The Devil’s Playground Website

Hey y’all, a couple of weeks ago I set up a website for my new warehouse space, The Devil’s Playground. This past Saturday we had our first event and it went off without a hitch!

The Infintesmal Records BBQ V featured a ton of great local (and one traveling) bands, Bold City Beer and good food. The party kept on until about 4am. Thanks to everyone who came out and if you missed it, there will be other parties soon so don’t worry.

You need to pick up the new Infintesmal Compilation, {the real better Jacksonville plan} volume 3. It’s got 34 tracks of the best local music (+ some out-of-town friends) and it’s only $7. There’s even a previously unreleased Chicken & Whiskey song on there!

So from now on, all info on Unit 6 and The Devil’s Playground will be on the new site so add it to your reader, blogroll, links, whatever.

Wambolt Collective

May I have your attention please..

Thank you. I am very pleased, even pleasantly so, to announce a very exciting new venture I have undertaken. I know what you’re thinking and yes I do have a an extremely full plate as it is but this new project is something that will bring it all together.

After witnessing the potential of what can be done with a little space and a whole lot of initiative such as the BBB complex and what the crew at 8B are doing, I decided to give it a go. I am now renting out Unit 6 in the same complex I wrote about on JaxScene (or JaxREAX, whatever). Right now it’s a clean slate but I have some major plans for the future.

The plan right now is to use a portion of the space to build practice rooms for local bands. As of now we are looking at 2 rooms and it looks like they already have tenants. There is some additional space available for artists or anyone who is doing something to further advance the culture of Jacksonville. Hit me up at jack@jackdiablo.com if you’re interested.

There will be shows and parties from time to time and I will be diligent in promoting the shit out of them because I’ll be taking a serious financial hit until it really gets off hte ground. In the sprit of what I feel makes Jacksonville such a great place, I intend on making every show/party free to attend. We’ll be running on donations so if you enjoy yourself and would like to see more events happen, pay what you can or what you feel the experience was worth.

As of now, we should have things up and running around the middle of August. There are some really awesome people working with me on this and I have no doubt that it will be successful with Duval’s support. I should have a name for it by then, you can comment your suggestions.

There isn’t any real thing called the Wambolt Collective but it’s starting to feel like there might be, an off the beaten path nucleus for art, music and culture in our fair city.

Stay tuned for details in the near future and let’s make this happen!

Gainfully Unemployed

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again… I am the busiest unemployed dude you know (or don’t know). But who needs a “real job” anyway?

It seems like these posts are getting fewer and further between but I haven’t given up yet and I neither do I intend to. I’ve just been a busy little bee lately with tons of new projects that just keep adding up. But I’m not complaining, not one bit!

So here’s what I’m working on these days:

Chicken & Whiskey

That’s my band and my most creative endeavor. As a drummer, I’m used to the background, providing the rhythm and leaving the creation to the song-writers but this time I get to sing. Well not sing so much as scream, I have no singing voice to speak of but I do okay. It’s a completely different animal to try and sing while you percuss (is that a word?) It’s like throwing another limb into the mix and it’s trickier than you might think. Writing lyrics is hard too so for now I just repeat shit.
We’ve had a good run so far. It usually takes a while for a band to book out of town shows but our first two were in Gainesville and St. Augustine, respectively. We’ve only played Jacksonville twice and our next show is July 28 at Doozer’s Pub with Republicorpse, Time To Die, Buff Clout, and National Dairy. We’ve also played Pensacola, Savannah twice and hopefully Orlando real soon.
So far the feedback has been phenomenal, despite our many fuck-ups and the occasional technical difficulty. Just yesterday we played a fest in Savannah for the 4th and the sound guy turned us off during our last song. Apparently there were some kids returning from some kind of dolphin tour during the middle of one of Big Dunn’s colorful impromptu segues. It was fun though.
Be sure and hit up our MySpace page to hear our crummy home recording and stop by Burro or catch us around town to snag a Florida Is For Haters shirt. We’ll be printing new ones tomorrow with a gnarly design by Dylan, your favorite boozehole bartender (the image up top)!

