No sleep for the sopping wet

When not sweating and sipping hot coffee whilst singing the body electric, we at A Rockey Home Companion are working hard to bring you occasional blog posts with moderately interesting content. For reals though, the dog days of summer have been kind to us by providing grab bags of opportunity for creating and being created. Our magical sanctum, The Mustard Room, has lent her walls to the cradling of some sonic playscaping as of late. Firstly, we have added #3 to the cyber 45 collection which can now be enjoyed and downloaded here. Secondly, as depicted in the above candid photo, my fellow gentlemen broncos and myself have been rendezvousing for some face-melting hi-jinks of antarctic proportions. Don't let me build it up too much, but kingdoms shall fall. Speaking of which, after months of sitting on the idea, this is happening.

All of these things and more. Then, a housefly went nuts and kept trying to land on our faces all night long. Now for a message to that housefly: Dear housefly, if you were once a friend or colleague and you were trying to get our attention so that we might help find a remedy to your altered state, then i'm sorry i beat the crap out of you and flushed you down the toilet. Seriously though, dude, there are better ways than keeping us from enjoying our sleep and forcing us to camp out on sofas. However, we shall never forget you and your legacy will live on and on...

Now, as the sun sets on another blog posting, the prophetic words once uttered by Criswell resonate in our collective consciousness: "Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?"

Future endeavors and goings-on

Gangstas and gangstresses, we've been up to good and no good as of late. A whole lot of this and that. I can't say much for the other, but nonetheless. More printing, more frosting, more songing, and more muppets are all upons. In fact, there was a recent get-down-and-boogie-fest with the incorrigible Elegant Bachelors (seen here). Times were had. They were good. Now, not to be outdone by ourselves, the hootenanny to end all hootenannies is being realized in ways both epic and awesome...

Yes.

As for the rest of the happenings and goings-on, why, i'll just let Baby Jane give you the run-down...

Hot frosting

I totally suck at bloggering. However, you have to admit that when i bring it, it's absolutely worth the wait. After all, photos of Baby Jane and cake are pretty much enough to get the most cheerless chap through another drab day. "Why the cake?" you may ask. Well, somebody had a birthday recently and it may or may not have been yours truly. Here's how the special day went down: slinging coffee with the brew ladies, japanese cuisine and iced cream with the family, ridiculous sinus headache and earache while watching mst3k, pepperoni pizza and ed wood's glen or glenda. All in all, pretty much rad. The next morning, i worked eight and a half hours at the brew and came home with this...

I worked for three and a half years at the sbux and never once had a watermelon cake bestowed upon me for my birthday by my boss. Suck on it, sbux. When i arrived home i was greeted with kisses and the following...

I'm not real sure why it took us nearly seven years to ice that fireplace, but i'm diggin' the crap out of it. I gotta say, i'm pretty much inspired to attack the kitchen cabinets next. At the moment, Mama Jane doesn't seem to share my enthusiasm for such an endeavor. Stay tuned to see how this one pans out. And now, let us commemorate the fireplace as she used to be with a strange photo featuring a ghostly Baby Jane...

Later on, we went nuts at half-price books and threw down three coupons and some cash for some eels, muppets, and richard scarry. The best part is that Baby Jane is now singing 'the rainbow connection'. I'll just let you imagine how sick with cute that happens to be.

In closing, apparently there is a show on a&e about midgets and pitbulls.

It may or may not be called 'the pit boss'. Mama Jane says, 'clever, huh?'

Later dudes.

Look at all these songs

Well, by-freaking-golly, the time has come for another dose of audibles from the ARHC library. As mentioned in previous postings, we've been busting out some "dope tees" for peeps near and not quite as near. During the pseudo-monotonous procedure of printing dozens of t-shirts, we are never without more than a few generous portions of tasty vibes. The following collection is a selection of tracks taken from hot afternoons in the garage, slow rides home, and late night documentary viewing. So what are you waiting for? Stare deep into the sonic face of these delicious ditties. Dig.

