The Barons in New York

Here are more exciting photos of The Barons' return to Long Island, New York. This Saturday, December 6th, we'll be back in Delaware at The City Tap in lovely downtown Smyrna. Join us for some good ol' fashioned punk rock and roll!

The Barons on Long Island, New York

As you can see, The Barons rocked out Finn's Pub on Long Island last weekend. Here are me and the boys in mid flight. Also, the gig in York, PA, on the poster below, will not feature The Barons as the poster promises. It seems there was a little mix up, and some Barons are not available, so we'll be hunkered down for a couple of weeks until our upcoming show in lovely Smyrna, Delaware on Saturday night, December 6th, at The City Tap on Smyrna's main drag. This is a call to all of our friends down south, such as Cecil County, MD, (that's you Kris and John) to come out and see us in our native habitat of Delaware. Hopefully Skinny Skin and Robbie will show up too! We're featuring our new drummer and even a new song or two. And the best part is that we now have some copies of our new CD to sell! Be the first on your block to bring home American Beer Drinking Songs: a classic punk rock album if there ever was one! (Thank you Motherbox Records!) I hope you'll join us for all of the fun! Oh, and if you click the title, you can visit the Barons' MySpace page and revel in the glory!

It looks like the Barons have another gig on November 21st in York, Pennsylvania! It will be our second chance to show off our new drummer, Terry, who blazes on those skins. The first chance to hear him will be this Saturday, up on Long Island, NY. Check the yellow flyer below for that one. All of the bands from both of these shows are from Motherbox Records, who will be putting out our new CD any day now. I'm anxious to see the finished product. What's nice about Motherbox is that their releases are all available worldwide via CDBaby, Amazon, and most of the other places you can buy music online. The new record comes with a lyrics sheet too, which should help everyone sing along while they're drinking beer and kicking up their heels. Come out and join us for the rollicking fun!!

Here's my new poster for The Barons' show next Friday night, October 10th, at Mojo 13 with some of our label mates. SuperBuick pumps out kick ass skater punk rock from PA. We've played with them before and it's always been a blast (hence the poster). I've heard great things about Bull Dozer, too, and I'm anxious to see them rock the house. The other bands are supposed to also kick out the jams with some great breakneck rock and roll. I I hope you can make it! Hopefully we'll get some go-go dancing like the last time we played at Mojo 13 (see video below)!

The Barons will be playing in New York again on November 15th, as you can see by the poster. But we'll be at a Motherbox Records showcase with many of these bands at the lovely Mojo 13 in Delaware on October 10th, next Friday. Come on down! We go on around midnight at Mojo 13. We might even break out a couple of new songs! Come out and support the wonderful record label that's putting out our CD next month.

The notorious "Haunted Trailer" video is now available by popular demand, complete with go-go dancing and beer-fueled mayhem! Come see The Barons on Friday, October 10th at Mojo 13 for a showcase of bands on our new CD label, Motherbox Records! Rock and roll!

In my effort to never be satisfied with anything I make, I've diddled around some more with my painting and ended up with this new version of The Barons' new album cover. Hopefully I'm done with it, but I'm still waiting for the final word from my editor/bass player.

Here is the cover of the next Barons album, which should be available on vinyl from Dim Records and CD from MotherBox Records by the end of the year. I still have to make some adjustments, but I'm glad to be finished. I've been working on this for far too long, but I like how it turned out. The image is completely out of my head, which is different from the photo-inspired oil paintings I've been doing lately.

The Barons will be playing at Mojo 13 on Friday, September 12, if you care to stop by and see us rock the house. We'll go on around 10, so you'll want to show up early enough to get a nice spot up front. I just got back some Barons stickers too, which I'll be handing out at the show. Be the first on your block to proudly display your very own Barons sticker! Yee ha!

The Barons had a blast in Newark, Delaware, on Saturday night! Whew! Now we're off to Allentown, Pennsylvania, for a gig on August 2nd. Rock and roll!

As you can see from the flyer, The Barons are playing at the East End Cafe in Newark, Delaware, on Saturday night. We'll start at around 9:30 or 10. I'm hoping we see some familiar faces in the audience since it is one of our only Delaware appearances this summer. I've been dying to play a show in Newark, where I lived for four years in the 1980s. It will be the first time for me to perform there since 2000 when my band at the time, Humboldt, played at a place once called the Down Under with the band Daze Alone. Good times! Saturday night, the 26th, should be a fun show, so I hope to see you there!