Burro Bags

Before I moved back to Jacksonville from Afghanistan, I spent a lot of time learning about all the cool shit that was going on here while I was gone. One of them, of course was Burro Bags. Even from 10,000 miles away, I could tell Matt and Chris were onto some serious shit and made owning one of their custom bags a top priority upon my return. In September of last year I had them make me a bag out of one of my sea bags and desert cammie uniforms. It turned out awesome and I still take it with me almost everywhere. Fast-forward and here I am working (and living) as part of the Burro family.
In an effort to enhance online sales and marketing, Matt and Chris sought the aide of GoFresh Design to build a better, more functional website. It looks incredible but takes a bit of work to keep current. Enter me. It is my esteemed pleasure to contribute to the success of the Burro brand through managing all of Burro’s online content, including the blog and Twitter feed. I’ll be tackling the MySpace page and setting up a Facebook page in the near future. Believe me when I say that we are going to be taking things to the next level and beyond as time goes by.

EU

Some time ago, Kellie from EU interviewed Tom and I about JaxScene. While in the photo pit at Harvest of Hope this year, Kellie approached me about doing an album review and I jumped at the opportunity to further refine my writing chops (and get my hands on advance albums). Since then I’ve been writing regularly for the monthly about everything from biking to nightlife to comic books (in this month’s issue). But my main area of focus is music, both local and on a global level. I am constantly running around doing interviews, listening to music, and checking out shows to bring what I feel is the most comprehensive music coverage in Northeast Florida. I have my own page now on the website with all the articles I’ve written and hopefully, very soon we will be launching an all new music page with the help of a very talented cat you call know. But I don’t want to spoil the surprise just yet. Suffice it to say, this thing is going to be big, no EPIC! I am envisioning it as more than just a resource but a portal for the Jacksonville music scene and I couldn’t be more excited about it and the platform it will provide for this city’s talented artists.
I’ve also set up a Twitter account (@eu_music) solely dedicated to the Jacksonville music scene that I update as much as possible about shows each night and other interesting little tidbits.

Urban Jacksonville Weekly

This is my newest endeavor. As I mentioned before, in preparation for my return to Jax I was trolling the interwebs and Urban Jacksonville was the place that turned me on to almost every cool thing I’ve found in this city. So when Joey asked me to be a part of the weekly podcast, I couldn’t refuse.
As “producer” I will be managing the interactive side of things, interfacing with listeners and commenters while Joey, Tony and Jonathan do their thing. I’m sure I will be adding my two cents from time to time and I’ll also have a little segment on upcoming music-related events. If you haven’t seen (or heard) this yet I strongly encourage you to check it out and join the dialogue. No one else in Jacksonville is taking such a unique approach to moving the city forward and I am proud to be a part of it.
Tune in every Tuesday at 5:30 to watch the show or you can subscribe to it on iTunes to download the audio.

As you can see, it’s been a busy summer but that hasn’t stopped me from having the most rad time possible. In the four years I’ve lived in Jax, this is the first summer I’ve spent stateside and so far it’s been incredible.

Adios amigos!

Good Music This Weekend

I hope you haven’t already made plans this weekend, or if you have that they involve seeing some great local bands.

Tonight at Eclipse is the Karen Carpenter Tribute show put on by none other than Owlbeemoth. Logan is known for putting together some incredibly interesting and unique shows. He recently did a Philip K. Dick tribute at Shantytown that was very cool. This one features a ton of local bands, each of which will cover a Carpenters song as well as some of their own stuff. But before all of that, he will screen what looks to be a very interesting doc about Karen herself.

From his blog:

9PM – Superstar : The Karen Carpenter Story
A film that uses Barbies to tell the tale of Karen Carpenters batlle with anorexia while living as a famous singer. This movie has been banned by the courts from being shown or sold due to a lawsuit by her brother. Also the first film for director Todd Haynes who recently made the Bob Dylan film ‘Im Not There’

Just check out all these bands!

Friday night sees Buff Clout at the best little boozehole in Springfield, Shantytown Pub. I shouldn’t have to tell you that this will be a good time. Be sure and pick up the latest issue of EU for my article on Buff Clout. Also appearing are Honey Chamber. I’m doing the Artist Spotlight for EU on them in the July issue and they have a new album out now called Bridge To Homesick that is excellent. A couple of Orlando bands will also play so come check it out.

