Hi All - Unfortunately Chris & The Nothing will not be playing with The Mountain Goats on Thursday. There have been a series of adjustments made to Chris' anti-epilepsy medication and we're still not at a point where Chris' energy levels are reliable. We're really dissappointed to be cancelling but it's the best thing to do under the circumstances.

Roy

Hi All - Thanks for letting me know that there are still people reading the blog! Went over to Chris' yesterday to find him & Shayne (P. Carter) listening to, and enjoying, your CD Barry. Then Chris & I settled in to watch Steamboat Bill, Jr. I didn't know CK was such a Keaton fan - I haven't heard him laugh like that since the stroke (oh well, maybe a few times at myself & some of his other friends).

There are some comments expressing dissappointment at not being able to get to the New York show. I understand your frustration, but we're thrilled & grateful that Ben in the US organised the show and has taken care of everything - it's hard work to get a good line-up of acts willing to play for free and available at the same place & time. So there are no further plans for more shows at the moment. But who knows what wonders may emerge from Knoxland?

Maul the Beast,

Rod

Hi All - Big news! There's going to be a benefit show for Chris at Le Poisson Rouge bar in New York on Thursday May 6. The amazing Ben Goldberg from Badabing Records has been quietly organising the show for the last few months.

Artists playing are Yo La Tengo, Kyp Malone (TV On The Radio), Claudia Gonson (The Magnetic Fields), The Clean, Portastatic, Dimmer & comedian John Mulaney & Sharon Van Etten. An extra special treat is the appearance of Jeff Mangum (of Neutral Milk Hotel fame) who will do a very short acoustic set.

Ben has organised the event so that, other than a small amount set aside to cover running costs, all proceeds will go to Chris. All the artists are performing for free & Ben is organising the show out of the kindness of his big ol' heart.

Tickets go on sale at kickstarter.com on Tues (US time) for US$75.

I had a practise with Chris & the Nothing on Friday for the upcoming Mountain Goats show at the Kings Arms in Auckland. Chris is looking good & has grown a beard to compete with Rod & Ray's fuzzy visages. He got a bit tired during the practise but there were a couple of new tunes (written by him & Shayne) that sounded very close to words. It was great to be bassing away & to look up and see Chris gleefully singing away giving me that big smile.

Best

Roy

PS Daniel I sent you an e-mail saying that's fine but send us a copy. Did you get it? Your address looks a bit odd & I haven't heard back from you.

Hi All -  The Nothing will be playing the support slot for The Mountain Goats on April 8 at the Kings Arms. I haven't seen the Goats live before but I hear wonderous things. Chris saw them several times & abused me roundly once for missing them.

I was at a wine tasting once with John Darnielle, when such things were all the rage. Xan Hamilton (of Mystery Girl reknown) would put on a tasting & we would show up with our plonk & write ridiculous odes to said booze in our hack & illwinerate ways to describe what our poor bedraggled taste buds were being exposed too. The evening would start relatively sanely but after a few rounds the purple prose would emerge & things would degenerate into .... well, a large section of my life really.  I vaguely recall I described one wine to John as the taste 'of kitten's drowning' (or was that a Trans Am person I was talking too??).

Which, for some unclear reason, leads me to one of my favourite Chris stories - Barbara had finished a sculpture at Auckland Girls Grammar school and Chris & I (and some other shameless lushes) showed up to celebrate with bubbly in our our mitts. After much cavorting we ended up going to see Bonnie 'Prince' Billy at Hopetoun Alpha later that evening where a very drunk Chris & I heckled from the back. Finally Chris wound up on stage accompanying Mr Oldham by blowing into a beer bottle in a cheerily inept fashion. And there the evening did end ...... for me at least. The next day a very dishevelled, bruised and indignant Chris told me how he had decided at about 2am that merely walking over Hopetoun bridge to get home to Grey Lynn (virtually a straight line for you out of towners) didn't seem at all the right way to proceed & had instead climbed a fence to 'cut across the motorway'. He spent several  hours wandering up & down the otherside of the motorway trying to find a way off & eventually fell onto his tailbone climbing down a fence to escape. Ahh it's a story that always makes me happy - schadenfreude, I guess.

