One more thing — I’m sure I’m over my limit, but this is important. I’d like to tell the other driver, on behalf of at least a few of Nathan’s friends gathered here at this memorial: There is nothing you need forgiveness for.

But if it helps, you are forgiven. I mean, I am sure if Nathan could have got up and kicked in your bumper and cursed for a month, you would have heard nothing like it, laughed your ass off, and eventually become cool. If he were here, Nathan would tell you that this is just some fucked up shit that happens. I know you don’t know me, but here it is in Nate’s 500 words.

Or you could take Travis’ mom’s word for it. When she called Travis, she said, “Goddammit, Trav, I know that boy, and when he went into critical condition I knew he’d take one look at the other side, look back at us and say, ‘Fuck y’all!’”

Ray Rizzo is a Louisville writer and musician living in Brooklyn. Contact him at
http//motherlodge.blogspot.com

Peter Donald, a New York producer who knew Nathan said that the last time he spoke with Nathan that Nathan was down. Nathan told Peter he was in a bad way. "I feel like something bad is gonna happen," Nathan had said.

I like this story. Because in all the joy there is to remember and keep alive with Nathan, it deserves mentioning that Nate Dawg could easily get down about things. He felt life very deeply and when he felt bad, he felt BAD. But when he felt good, he felt GOOD. I know everyone close to Nathan saw his dark moments, but I honestly don't think that a post-mortem sense of accentuating the positive is responsible for most everyone talking about the good times. The motherfucker knew how to feel GOOOOOOD. Nathan rode manic highs and lows to their fullest. I liked being around him during both. Nathan was great company for my own manic swings. His presence brought me compassion for my own dark moments.

Did Nathan see a car coming full speed at his vehicle? Maybe. He was imaginative like that.

A computer system called Pro Tools can, in the hands of the right person, become an instrument itself.

Because Pro Tools concerns itself with the recording and engineering of sounds made by many other instruments, the keen operator must be more than an instrumentalist. This person must be a conductor, a conduit. A reciever and administrator of collected energy.

When you walked into Nathan Robinson's basement, certain sights and smells might grab you - the ashtray filled with Marlboro butts, the negative transferred image of the Jimi Hendrix screen saver and the sticker mounted to the screen just below it: Work free Drug place. If you were lucky, the air might be filled with the sweet green scent to which the comic sticker referred.

When the music work started, you knew you were in the presence of a conductor.

There were Metallica posters, the photo of Johnny Cash giving the camera the finger. Bottles of Maker's Mark (usually empty). There was a couch at perfect listening range from the monitors and a cup filled with working pencils and Sharpies.

There were other things in the room - a tie-dyed poster made by Nathan's mother. Above Nathan's head where there was an exposed light bulb, Darrick and Suki (of a.m. Sunday) had made an exotic shade from a carboard box. Everywhere reminders that this freaky lion was loved.

Scattered about were guitars and pieces of equipment that Nathan openly accumulated from his work with many people around town.

Now, music business is littered with stories of mistrust and misappropriation of goods. It stands to reason that looking upon these certain pieces of equipment in the basement someone who didn't know Nathan (or even a few who did) might, under a certain mind, use the word, well, "stolen". This word might come up if you weren't able to grasp the code by which many a living breathing artist lives by, that of transferrence of energy. Some may even say Karma. Whatever term it is, it denotes an arena of ledger-keeping that only those who accept full responsibility for their lives can weigh in on. In this universe, there are, as we know, givers and takers.

Nathan was 100% a giver. I guarantee you that anyone who knew him will agree that he kept the most balanced karmaic ledger of anyone in town. He was a gentlemen to ladies and men alike, he had no hesitation to encounter people from any walk of life and call them friend. When he came to New York, it took less than 10 minutes at a bar before Nathan was having drinks bought for him and New Yorkers were telling him to move to their city.

Nathan left too early, but he chalked up many great moments before checking out. He and Travis sat in producer Rick Rubin's house and cried as Rubin played them the last song Johnny Cash ever recorded. Nathan and the members of Digby treated Billy Bob Thorton and a lady friend to a late night dinner at Waffle House. On another trip with Travis, Nathan experienced his good friend becoming convinced that he, Nathan Robinson, was Jesus Christ.

"The way I see it," Travis recalled recently," if I think you're Jesus, and you think you're Jesus, you're JESUS."

Nathan sat on the couch, grinned, and was silent for the rest of the night.

At an a.m. Sunday mixing session Suki mentioned that she was investigating string theory. Nathan immediately showed that he was versed in the ideas of Quantum realities. He said String Theory was some "fucked up shit". Then his head recessed back on his shoulders and he squinted his eyes. "It's like, you and I could be the tape on the tape machine." He shook his head "Oh yeah. It's crayyzy."

This is the universe I know Nathan. I am tape in the machine, and he is operating the channels. Occasionally, he burned himself onto the surface and changed the pitch - and my nature - forever. I don't ever want it to stop.

Nearly a year and still there is water

I started this blog at the time when my wife and I moved from our home in Louisville to New York City. Under The Flood was a title that inspired by the mystic grip the tital wave of Christmas 2004 had on my psyche as I experienced a life of 20 years endure a transformation that felt as destructive as it was creative. Since my last transmission, New Orleans has flooded, and I find myself in the timeline of things looking at incredible photos of flood wreckage in department stores and kids bedrooms where mud-wracked colorful clothing spills and dangles in primitive, postmodern beauty. This reminds me of a quote from the Village Voice this week: the cities of tomorrow will be build with mud and sticks.

Many moments have ripped new holes in me. The latest is the loss of Nathan. If you didn't know him, you have no idea. Many people in my life have an admirable capacity to appreciate interesting and compelling individuals who are at work on this earth. Nathan was such a person, but in knowing Nathan, you found yourself stepping past the point of admiring to wanting to see the world in the way he did. My walks in Bushwick (where Traci and I have finally have a home) have all week been in the company of Nate Dog. I may, in a free moment, try to share it with you.

For now, in honor of Nathan, who was a genius music engineer and even better human, and in honor of my sad self, who walks with his shadow, I sign off with the words of my neighborhood: develop, do not destroy.