adam svec’s enemy swimmer

Adam Svec – ‘747′ from troy zimmerman on Vimeo

Couple things:

1) Watch out for an interview to be posted within the next couple weeks on: http://foodforthebeloved.wordpress.com/

2) I just got word tonight that I’ll tentatively be playing the Stone Arch Festival of the Arts on June 20th at 1:15 on the Star Tribune stage.  See details here: http://www.stonearchfestival.com/

**So it’s April again, and you know what that means.  Jesus dies… again.  And then he raises from the dead three days later… again.  Jesus seriously needs to find a new trick.  He’s been pulling this passion play sh*t for a couple years now, and I’m not buying it anymore.

I had a single malt irish whiskey called Wild Geese last night at “Merlin’s Rest” over on East Lake Street.  I tell you what… you should have some.  It is worth the money.  A couple years ago, my favorite east-lake bar went under, and I was pretty sad to see it go.  Luckily, Molly Quinn’s has been re-imagined and re-invented in a delightful little place called Merlin’s Rest.  It’s as Irish as you like and as English as you hate.

If April showers don’t destroy us, summer sweat is just around the bend.  Cheers to my friends and my family.  They make this suffocating climate worthwhile.

I met my friend Troy Zimmerman through my roommate Shawn a while back.  Since then, we have watched a couple of martial arts movies together, drank some beers, and gone to a handful of shows.  Oh.. by the way… he also made two badass videos on my behalf with a string bean budget; one video for The Glad Version’s “Deadwood” and one for “747.”  He just posted the 747 video (long for “vid”) on his vimeo page http://vimeo.com/3838642.  Hope you enjoy it.  Now he’s off to Ireland, so you better hurry up and get your fill of Mr. Zimmerman before he goes.  Thanks Troy!

I found this photo collage put together by the lovely Jenn Barnett.  It’s a stream of images from our CMJ trip in 2008:  http://howwastheshow.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

Today, I realized that kids graduating high school this spring were born the same year that Nirvana Nevermind was released (1991).  I turned 29 last Sunday, and I was trying to think of albums that were released in 1980 that I could shout out by name.  I couldn’t think of any.  Mozart? Brahms? Did they put out new records that year?

I haven’t paid much attention to the outside world this week.  My self-induced internal world has been a weight-lifting affair, and I’ve had little energy for current events.  “Compressions and Rarefactions” are terms most commonly used to refer to the positive and negative displacement of particles in uniform circular or pendular motion.  I can’t help but think my days (our days… the world) correlate to the path of a sine wave.  We have good, and we have bad.  Hopefully, the phasing works out to equilibrium… Although, it would be nice if the good could outweigh the bad.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it works that way.  Here’s a cheers to the bad, only to the extent that it is inevitably followed by a pendular maximal displacement of good.

It’s February again, and that means I’ll be getting older.  I think 58 will be a good year, but I really shouldn’t speak of it before it’s gone… it’s bad luck.  I found this mention on a blog:

http://soundaslanguage.com/2009/01/29/quick-hits-adam-svec/

I’ve recently been annoyed (as Andy Meyer mentioned in his facebook function) by the overuse of the word “random.”  It doesn’t really mean anything, and I wish people would hang it up.  Also, I’m fed up with facebook participants stating things like “You know man, I am not usually the type of person to do these things (25-random-things about myself), but I guess I’ll give it a go.”… Dude… everybody that ever completes a 25-random-things survey always says “I don’t usually do this stuff, but….” so basically, that makes you EXACTLY the type of person that “does this stuff.”  Just accept that you are a normal/typical person, and we’ll forgive you.  All of us normal boring people love facebook… it’s okay… you can too.  However, If you keep demanding to be singled out as and individual, all I’ve got for you is a frown and a headshake.

So this is the first year I’ve really been bothered by the winter in MN.  I typically really enjoy the refuge from the heat.  Now I’m second guessing my allegiance to this landscape of relentless prairie wind.  Here is a really nice review of Enemy Swimmer:

http://lunchofchampions.com/2009/01/adam-svec-enemy-swimmer/

“You’re the best around, nothings every gonna get you down” – karate kid song lyrics (don’t know appropriate citation).

