Some upcoming shows upcoming for JLR/TGT, including the gig postered above with the thought-they-were-dead-but-they-ain't VOLEBEATS ...

June 26, 2010 -- The Lager House, Detroit MI
July 10, 2010 -- The Belmont, Hamtramck MI
July 30, 2010 -- The Elbow Room, Ypsilanti MI
October 16, 2010 -- Mac's Bar, Lansing MI

Yeah, that's what a happening joint Mac's has become, they're booking five months in advance. There are other shows being worked over that we'll be announcing soon enough, including (fingers crossed) my hometown of Flint, where a recent unexplained murder spree resulted in many panicked residents demanding the mayor call in the National Guard. He didn't. Here's hoping!

Anyhow, we'll have some new songs from the pen of Ms. JLR, more spooky laments about corpses and curses set to outlaw rhythms and wrapped up in barbed wire. Maybe a few more dusty leftovers from the Clutters era too, since I'm still trying to recover from my Seattle hangover and everything I write these days is either too true or too false.

"I want to play every show as if it's my last."

You wanna hang out in Lansing tomorrow night?

Jeni Lee Richey and The Great Tribulation opens for Wally Pleasant at Mac's Bar.

First time I've played Mac's since 1999, when the inaugural End Times lineup was invited to an Etch Magazine-sponsored music festival (did they actually call it Etchfest? Or course they did). If I remember correctly, we had two fans drive all the way from Grand Rapids to dig it, but circumstances demanded that I play the whole gig with my back to the audience ... I promise that won't happen this time, because I sit down to play now and no matter how angry I get it just won't be convenient. I guess I did the back-to-the-crowd routine once before for a typically neurotic Clutters gig, opening for my then (and still) heroes Mike Ireland and Holler (whose rumored claim to fame is making the worst-selling Sub Pop LP of all time -- also one of the best countrypolitan records of all time, so I guess you just can't have it all), and I don't even remember what the problem was that night ... jeez, maybe I should be scared. Fuck it, the point is that I'll be playing Mac's for the umpteenth time since my debut there in 1996, and we're gonna be fucking great, I swear to god. Then you can dig Flatfoot, a married couple who play ukuleles and no less a man than Wally Fucking Pleasant. We go on first, so show up early, get loaded and stay as long as you're able.

I did visit Mac's a few weeks back to watch Scarlet Oaks play and I'm happy to report that while the bar still has a dozen TV sets mounted at various vantage points, they no longer broadcast strictly sports-oriented programming, unless you can call vintage Asian martial arts films "sports."

I'll meet you at The Best Steak House beforehand if you contact me in time ...

Fan-made video slideshow to El Smasho's "May 11."

Didn't see it til this morning, but my soul brother KK wrote up his musings over the final End Times trio performance a week or so ago. He says the show "felt like a church service -- a little Robert-Mitchum-in-Night-of-the-Hunter, but mostly comforting in a 'we share your pain' way." I can handle that. Thanks, baby.

Don't know if I'd call Pillow Army "Americana," however, as their reliance on "orchestra nerd" instrumentation diminishes their potential for true traditional American folk sounds ... there's a higher brow sensibility at work there, even when you strip it all down to acoustic guitar, Tim Franklin's compositions are truly compositions, not the kind of simple three-chord melodies that identify American folk music. The songs still work stripped down to the base bones like that, though, as evidenced by Pillow Army's set with the End Times in Tacoma, where Tim took the stage alone with only cellist John Simpson as accompanist (aside from a lovely take on my song "Everything Breaks My Heart" that he worked up with Tyson, maybe the best version I've ever heard). Pillow Army worked hard and gigged hard to touch the tight bombast the full band is capable of on good nights, but I still have a soft spot in my head for Tim's early excursions, which featured him as strumming troubadour surrounded by only a string section.

Oh, and Kris, if you hadn't already noticed that band geeks have taken over indie rock, then you aren't paying close enough attention. Orchestral pop is the 2-piece guitar/drum combo of the late Aughties. Still trying to wrap my head around kids copying the Decemberists instead of Bantam Rooster, but I guess that's what the generation gap is all about ... I know a lot of jazzers had trouble digging Coltrane at first, too.

Once we secured ourselves a regular rhythm section, Jeni Lee made quick work of booking up the band's calendar ... The Great Tribulation are back at the Elbow Room in Ypsilanti this Saturday, and after that we have four (maybe five?) more shows in Detroit, Ypsi and Lansing over the next few months, including a stop at Mac's Bar, where we'll open for Wally Pleasant. Life moves sideways ...