A week after our gig in Newark, Delaware, my band The Barons will be playing up in Allentown at this Saturday night benefit for WWII veterans. Since The Wretched Ones will be headlining, this should be incredible. They sing about beer like we do, so it should be an inspired performance. I really like this poster somebody made, although I hope nobody gets the wrong idea from the iron cross somebody attached to our name. I'm excited about playing with all of these great bands! The guitar player from Maddog Surrender is back from Iraq, so it will be interesting to hear his stories. I'm glad we're all helping out a great cause.

I'm so swamped with my big July 15 deadline that I've had barely a moment's rest. The Barons play in Newark, DE, on Saturday night on July 26 at The East End Cafe at the end of Main Street. We're opening, for a change, which is nice. Then we play in Allentown, PA, the following Saturday night with the nice fellows in Maddog Surrender and The Wretched Ones. That should also be a blast. Come out and support beer-drinking rock and roll. We might even play some of our new songs!

I learned today that the owner of the New York CD label called MotherBox just posted this video on YouTube. It features our performance of "Social Disease" in Long Island, New York, when The Barons played at Mr. Beery's. Here we are in all of our glory. Paul's video is much more fun than all of the stationary camera videos I've posted so far. Although you can't tell from the video, the audience actually went nuts while we played. This is probably our first song of the nights, so the people are still just starting to get pumped. Thanks Paul! Rock on!

The Barons play again at BankShots in lovely downtown Stanton, Delaware, on June 14th. (That's a Saturday night.) We're headlining, so we'll go on about 11 or 11:30 p.m. after Lousy Break and a couple of other local punk rock bands -- if you care to show up. Think of this as your personal invitation! I hear we just got signed to Dim Records in Germany for our second record/first LP album. Although Dim published The Barons' first vinyl EP earlier this year, the new album will be the band's first full-length vinyl record. Yee-ha! I love the smell of vinyl records! It will be called "American Beer Drinking Songs." I don't sing on any of the songs on the album, but I'm working on a painting for the cover. I'll show some early versions of the artwork here in a few days once it starts to shape up a little more. Stay tuned!

Saturday night's gig at Mojo 13 was great. Many of my friends showed up to root me on and hoot and holler for the band, so I felt very gratified and humbled. Here is our second song of the evening, Social Disease, since I kind of messed up Mercury Rising, the first song (not that anybody noticed). The audio is better than the video, but it's still nice to see all of the members of the band, even if they are all fuzzy and haloed with glowing bodies. I found myself drinking many beers, which gave the entire evening a surreal feel. I'm thankful to have so many nice friends and family members who showed up to listen to us so late at night. The other bands, such as Lousy Break, Circuit Theory and The Odd Squad were also very nice to us, and the woman who ran the Pit Bull Adoption group that was selling t-shirts said she sold more than she could have imagined, which is very cool for her and her charity. Delaware rocks!

Here's the latest lineup for Saturday's show! (Only one mutant bully pup this time.) Come on out and support great bands and a great cause!

After an exciting evening at Mr. Beery's on Long Island up in New York, and a long drive home until 5:30 am, I'm hoping my voice will recover enough from the festivities to rock Mojo 13 next week for this Saturday night show. Now that it's 12 hours later and I have a couple of hours of sleep in me, I'm feeling good about our New York premier. It usually takes at least 48 hours to get my voice back to normal, so I should be fine. The crowd and other bands in Beth Page, NY, are some of the nicest people I've ever met. Talk about supportive! And the deal on beer for band members can't be beat: free Bud or $1 beers on tap. Considering their tap selection is so vast and tasty, this was one of the nicest things anybody has ever done for me. As a band that sings mostly about beer and drinking it, we were all quite happy. The drive was well worth it! Thank you Mr. Beery's!!! The band formerly known as The Devilles were awesome. The musicians in Quarterlife Crisis, Southpaw, and SuperBuick were equally great. It was refreshing to see bands stay around to support each other before and after playing, the way it should be. I hope the trend continues next Saturday night at the show on the poster. Come on by!

Here is another Seizureman hit: Betrayed! That's my friend Wil at the beginning, reacting to the sound of our friend Dave tumbling into a house to retrieve a lost disc golf disc. Long live Seizureman. The song is a Lauer original!

The videos from my old band Seizureman just popped up in my life. Here is another one we made several years back!

After a short-lived cover band project I did with Darren and Mike called Humboldt, we recorded a bunch of songs in Mike's living room as Seizureman. After a while, Mike made some videos to go along with some of the songs. I just found a disc he burned of some of them, so here is one of them. The video features some photos of my paintings and some photos of friends, etc., plus Mike's psychedelic input! There is more to the song, but I think you get the point.