(continue) On Sunday 1/11/09, I played The Sunset Tavern in Seattle WA with Cataldo and Bryn Lumsden.  Bryn used to play guitar for a little band called Fleet Foxes.  It was a fun show.  I bought tequila, talked to my friends John, Pete, Andy, and Alice… and I also sang back up / played guitar for a couple Cataldo songs.

On Monday 1/12/09, I picked up Hannah (Havana) from the airport and we spent three days in British Columbia hiking and hanging out.  Hannah teaches cycle class, does yoga, runs, saves kittens, starts fires for the homeless, and teaches a grad school course.  She’s basically way out of my league, but I’m really glad that she’s willing to spend her days with me.

On Wednesday 1/14/09, Hannah and I walked around the seawall of Stanley Park in Vancouver.  Then, we picked up Alice and Andy in Seattle (after being stopped by the border patrol for possession of citrus fruit) and headed straight to Olympia.  I played a set at The Abe Kat Museum in Olympia for approximately seven Evergreen State College students.  There were dishes in the sink of the the “venue” that could’ve been mistaken for long-term art projects.

On Thursday 1/15/09, Hannah, Andy, and I headed to Bellingham.  As one of the most beautiful US towns I’ve ever encountered, Bellingham had some sort of strange magic that it conjered over the three of us.  We really had a great time taking pictures on the Puget Sound before I had to play a set at The Green Frog.

On Friday 1/16/09, we rented bikes to ride down to Ballard.  My chain came off, and the tank-like defense system that the dutch rental bike endowed was unreasonably difficult to fix.  It took a bike shop 25 minutes to get the chain back on the gears.

On Saturday 1/17/09, Hannah and I flew home.  We arrived at 5:40AM on 1/18/09, and it was not terribly pleasant.  I am not happy to be back in Minnesota, and I plan to go back to Seattle as soon as I’m done with grad school… which will be four and a half years from now… see you then.

So… I sat on the tarmac of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport for an hour and a half on Wednesday night (1/7).  The plane finally took off, and I arrived in Seattle only to find a major mother&*^%$$&# flood happening between Seattle and Portland.  Unfortunately for me, I needed to drive from Seattle to Portland on 1/8, and all roads (including I5) that could make this dream come true were closed.  My show in Portland on 1/8 was canceled.  Finally the roads opened up on the afternoon of 1/9, and I was able to make it to my live radio spot on KPSU from 5-6PM on 1/9.  You can stream the performance here: http://archive.kpsu.org/station/archives/202.

Last night (1/10), I showed up at Bob’s Java Jive in Tacoma WA to find out that I was playing a show in a building that was shaped like a giant coffee kettle (http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/99513738_419ad012e7.jpg?v=0).  In an inexplicable marketing maneuver, Bob’s Java Jive (shaped like a coffee kettle) only serves beer… no coffee.  Fortunately, the show was actually a lot of fun.  The highlight of the night was a couple of beefy dudes moshing to a cover of Simon&Garfunkel’s “I Am A Rock” played by the band Hello From Reno… fantastic.

http://www.citypages.com/2008-12-17/news/top-10-local-albums-of-the-year/2

Andrea Swennson and the crew at City Pages were kind enough to give Enemy Swimmer an honorable mention in their “Top 10 Local Albums of the Year.”

In other news, it’s cold in Minnesota… please try not to die this winter.

I recently purchased a plane ticket that puts me in Seattle from 1/7 to 1/18 (that’s 2009 to you… the future).  As I’m firming up show times, please check www.myspace.com/svecadam for updates.  If you have friends in Seattle, please make sure they go to The Sunset Tavern (http://www.sunsettavern.com/) on January 11th at 9 o’clock.  My guitar and I will be sharing drinks at the bar.  Then, we will hold hands and send some complex waves into the night air.  Then, I will leave the bar.  Then, I will sleep at a place that is yet to be determined…. This is an example of a “focused temporal narrative chain.”  I should know, I just took an exam on the topic this morning.