And of course, on Saturday is the second Jacksonville Chicken & Whiskey show also at Shantytown! The first show was incredible and this one will be even better. If you missed it, check out Birdie’s review in haiku on his blog. Also, watch this video:

We’ll be playing with Scum Of The Earth (Gainesville) and (drumroll, please) TOUGH JUNKIE! I’m doing an album review on TJ’s new album Grab What You Can also in the July issue of EU. I got an advanced copy and I can tell you right now, it is AWESOME! We have new t-shirts that will be available. The first batch went quick so we printed a new color.

Sunday I suggest heading out to Doozer’s to see Patriot with Talk Sick Earth. TSE played a killer set at Bury Your Bike 2 on the St. John’s River. Come see them do their thrash-metal thing, it’s rad!

Happy Memorial Day

I’ve been slacking on posting here due to other commitments and for that, I apologize. You may have noticed that I’ve changed the name of the website from Jack’s Jax to simply Jack Diablo. Since starting this blog, I’ve met tons of awesome folks with like-minded intentions and embarked on many projects and collaborations. As a result, I am trying to focus my efforts within each project to better serve them. So this website is now more of a personal blog for stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. For Jacksonville community-related stuff, I’ll try and do better to post more often on JaxScene. Music stuff can be found within the pages of EU Magazine and on the website.

So a big ‘ol dose of love to everyone who came out last night to see C&W at Shantytown. It was a blast! I’ll have pics and video up soon so stay tuned amigos! If you missed it, we’ll be playing again June 6th (same spot) with Tough Junkie and Scum of the Earth so don’t miss it a second time.

Today I took advantage of the dramatic change in weather to go on a little bike ride. I recently purchased a new touring bike from Freddy (74 Soundsystem) at the Cycle Spectrum on 3rd Street.

I hope to embark on a trek of significant mileage sometime in the near future so to prepare I biked to Native Sun in Mandarin for a late lunch. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that the hot bar I keep hearing about is actually at the Baymeadows location. I did have a nice little tempeh wrap from the deli so all was well. It was bright and sunny and the traffic was pretty mild. Most of the way was easy riding thanks to the bike lanes and parking shoulder on Hendrix. There is a little stretch on San Jose that gets a little crazy but other than that it is pretty bikeable. The whole trip was 24 miles, give or take. When I made it back to the ‘field, CW treated me to Memorial Day beer (Blanche di Brusseles) at the Boozehole.

And speaking of biking, Cherri is working on a pretty awesome new endeavor that will enable more school-age kids to bike to school. Check it out on her blog actionville.

And finally, just noticed two new posts on the EU website. Check em out!
mc chris v. Astronautilis: A “Rap Battle”
Q&A with Willie Heath Neal

Diablo out!

Chicken & Whiskey Are Go!

Aw shit son!

In case you haven’t heard, I gots me a band now. I plays the drumbs (and I sing/shout a little too). We call ourselves Chicken & Whiskey and even though it may sound like a country or rockabilly band, it couldn’t be further.

So, it’s me plus Big Dunn (Roargan) and Chris Williams (Airport Factory). I won’t even attempt to describe what we sound like but if you need an idea just hypothesize on how a collaboration between Dunn and Chris might manifest itself and you’re still probably nowhere close. Or maybe you’re dead on, who knows?

Better yet, come see us play!

We’ve got several shows booked so far including our very first show May 9th in Gainesville at The Kickstand for What The Fuc? Fest along with other Jacksonville superstars, Heavy Flow and After The Bomb Baby. If you can’t make that, worry not, we’re playing at the best damn boozehole in Springfeild, Shantytown Pub, on May 24th with those crazy kids from St. Augustine, Lighthouse Music. Come get your aural fixation doooooods! And bring some cash cuz we’ll have plenty o’ merch. Gots to get paid!

Still not convinced? Well, we put together a little lo-fi home-brewed recording this past weekend and the tunes will be up on the MySpace page after the May 24th show.

But before you start filling in your social calendar for the month of May, you’d better grab a big ol’ fat permanent marker and write BURY YOUR BIKE II real nice and big over May 1-3. It’s gonna be sick! Free beer (no, really – good stuff too), good people, freak bikes, and complete and utter chaos. Don’t miss it, you’ve been warned…

Music Coverage

Good news boys and girls!

Yours truly has signed on as a contributor to EU Magazine to write about shows, local music, and some album reviews here and there! I’m pretty excited about it as it means I will have more access to that which keeps me sane, musica! Look for my album review of the new Decemberists record in next month’s issue of EU and check the website often for more-than-monthly coverage of the Jacksonvile music scene. If you want me to check out your band or do an interview, just get at me.

