Brad Barrish

I’m finally going to start participating in the Friday Five. It’s been a long time coming, so here goes…

1) How often do you do laundry? Once a week. This may or may not coincide with a laundry interception by one of The Cunts, whereby one of them figures out that I’m doing laundry, times it, takes my load out of washing machine and loads their’s in. The Cunts are the two people that live above me. They don’t like me and I don’t like them. I’ll tell you the story another time.

2) What’s in a typical wash load? Clothes, for the most part. I split them up into darks and lights. See, this is the type of question that is making me re-think my participation in the Friday Five.

3) Front or top loader? Powder or liquid detergent? Top-loading, piece of shit, expensive, rental machine. Liquid is really the only way to go. Who likes the left-over grains of detergent on their clothes? It’s inevitable, really. Of course I always use perfume and dye-free detergent. I don’t need to smell like detergent and anyone who leaves that smell behind as they exit an elevator deserves to be shot.

4) Do you use fabric softener in the rinse cycle? What?! Fabric softener is for the dryer. The end.

5) Dryer or clothesline? Unless you’ve got a really nice dryer, which I do not, they ruin clothes, especially denim. Anything I don’t want to fade, I hang up. Underwear, socks and light-colored stuff goes in the dryer.

As of Friday I will be unemployed again. Five months of searching for a job, two months of part-time employment, and now back to unemployment. The good news is that I got laid off, which means I can collect some unemployment. It’s a comfort to me. Last time around, I quit my job. I still don’t regret that. It was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made.

I’m thinking of doing some private Mac tutoring and consulting, but I’ve got this wealth of knowledge that I could certainly apply to something else. There was something about working part-time, still being able to pay the bills and working on personal endeavors during the rest of the week. I could get used to it.

This is what the site was meant to be. A place for me to post writings and photography of mine. This is about me. It’s self-indulgent. You have been warned.

The photography section is still being worked on. I’m putting together a gallery of some of my best work. You won’t have to fish through hundreds of photos and I won’t have to worry about people stealing all of them from my site.

This is just a temporary layout. While I am working on getting jeansandatshirt.com off the ground, you’ll just have to put up with a low-fi layout and sporatic updates.

The Fast Horse Summer Hootenany 2002, featuring Wayward Shamans, Tuatara, Minus 5, and Cedell Davis has been announced.

07.10 Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Cafe

07.11 Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Cafe

07.12 Portland, OR @ Berbati’s Pan

07.14 San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore

07.16 Solana Beach, CA @ Belly@Up Tavern

07.17 Los Angeles, CA @ House Of Blues

07.18 San Juan Capistrano, CA @ Coach House

07.19 Tempe, AZ @ Nita’s Hideaway

07.22 Boulder, CO @ Fox Theatre

07.24 Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue

07.25 Chicago, IL @ The Metro

07.26 Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre

07.27 Philadelphia, PA @ The Trocadero

07.29 New York, NY @ Knitting Factory

07.30 New York, NY @ Knitting Factory

07.31 Boston, MA @ The Paradise

08.01 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club

08.02 Chapel Hill, NC @ Cat’s Cradle

08.03 Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse

08.05 Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre

08.07 New Orleans, LA @ House Of Blues

For those not in the know, Minus 5 includes Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey. Tuatara is an instrumental outfit that includes drummer extrodinaire, Barrett Martin. Wayward Shamans is Barrett’s new band and Cedell Davis is a “great 75 year bluesman that we just made a record with,” according to a posting by McCaughey on Murmurs.com.

In the same posting, McCaughey also announced that the Minus 5/Wilco collaboration, which began in 1999, would finally see the light of day sometime this fall.

Faultline - Your Love Means Everything

(Blanco y Negro/Warner Music UK)

While some may want to dismiss this as the latest answer to “Chill Out” electronic music, it hovers above the heap, way above. Even without vocal performances by Chris Martin (Coldplay) on “Where Is My Boy” and “Your Love Means Everything Part 2” as well as Michael Stipe (R.E.M.) on “Greenfields,” this album is a plenary effort. Additional vocals by Jacob Golden and Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips) also provide a departure from the mesmeric compositions.

Faultline (a.k.a. David Kosten) is dark, but still gives hope. It eases with a dash of panic. So beautifully orchestrated that you’ll want to curl up in a ball with headphones on, eyes closed, only to open them and realize that you are still in the same place you began your passage. Love Means Everything is one of the most thoughtful electronic albums to come this year.