The fellow who made this film trailer, Jeff Scher, has a new video on the New York Times Web site called All the Wrong Reasons: http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=13b4d8a18911bca85c21f003d4e40a6c67526881

I love animation and subliminal imagery, so this little video gives me all sorts of goose bumps.

Here is something else he has done with his talents:


This stuff just hypnotizes me.

I've finally finished my revisions to the Hatchetface logo I started months ago. I'm told this is the one they'll make into T-shirts, rather than the doodly one I did way back. I'm looking forward to wearing mine with pride. I like the Zig-Zag border (with my usual tweaks). They are touring the New York/New Jersey/Pa. region for several days starting at the end of next week. Those groovy women are gong to kick some Mid-Atlantic region ass! Go see them! (To find their schedule, type HATCHETFACE into the music search on myspace.)

"Now let me tell you a story about the way I live. I've got to work all week, 'cause that's the way it is. But when it comes to the weekend, and I've got money to spend, from Friday night to Sunday, the party never ends! It's a Friday night and everything's alright. It's a Friday night, rock and roll all night! It's the end of the week I've got a pocket full of money. It's Friday night and I'm ready to party. Now, some of y'all might think that's funny, but by Sunday morning I'll be down to my last penny. ..." Credit goes to my bass player Kurt Beers for the lyrics. There are more verses, but you get the picture. I like the way Wes rips up the guitar solo.

This is a video of my band The Barons playing at the world famous Mojo 13 last night. The video is rough, you can't see Wes on guitar or Kurt on bass, but me, Ed and Roger are in the picture. Rock and roll!

My band, The Barons, will be playing on Sunday night at the wonderfully local MOJO 13 on Sunday night around 9:30 or 10. What a way to end the weekend! I hope somebody shows up. I'm interested to see who doesn't have to get up early on Monday morning. The bands we'll be playing with mostly play the psychobilly, which always makes me yee-ha! I love the stand-up bass, especially when it gets the royal rockabilly treatment. The Koffin Kats look cool, according to their Web site, but I haven't heard anything from them yet. I'm ready to get loose! Here is a flyer I made for the show last night around 2 am. I tried drawing directly into Photoshop with the mouse. It's a little shaky, but it's much faster than all the hand-drawn stuff I like to do. Since I wanted to send it out by the morning, this is what I came up with in the couple of hours I had before sleep demanded my attention.

Priest!

If you are in New York in May, come out to our little gig. I hear Super Buick rocks the hizzow. You can tell the gig will be fun by the old school flyer. Seeing nuns smoking always makes me laugh for some reason.

I've been painting this strange object for the past month every time I get the chance. Now I'm done and I like looking at this mutant totem I've created. I used varnish for the first time and I like the glossy glow. Here are the front and left side views. My camera batteries ran out, so you'll have to wait to see the other side. Or go see it in person on display at Mojo 13 (that's why it has 13 fingers). The owner, Jared, has these objects all over his bar, decorating the walls. Once we add fur to this puppy, it will be what the experts call a "circus punk." You've seen them at the carnival and probably tried to knock some over with a softball in a rigged game on some distant memory midway. I like to know that it will be staring down on all of the goings on going on at the place, surrounded by others like itself, yet strangely different. It's a nice collection of great local artists, so I feel lucky to be included.

My new band, The Barons, will be playing in beautiful downtown Smyrna, Delaware, on Saturday night, April 12 at City Tap. I didn't make this poster, but I think it is very cool. I believe our very talented drummer, Ed, made it, but I could be wrong.

To hear our songs, recorded before I was the singer, go to www.myspace.com/thebarons. There are a bunch of great originals posted. Our vinyl EP is out on Dim Records in Germany if you're ready to crank up your turntable. You'll have to Google them for the address.

The address is 19 W. Commerce St. #21 if you need to MapQuest it. The Zip Code is 19977, but you probably knew that. I'm psyched because it will be my first real show with the world-famous Barons! Woo hoo! Rock and roll!!!

Come hear our classic hits like Party On, 3 More Pints, Friday Night Rock & Roll, Raw Deal, and a dozen other songs about beer, women, beer, partying, and beer. It should be a great show.

I might even wear my new hat!

Doodling helps me focus.

I was watching this weird movie "Blowup" from 1966, the year I was born, on TCM last night, and who should unexpectedly peep his smiling face at me from my TV screen but Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page with the Yardbirds. Suddenly this bizarre movie goes from just drifting around London's swinging '60s culture of pot smoking, hot sex, topless models, painters and photography to a scene where Jeff Beck is smashing his guitar because he has a bad guitar cord. I could have sworn the song was "Train Kept a Rollin,'" but the words are all different. It still sounds great, except for that crackling guitar, which is soon dispatched. I'm still not sure what the movie was all about, but it was kind of mesmerizing.