Download: Look At All These Songs - A Rockey Home Companion Mixtape (zipped folder 81MB)

Side A:

1. Turd on the run - The Rolling Stones
2. High in the morning - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
3. Goodbye girl - Squeeze
4. The india song - Big Star
5. Older - Band of Horses
6. Red-eyed and blue - Wilco
7. Speed of life - David Bowie
8. Sinister kid - The Black Keys
9. Everybody's hurting - Jakob Dylan
10. Complicated life - The Kinks

Side B:

1. Arkansas - Damien Jurado
2. Mathilde - Scott Walker
3. Forever for her (is over for me) - The White Stripes
4. Come on - Lucinda Williams
5. Love me like you - The Magic Numbers
6. Lousy weekend - Daniel Johnston
7. Black sand - Jenny Lewis
8. I won't ask again - Bonnie "Prince" Billy
9. Motion pictures (for carrie) - Neil Young
10. Goodnight rose - Ryan Adams

Computers are magic

What you are looking at is an optical illusion conjured by the sleight-of-hand dealings of computer wizardry. For you see, the storm door which appears to be black in this photo is not black at all. However, using the magic of computers, we at A Rockey Home Companion were able to manipulate the photo in order to imagine the storm door in a different colour as we considered replacing our current one. Well folks, we were convinced.

Ala peanut butter sandwiches...

So after only several months of procrastination, the front entryway is practically, officially complete. And there was much rejoicing. The Mustard Room was quite productive during the late weeks of june / early weeks of july. We've been burning screens, mixing ink, and swiping squeegees across t-shirts like nobody's beeswax. Thanks again to all of our friends and clients who have kept us busy as of late. You are the rocks in our stars. Also, we'd be remiss if we didn't thank the goode folks at albanese confectionery for keeping the fire burning with their savory sour gummi worms. Cheers! By the way gang, if you're ever interested in hanging out with us during the printing process, you will most likely be treated to iced coffee, selected tunes by the kinks, bowie, and neil young, and most notably this getup...

The preceding image seemed to merit some soft-focus.

This is how you will find us rolling.

Now, let us enjoy a playful child hunting for fireflies in a thunderstorm...

The Mustard Room Recordings presents...

Cyber 45 #2

In the grande olde tradition of the double-sided 45 rpm record, The Mustard Room has been making available unreleased songs from the Joel Rockey songbook via digital download. The second installment in the series features two songs recorded in the spring of 2003. New vocal, drum, bass guitar, and percussion tracks were recorded in The Mustard Room in june and early july of 2010. Download both tracks by clicking here for the low low price of free.

Three years

Three years have now passed
Since we said our alohas,
Still we miss you so.

Sloppy, stale, or simply brilliant

I don't remember having the book Goodnight Moon read to me as a child. However, having a little lady around who is closing in on two years has given me ample opportuity to read, listen to, and critique this classic piece of american children's literature. I have to say that during my first read, the page pictured above threw me for quite a loop. I cannot recall, but i would not be at all surprised if my jaw were left hanging just inches above the floor in the same manner as i find it after a typical episode of Breaking Bad... but i digress.

Initially, i had made up my mind that this page was the result of either A.) The author, margaret wise brown's imagination had run dry and she could think of no other things to say goodnight to, or B.) The illustrator, clement hurd had missed a deadline leaving the book a page short forcing brown, in all of her sheer brilliance, to adjust the text accordingly. Either way, this page had to have come into existence by pure chance due to the shortcomings of someone involved in its composition. Never did it occur to me that hidden among the mush and mittens of this beloved poem was a profound statement which had been placed very intentionally for minds both young and olde to ponder. With every subsequent read, i am left increasingly bewildered as this arguably blank page with her bold typeface existential statement aggravate my soul and haunt my subconscious.

As this is the case, i was once again left with this phrase camping out in the back of my mind following another visit to the great green room. Immediately, as any decent hipster living in the twenty first century would do, i tweetered these two merciless words as they burrowed deeper and deeper into the recesses of my cerebral cortex.

@hlaveta: Goodnight nobody.

Soon after, an olde friend named mike made me aware of the fact that in a sixtieth anniversary reprint of the book, a photo of her illustrator was doctored to remove a cigarette from between his fingers.

Here now was my response:

Mr. redelman, i am quite impressed by your historical insights regarding the renowned, if not controversial illustrator, clement hurd. After some treacherous research - aka googling his name - i stumbled upon the photo in question. While harper-collins' efforts at removing the cigarette from mr. hurds fingers may have prevented hundreds upon thousands of children from taking up smoking, they neglected to realize that their alteration of the photo now depicted a man who appears to have just picked his nose and is unsure of what to do with his findings.

We have harper-collins to blame for generations of children who are tragically addicted to picking their noses.

Shame on you, harper-collins.

Shame.

Tonight i'm gonna drink my tears

What does one do at a quarter after one in the morning after watching the theatrical version of blade runner on netflix? Don't you dare ask me a question when we're both very aware of the obvious answer. The person in question - namely me - cues up the scott walker documentary, scott walker: 30 century man, of course.