Doves/Elbow @ The Mayan Theater (Los Angeles, CA) 06.06.02

I can’t get enough of Elbow. Usually I would feel sorry for a band that has to follow their set, but tonight was not such an occasion. That’s not to say that Elbow didn’t put on a wonderful show. If there was a person in the crowd that didn’t cheer just as hard when the band broke into “Red,” “Powder Blue,” “Coming Second” or a beautiful “Scattered Black & Whites,” I didn’t see them. It’s always nice to see an otherwise jaded and stale Los Angeles crowd expressing some approval of good music. Elbow certainly did their part to make this a sold-out event.

Ask me why Jimi Goodwin plays his bass and guitar upside-down, and I don’t have an answer. What I can tell you, for certain, is that Doves are among the great U.K. imports. Touring on a new album, The Last Broadcast, the band carefully crafted a set of music only a fool wouldn’t have enjoyed. In addition to new songs, “Pounding,” “There Goes The Fear,” “Words” and “N.Y.,” favorites from their previous album, Lost Souls were not left out. “Here It Comes,” “Rise,” “Catch The Sun” and “Sea Song” only helped to round out a delectable set of music.

Doves will be on tour with Elbow for the rest of the month before heading back to The U.K. for the summer festival circuit.

06.08 Chula Vista, CA @ The Coors Light Amphitheater

06.10 Denver, CO @ The Bluebird Theater

06.12 Minneapolis, MN @ The Fine Line Music Cafe

06.13 Chicago, IL @ The Vic

06.15 Toronto, ON @ The Palais Rayale

06.16 Philadelphia, PA @ The Theater of Living Arts

06.17 Boston, MA @ Axis

06.19 Washington, D.C. @ The 9:30 Club

06.20 New York, NY @ Hammerstein Ballroom

Aussie music darlings, The Vines announce a slew of dates across the U.S. (and a couple in Canada). Their debut album, Highly Evolved will be in stores on 07.16. You can be sure we’ll cover the L.A. shows. If you plan on seeing them in the nearest town, send in photos and reviews.

07.09 Cleveland, OH @ MTV Live at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

07.10 Toronto ONT @ The Opera House

07.12 St. Louis, MO @ The Galaxy Theater

07.13 Chicago, IL @ The Metro

07.14 Detroit MI @ Shelter

07.15 New York, NY ‘Late Night with Conan OÂ’Brien’ appearance

07.17 New York, NY @ The Bowery Ballroom

07.19 Boston, MA @ Paradise

07.20 Philadelphia, PA @ The Theater of Living Arts

07.21 Washington, DC @ The 9:30 Club

07.23 Atlanta, GA @ The Cotton Club

07.24 Birmingham, AL @ Five Points Music Hall

07.26 Austin, TX @ Stubbs BBQ

07.27 Houston, TX @ The Engine Room

07.28 Dallas, TX @ Trees

07.30 Denver, CO @ Bluebird

08.05 Vancouver, BC @ RichardÂ’s

08.08 San Francisco, CA @ SlimÂ’s

08.09/10 Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy Theater

08.19 New York, NY ‘Late Show with David Letterman’ appearance

Welcome to jeans and a t-shirt. You’ve been waiting. Admit it. Over the past several weeks I’ve been working to make this site everything that bradbarrish.com was, and then some. Where applicable, content from the old site has been moved here. This is the site I’ve been wanting to create. Make no mistake, this is a community effort. We’ve already scored our first couple of contributors and we plan on having more in the near future. I hope you all enjoy the site. Tell your friends. Tell all of them, and your grandmother too.

My back is bruised from fighting you off. Elbows, heads, and shoulders pressing against me, trapping me. The punching and the yelling seemed so appropriate to you, though we all looked on in disgust. Your intoxicated enthusiasm pushing so hard. Someone grabbed on to my shoulders. I tried to steady myself as I felt a bit old for all of this. I put away my shooter and shoved right back at you. Get away. Get away. Get away. I pushed through to the edge, where the sanity seemed to be in abundance.

It’s smokey because I made a choice. The stench wafts through the apartment. The taste is in my mouth - of choice. I don’t think about tomorrow, waking up with a dried-out nose, cursing the decision I made hours ago. I just do these things because it feels good, not because they’re actually beneficial. I’m not going to beat myself up over it though. Not this time. I can’t go back and do things differently, but I can take a different route the next time.

It all just reeks of wretched unhealthiness. I’ll awaken with that faint taste in my mouth. It’s one I remember quite well. Maybe I’ll decide I’m done for a while and decide that it doesn’t support who I really am. It’s all certainly nothing I have given much thought to recently. It feels like a good time to get a little more conscious about me. It’s never too late for any of this, which makes putting it off so very attractive. I’ll see how I feel in the morning. It’s never too late.