"Trane was the father. Pharoah was the son. I was the holy ghost."

Another Hamtramck Blowout has come to pass. As is always the case I started the weekend bitter and suspicious, found myself happy and listless only to end the 4-day debacle with a shameful search for my long-lost dignity. As is also always the case: I end up seeing only the bands whom I would see at any other given time of the year. The stark and sad reality of the Metro Times Blowout. Virtually every performance I watched this year, I had seen sometime in my recent past. In all of its idealism I think the Blowout fails for me. However, that's strictly from the spectator standpoint. As a performer I always end up playing for a myriad of people of whom many have never seen us perform. This in itself is usually either a very good or very bad thing. Sure, plenty of people were down, but on that same token plenty of folks were not (some dude even had the nerve to extinguish a smoke bomb Colin had lit off during our set). Someone posting on the Detour blog summed these conflicting sentiments best:

Caught the last half of Fontana — one of those X! Records bands people on other blogs seem to really believe in. We believe, too. But we’re not sure Fontana’s puke-punk totally does it for us. Still, we were impressed with their dedication to angularity, and, well, the entire SST catalog. We were also impressed with the bassist’s boots.

Word up to anyone who can give due credit to Geoff's 'Cherry Stompers.' To even attempt to describe the weekend would be above all things inaccurate, irrelevant and unnecessary, so I'll just conclude by saying that the highlight for me came on Saturday morning when I woke on my bedroom floor with all of my clothes (barely) on, soaking wet with my fan blowing on me, so ragingly hungover that I couldn't even blink my defeated and dehydrated eyes.

Well, I did it. Today, on a completely unexpected whim I bought the end-all be-all of jazz (or any other genre) compendiums... the legendary and fabled nine-disc Holy Ghost boxed set encapsulating all of the insanely rare and absurdly unissued recordings of Albert Ayler from 1962-70. Heretofore this existed as just an elusive quest to which my imagination could only exact some lacking penultimate... a void in my very soul which only owning this said boxed set could ameliorate. And now, with it safe in the cozy confines of my room, I will say this much: if the actual music documented on this daunting and truly breathtaking pinnacle on the altar of boxed sets is even half as good as the packaging (it includes a fucking pressed flower!), then I will burn everything else I own in a form of ritualistic sacrifice to it. I promise (and from a brief listen to the first disc of some early recordings done in Finland, 1962 as well as stuff with Cecil Taylor from 1964, it would seem as though that could be a fairly certain outcome). Now... if you are even considering taking that leap and crossing that divide into this enchanted world of Holy Ghost ownership you must first pose to yourself the question, "am I that much of an Albert Ayler fan?" And if the answer to that question is no, the next logical question you must ask yourself is, "What is wrong with me?"

Oh, and as a personal note to myself, I need to press myself harder in the quest for finding the happy median between "too shy" and "too drunk" to talk to girls.