I've had the film in our netflix instant queue almost since we started using their delightful services almost a year ago. What i knew about scott walker was the song "30 century man" from his third solo album. How i knew the song was from its inclusion in the soundtrack to a film which i admire quite a bit. That film is the life aquatic with steve zissou. Wes anderson seems to have a way of turning me on to incredible artists whom i otherwise have had very little to no history with (i.e. arthur lee & love). Come to find out that scott walker is really scott engel and was one third of the pop trio known far and wide, but mostly in the UK and germany as the walker brothers. It also just so happens that he's a pretty enigmatic avant-garde musician and an incredibly abstract poet who pushes well beyond the conventions of song composition.

"I've become the Orson Welles of the record industry. People want to take me to lunch, but nobody wants to finance the picture...I keep hoping that when I make a record, I'll be asked to make another one. I keep hoping that if I can make a series of three records, then I can progress and do different things each time. But when I have to get it up once every 10 years... it's a tough way to work." -Scott Walker, in an interview for The Independent, April 1995.

All this to say, i am now listening to a fair share of baroque pop.

Also, watch all of the films mentioned in this post.

Also, here's some early solo scott as he digs on jacques brel's "matilde" during a performance on dusty's variety show...

http://www.scottwalkerfilm.com/blog/

Fueled by imaginary coffee

Upon returning from a week's worth of chills, thrills, and spills, we've been up to our oglers in projects which all seem to be hanging over our heads as we wait for corresponding information to be delivered. While circling in our perpetual holding pattern, we've found time to crank out a few shirts promoting bear advocacy (read more hither). Also, we took the time to develop a new app available for most mobile devices (hang tight and wait for the big reveal at the end of the post).

How do we find the energy? Answer: cups and cups upon saucers of imaginary coffee compliments of miss Baby Jane.

Now, for the payoff...

A sign of what's to come

Why yes it has been about a minute since i've contributed a handful of nouns and verbs to this here blogosphere. Per chance we've been hopping, skipping, and jumping up and down the midwest in search of five-pound bags of gummi worms. Also, quite possibly the dream of acquiring a five-pound bag of gummi worms has indeed become a reality. And what if i told you that a great deal of the contents of that aforementioned five-pound bag of gummi worms has since gone to a better place - namely my belly. I have recently realized that a five-pound bag of gummi worms leads only to a series of unsavory decisions which are not without their consequences.

And since we're on the subject of father's day, mine was delightful thank you. I spent the whole day with them Jane gals. Here's what happened: Strange brew for breakfast, Children's museum (where we won a major award for tying in a rock trivia game - pictured above), Boogie burger for lunch, Ducks by the river, Half price books (where we ran into our friends the jacksons, yes those jacksons), and home for a big bowl of broccoli. Yup, broccoli. That's how i celebrate, y'all.

Later on (aka today), whilst loitering in the aisles of a bed, bath and beyond, i found myself settling deep into a shiatsu massage dealt out by a gyrating robo-chair. And no, it wasn't nearly as sexy as i'm certain it sounds. I can completely understand how 87% of all massage-related deaths are the result of overly aggressive robo-rubdown chairs. Needless to say, i was left feeling simultaneously deeply relaxed and slightly dirty. And yes, that is exactly as sexy as i'm certain it sounds. I then stumbled like a dude pretending to be more drunk than he actually is into an aisle full of vanity mirrors. Naturally, i felt right at home and began staring deep into an 8X magnification mirror. "Why on God's green earth would anyone need to see themselves up this closely," i didn't think to myself but am pretending to have thought for the sake of moving the story along. "And when did i start growing nose hairs?"

That's right, nose hairs. Real, true-to-life, honest-to-God nose hairs were scoping the lay of the land just outside my nostrils. When did this happen? Should i see this as a sign of things to come? Should i have these rogue follicles transplanted to my upper lip in attempts at manufacturing a slightly more impressive stache?

I think i'll just let these dudes find their own identity for the time being.

Bear Advocacy

Hot off the presses from The Mustard Room is THE BEAR, available now at our ETSY shoppe.

Ah yes, that age olde question regarding bears and sharks and who would survive in a battle between the two has often been the instigator of fiery debate between friends and colleagues alike. Now you can add fuel to the inferno by quitting your waffling ways and taking the side of the oft underestimated bear with this stylish yet bold statement. Howard Zinn said that you can't be neutral on a moving train. We're pretty sure he was talking about bears and sharks.

Dell-ightful