Tonight I’m heading to St Augustine to cover the Vetiver show at Cafe Eleven. Looks like it will be a good time so come holler if you’ll be there.

Here’s a little blurb from the interwebs:

Vetiver – Chrysopogon zizanioides (previously Vetiveria zizanioides) is a perennial grass of the Poaceae family, native to India. The name comes from Tamil. In western and northern India, it is popularly known as khus, giving the earlier English names cuscus, cuss cuss, kuss-kuss grass, etc.[1] In Marathi it is called Wala (वाळा) Vetiver can grow up to 1.5 meters high and form clumps as wide. The stems are tall and the leaves are long, thin, and rather rigid; the flowers are brownish purple. Unlike most grasses, which form horizontally spreading mat-like root systems, vetiver’s roots grow downward, 2–4 meters in depth. Vetiver is closely related to other fragrant grasses such as Lemon Grass (Cymbopogon citratus), citronella (Cymbopogon nardus, C. winterianus), and Palmarosa (Cymbopogon martinii). Though it originates in India, vetiver is widely cultivated in the tropical regions of the world. The world’s major producers include Haiti, India, Java, and Réunion.

Oh shit, that’s not about the band. Here we go:

…Tight Knit’s arrangements are rather tightly wound, with the album’s soothing vibe finely calibrated enough to excuse an outlying foray into languid funk (“Another Reason to Go”). Former Vetiver collaborator Devendra Banhart once proposed the term naturalismo for the music coming out of San Francisco’s modern folk scene…

So there you go. Also might be covering The Ting Tings show later this week at Jack Rabbits, so stay tuned!

Can’t Destroy The Metal

So, this weekend I had what I would call my indoctrination into modern metal. It’s one genre in particular that I haven’t paid much attention to admittedly based on stereotype and a few bad examples.

I’ve always had a certain image of metal-heads that I haven’t been able to shake. For the most part, it’s one that is pretty accurate but the music itself is much harder to pin down. Lately, I’ve been hearing more about it and hearing bands that redefine the way I think about it. It seems to me that these days the term metal is about as generic as the term rock.

As I mentioned last post, I went up to Atlanta for the Scion Rock Fest with Matt Burro and Christiana Smartguy (inside joke). It was a free show, but you had to RSVP, and considering the lineup, it was pretty much universally assumed that unless you showed up early and waited in line you ran the risk of making the trip for nothing. Turns out that wasn’t exactly the case and just about everybody that was at least on the waiting list got in. At first I wasn’t even going to go because I wasn’t on said list but as it turned out there was an extra.

I arrived to catch Baroness‘ last chord which I hear was a killer show so I was pretty bummed to miss that. I was able to catch the next act, Boris, and was pretty blown away. It was probably the best band I could’ve seen first because it was right up my alley. Sludgy, stoner-metal from Japan with a smoking hot chick guitar player and the wildest drummer I’ve seen. I then caught Warbringer which was a little bit more what I had expected to see. It was thrashy head-banging complete with circle pit and flying V face-melters. It was entertaining, if nothing else. Then caught the ass-end of Pig Destroyer but I didn’t see enough to make any opinions whatsoever.



At this point we are all a bit wore-out from the hour and a half sleep we stole the night before in Tallahassee and the five hour drive to Atlanta so we went out to the car to rest, down a beer and make a PB&J. We had planned to catch Neurosis, Mastodon and Zoroaster but the bastards wouldn’t let us back in! They expected us to stay there for the entire twelve hours and eat their shitty food and five dollar High Life. It was fucking weird. That, and they had really strange traffic patterns. If you went outside you couldn’t come back inside without walking the long-way round and their was just a strange vibe to the way they herded us around like cattle to the slaughter. Maybe that was appropriate, I don’t know.



We left to get some food in Little 5 Points and tried sneaking back in over the fence but got caught in the act. A little inebriated at this juncture I gave the poor security guard a piece of my mind and told him exactly what I thought about their re-entry policy replete with a few choice expletives. I even cursed out the poor girls trying to give us free posters. All that aggro metal I guess.