I touched up this album cover to get rid of the hidden sheep I never really found in the hat's plume. Any other secret images are strictly in your own brain. If you compare this version with the earlier one, you will find all sorts of new, anally retentive dots and dashes. I darkened some of the colors, and greened up the lawn a little. I also added some flowers and shrubbery. Hardcore punk rock bands need more flowers and shrubbery on their album covers.

Here is a piece of art I did for a local punk rock band called The Incited. I'm not sure if they like it yet because a couple of the members of the band are currently serving in Iraq, so it might take them a while to send me their input. I hear that there is a hidden lamb's head in the plume of one of the hats. Although it was completely unintentional, I'll probably blur it out into abstract obscurity once I find it. Just painting this picture made me feel more patriotic.

Here's a new logo I did for a local band of rad women. I'm planning to see them Saturday night at the East End Cafe in Newark, DE. I haven't heard them yet, but I'm sure they rock out. Amy is the bass player from Eph Tradition, but I think she might play something else in Hatchetface. I like their name because it makes me think of that girl from John Waters' Crybaby who painted her eyebrows on in the weirdest way. And that makes me think of Baltimore, which reminds me how much I'm enjoying the new season of The Wire ... I'm not sure if the band actually likes the logo or not, since I haven't heard a word about it since I sent it to them, but I still like its Zig-Zag style. That was Amy's idea. I hope they dig it because I'd love to see it on a T-shirt.

This is a longer video I just made from the High On Fire show with more video and photos. Now it's off my chest. It felt like a real waste not to do something with the extra minute of audio I had from the show, so here is the montage. I still can't figure out what he's saying, but it seems like he means it!

Here is another psycho-psychedelic photo of the singer from High On Fire, who made a lot of noise last night at our local bar. Bad teeth are bad ass!

My ears are ringing still from the High On Fire show at Mojo 13 about 45 minutes ago. What? Huh? I can barely hear the click of my mouse over this high pitched whine. The band was cool. It was the first time they played in Delaware. Here is the last 18 seconds of their set. Their singer/guitarist was fun to watch. I really liked his 10-string guitar. These fellows are relentless!

It's funny when a band's name is on the tip of your tongue but you just can't imagine the sound the band makes. Mogwai has been that way for me lately. Now I've finally figured it out and I'm glad I did. It's kind of soothing music, like a tamer Tool. Or a mellower Rein Sanction, with some slicker Sonic Youth sprinkled throughout. This video has nifty graphics to go along too. I like the end of this animation a whole bunch. It feels kind of hopeful. I wonder why I never hear anyone talk about Mogwai. What the heck does that mean anyway? Are they a phenomenon somewhere? I found their CD My Father My King in the local library. I like it, but haven't really figured it out yet. I bet I'll find a mood when it will be perfect.

I just finished this picture for my friend's record label. It always amazes me how many bands are still out there playing old school punk rock. Stiff Middle Finger is a husband and wife combo who fight on stage between songs. It's kind of cute. And The Barons are kind enough to have me sing for them, but not on this CD. I'm trying to keep up my pen and ink chops, so I always welcome these little projects. My next job is creating the back side of this CD. Then a cover for Hatchetface: a local girl metal outfit featuring my friend Amy from the notorious Eph Tradition. Rock on Mid-Atlantic region!

Dusty, the singer for my favorite local rock and roll band The Barons, just moved to Florida. They've asked me to sing for them, so I'm going to give it a spin. I've got some lyrics to learn, but I'm looking forward to singing the joys of beer! They actually have some vinyl coming out soon on a German label featuring their big hits Party On and Booze, Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll. I'm excited to see some of my artwork on the cover of a real 12-inch! This is a video of Dusty singing for The Barons here in lovely northern Wilmington.

Inventions and art excite me to no end. This guy Theo Jansen is an inspirational fellow who has much to teach the universe. It seems as if there are thousands of these amazing people out there who have never been given the proper kudos for their work in the realm of imagination and thrill. I can't wait to stumble on one of his creatures on some beach somewhere over the horizon.

In honor of my man UncaJesse at Trophy Shot (uncajesse.blogspot.com), my favorite blog, I thought I would throw down with a salsa tribute to his sexy one-legged russian stripper. The first time I saw this video I welled up with tears. Now it gives me inspiration to kick out the jams. This guy rocks! And I like the music too.