Roy

Hi - The lyric that won out in the end for postering is 'Becoming Something Other' - there were several contenders but, in a totally uncharacteristic moment, Chris vetoed all the others. I had to type them out first thing this morning so, if yer in the mood, I pasted them in below.

Chris & I have started selecting tracks to go on a new anthology. There are about 485 songs to choose from & so far we've whittled the list down to 117 but we need to get closer to 40 - it's not going to be an easy job folks, it's a pretty impressive catalogue. We're hoping to get the anthology out in shops within 2 months or so. Chris is going to do the cover artwork.

'Becoming Something Other'  by Chris Knox (from the album Beat)

I gotta call - I got a phone call from my mother

Your dad is changing - he is becoming something other

& you may not recognise him when you come

& he may not realise it's you

There's part of him that is completely numb



He'd not been well - his eyes & legs were almost useless

He'd been depressive - he hated looking so damn foolish

& the cat-scan showed his brain was losing mass

& he didn't know each morning

Where he was or how he'd come to this impasse



He took the phone - his voice was querulous & distant

I heard an old man - & I knew it in an instant

& he told me how it was to be so blind

& he told me how it was to know

Precisely how it felt to lose his mind



I asked my dad - how much his vision was impaired

He said he sees things - but that the things he sees are things that are not there

Then he paused & quietly spoke these words that chilled ...

He said 'I have my own small thoughts about that'

& I felt the air around me grow quite still



For my dad was telling me that he was dying

He was telling me in such a gentle way

& I couldn't stop from softly crying

As he formed the mindless words that had their say

Hiya - Yeah Lotta it's a shame Jeff Mangum's track Sign The Dotted Line isn't on the NZ release of Stroke. We had made the album here & then Jeff completed his track in time for the US pressing (which is just about to be released). You can go the Merge website & download it for a US buck.

Had a chat with Chris about movies last week & 'The Night of the Lepus' is the only one he wasn't sure about - so I'll hafta try & track that one down.

So far lyric wise it sounds like What Do We Do With Love? is winning (by a glorious margin of 1 more vote than My Only Friend & Nothing's Gonna Happen which received only one each). So hopefully those posters will be up soon.

Happy Baby to blog regular Barry!

From Rod, Ray & Roy

Hi Folks - Hey we have a friend staying in the States at the moment called Jim Wilson (Phantom Bill Stickers) who has kindly offered to put up posters of Chris' lyrics around America & NZ. So what we wanna do is find out which of his songs appeal to you & would be cool to see plastered up on lamp posts & the like . Suggestions?

Roy

Evening - It's been busy for me lately what with getting back into working & teaching so Chris & I still haven't had a chance to go through those movie suggestions that were posted recently - but we will get there.

There have been adjustments to Chris's medications again recently which left him feeling pretty zonked for the early part of the week. He seems to be coming right though. He has a basic routine of hanging out at home during the days with Shayne & going to therapy when it is scheduled, then dinner & a DVD to wind down with.

Stroke gets its US release on the 23 Feb & it's looking like the media there will be supportive. The Pitchfork review has already gathered quite a bit of attention.

We're thinking about doing a vinyl pressing but boy is it going to be expensive! It may wind up retailing for US$100 as it would take 3 discs to include all the tracks & the packaging Alec designed ain't gonna be cheap to get done either. We're curious to know what kind of market there is out there for it so I'll ask Hayden to put a counter on the main page where you can register your interest. Obviously we don't wanna make them if we can't sell them - so please let us know if you're keen.

After the Lane Way set going so well I'm trying to book another show for The Nothing in the not-too-distant future & signs are looking favourable. I should be able to confirm the show in the next few days.