The next day we made the rounds of Little 5 Points and all picked up some killer new wax at Criminal Records and Wax ‘n’ Facts. Got some tasty burritos at El Myr and Matt dropped off some hip bags and other merch at No Brakes. We were all pretty blown away by all the snow. That and the overwhelming prevalence of Ronnie Land art in the stores and on the streets. I think we all left a little jealous of all the cool shit Atlanta has but I can say that if nothing else, the experience got us talking about why we don’t have that kin of shit here and what we can do about it.

Nothing like a little road trip to gain a fresh perspective.

My New Favorite Local Band: Buff Clout

It was a cold one last night, but not too cold to stop Art Walk from being dopetastic! If you were too lame to brave a little cold weather then you missed a killer art project in the OLB, and if you missed that, you missed my new favorite local band – Buff Clout.



When I heard them start to play, all I could think of was holy shit, is this happening? It’s not what I’ve come to expect from a Jacksonville band, but then again, I have no idea what to expect from Jacksonville bands. They played two shows of the same set and during the first I mentioned to someone that only real musicians would probably be able to appreciate this. I say that because it is spazzy and mathy. I personally have a soft spot for irregular and constantly shifting time signatures and this duo brought the thunder like Geddy Lee and Neil Peart! They didn’t sound like Rush though. Not at all. They also didn’t sound like Dillinger Escape Plan, which was the other band that came to mind. It is unique and impressive in a way that can only be explained by observation. And lucky for all you toolbags who missed the show, they just so happen to be playing tomorrow night at Shantytown. For FREE!



In other local music news, I was handed a compilation CD last night from a friend I met at the House Show a couple weeks back. The album is for a new local label, Infintesmal [sic] Records who have an impressive list of bands they are promoting. The disc has 24 solid tracks from groups like Tuffy, Honey Chamber, Horse Thieves, and Lazerstar, just to name a few. It looks to be a limited run of 100 and they sell for $5 so if you see this, be sure to snatch it before it’s gone! There’s some really good stuff on here. They also have some shows coming up. I fyou don’t want to see Buff Clout, their band, D.M. Waltz is playing Cafe 331 tomorrow. There is also a showcase show at Shantytown on February 20th.

And finally, Wild Flower, Telepathik Friend, Guardians of the Thickets and others are playing Shantytown this Sunday at a benefit show. Be there!

Return of the House Show

Just the other day, my roommate, Cherri, was lamenting the fact that bands don’t play house shows anymore. Freebird is too far and Jack Rabbits can be a bit expensive if you are on a budget and just want to catch a decent show. Shantytown has some great free shows and Fridays at TSI are typically pretty sweet and reasonably priced. But as far as house shows go, you don’t hear about them too often (I don’t at least). So when the crew that brought you the Laundromat Show announced a party in an Avondale abode featuring an almost identical lineup, I was left with no choice but to attend.

I thought it might be a little awkward at a party where I knew no one, but nearly everyone there had read the post I did on the previous show and were incredibly grateful and excited that someone got it, so I felt very welcome. Before the bands played, DJ Cholesterol treated us to an eclectic mix of sonic ear-tickles. It was all very cerebral. Eventually a pretty decent crowd had amassed with many of the same faces from the last show with quite a few new ones as well.

Around 11, Telepathik Friend fried our brains with his animated “wrapping”, knocked some shit over and nearly strangled himself with mike chords in the process. Guardians of the Thickets came on next with a slightly different line-up than last time and droned away. Late Great Magick Owl (or Ghost?) took the floor and incorporated a little interpretive dance into his set with some kind of cardboard costume as he writhed around like the dragon in a Chinese New Year parade. Finally, Wild Flower set up their musical gypsy seance and brought it all together. The whole experience was, as Avery put it, ethereal. Couldn’t think of a better word than that.

What was most impressive to me about it was how completely different the entire experience was. In both sound and ambiance, it was like seeing an entirely different group of acts. Chalk it up to the location, the intimacy of the setting, the ability to manipulate the lighting, or simply the lack of dryers and washing machines humming along, but it was completely unique. Watching these kind of performances gives you a sense of being truly connected with the moment. I probably mentioned something along these lines in the first post, but it bears repeating. You get the sense that this is the only time you will be able to see this particular performance. It is so dependent upon the environment and the general vibe, the ebb and flow of energy, that it could never be recreated in the same way.

Later, after the bands had cleared their gear, it was time for a freeform dance party extravaganza. You don’t get music and dancing like this at any Jacksonville discotheques, I’ll tell you that much!

Check out all the pics here.