When you must choose between two great bands—one from your past against one from your present—there is bound to be regret in your future.

I’m sure the line above is paraphrasing a famous quote from somewhere (even if Google is not showing me one), but it accurately describes my situation when I attend the 2008 Lollapalooza music festival. My wife and I will be making the journey from New York to Chicago to see the festival on August 1-3, in what would best be described as the culmination point of my favorite bands ever— Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine and Wilco.

The only problem is that Lollapalooza is three nights, not four. Thus, when the scheduling was released last week, I was distraught to discover that Wilco and Rage Against The Machine are playing on opposing stages at the same exact time.

Suddenly, my dream festival has hit a snag— I’m forced to choose between seeing only one of two of my favorite bands ever. I cannot stress enough what a terrible example this is of scheduling on the part of the Lollapalooza promoters. I mean, the following night has Nine Inch Nails playing at the same time as Kanye West, which makes sense since they have very different music.

But Wilco and Rage are both rock bands. Granted of course, they are totally different genres of rock, but rock nevertheless. I don’t think that they are polar opposites like Kanye and NIN are. I’m sure I am not the only person who is disappointed about this scheduling. Sure, the beauty of music festivals is that there is a plethora of music to see and experience, and much of it is going on at the same time. But to have two rock headliners on stage simultaneously seems to defy logic. Why can’t one of these bands be moved up to an earlier time slot in the day?

For me, the complications run deep, as both bands are known for their live performances: Wilco with their instrumentation and execution, and Rage with their sonic assault and raw energy. This likely will be a stellar performance by both bands as Rage is in the midst of a comeback, and Wilco will be playing in their hometown of Chicago, where the festival is being held this year.

A good tiebreaker would be to see the band I haven’t seen live before, but I have with both: Rage in 1997, Wilco in 2004. Both bands’ music served me well as the soundtrack at different junctures in my life, and it pains me to have to choose in what should be a momentous festival for me. So who do I go see?

Before I share my final decision below in the comments section, I want to see what all of you out there in the blogosphere think. If you were me on the evening of August 2, 2008, would you go see Rage Against The Machine or go see Wilco?

Thanks for reading and (hopefully) commenting. Cheers.

** M. Sahm **

As the more casual fan of the Somrod duo when it comes to R.E.M., I was not disappointed in the least bit by last night’s show. It was high octane for most of the show, and I only sat down for 2 of the 27 songs (Houston and Let Me In). With such a vast catalog, R.E.M. could have played any of 70 some odd songs in their current cue, so I accepted that they didn’t play a few of my own personal favs (Circus Envy, Walk Unafraid, and Finest Worksong) nor did they engage my blind hope of debuting ‘Sing For The Submarine’ on this tour. But I walked away very satisfied with the experience. The fact that S.Rod was ecstatic made me happier, but I’ll leave her to talk about that.

Overall though, of the three R.E.M. shows I have seen (’03, ‘04 and ‘08—all @ MSG), this was the best in my opinion. The new material from Accelerate meshed well with the old classics, much better than when they were debuting the Around The Sun songs. I think that’s the thing that show how solid a new album is— not only do the songs sound great live, but they accent the rest of the catalog well. Cheers.

The dynamic duo that is Somrod provided song-by-song tracklist information throughout the 27-song performance. After the show, S.Rod was unable to contain her excitement enough to form complete sentences. The curmudgeonly humanitarian in me grudgingly has to admit every human being on earth deserves to feel that good at least once in their life. I’m hoping I’m even 1/10 as excited at the end of my first R.E.M. show in Atlanta tomorrow night. – Josh Hathaway; Confessions of A Fanboy

** S.Rod **

Last night’s show was incredibly fantastic it totally ROCKED! I’m very pleased at how well the new album translates live. I’m so sad that its over but I’m so happy that I was there to see and experience this show. The crowd was totally into it.

We had a great setlist even though I didn’t get everything I wanted. There was a frenetic energy that carried through each of the first 10 songs which plateaued with Houston. I’m not a big fan of the song Houston but it was good and its surprisingly short. The set kicked back in with Electrolite which was a fan favorite which Stipe dedicated to Modest Mouse. Mike Mills then took center stage for Rockville…OMG the place went nuts. Everyone was singing the chorus… Roooockvillllllllle! Awesome! Driver 8 into Harborcoat and then The One I Love. I did get to hear Until the Day Is Done… which was just beautiful and then right into an acoustic version of Let Me In which was very intimate. I have changed my mind about Horse To Water; it is great live. Pretty Persuasion; so cool. Right into Orange Crush which I was dying to hear. And closing with I’m Gonna DJ, which just rocked.

Encore: Supernatural Superserious, Losing My Religion, Begin The Begin, Fall On Me, closing with Man on The Moon.

Wow, what a concert! I can’t remember being this psyched to see concert in a long time. R.E.M. put on a phenomenal show. For those of our friends seeing them in Atlanta on Saturday: I hope you get every song on your dream setlist. And even if only get one YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

Seventeen days ago, I set a goal to find the Writer-Self.

Okay, well, I really set a goal to blog every day this month. But this was to shake off the rust in finding that self.

But you know, that self wasn’t as lost as I thought. I wasn’t as rusty as I expected to be. Experiment over. Now I have to start pushing the quota, and get this thing done.

Never give up, never ever give up. Cheers.

Even though I’ve had my own websites for more than eight years now, I’ve gone through many name changes for my primary site. The most difficult was the one that we just transitioned in March: going from Magic Junk to Somrod Creative.

Magic Junk had built up a pretty fair amount of traffic, but the name itself was not indicative of where we wanted to go with our goals. Additionally, I started the idea for the site long before I met S.Rod. But since she is my partner in all of this, I wanted to make sure the new name included us both.

But Magic Junk had a history with me, so it was hard to let go. I stretched it out much longer than I should have. What I needed, it turned out, was someone who is a well-known business writer to tell me to move on with the site name. So, on a whim, I wrote to Guy Kawasaki (author of The Art of the Start and Rules For Revolutionaries ) and asked him what he thought of Magic Junk. I figured if he saw some good in it, then I would keep it.

To my surprise, on 12/10/06, he actually wrote me back:

Mark,
Honestly, “junk” for me has too many negative connotations. I wouldn’t use it in a name. Thanks for your message.
Guy

That settled it for me. So, after brainstorming over domain names for a few months, and finding many of my favorites were being cybersquatted, I took the name from what S.Rod would often refer to ‘us’ as: Team Sahmrod. Given that half of the people I meet cannot pronounce Sahm correctly, I switched out the ‘ah’ for an ‘o’ (I just made you make funny noises in your head!) and Somrod was born. Sure it took us a year and a half, but we have a lot of fantastic excuses.

So far, I’m really happy we made the name change (other than having to reintroduce traffic), and we still kept MJ around for Magic Junk Radio. Sometimes change is good. Cheers.

With S.Rod being a R.E.M. fan of a high degree, we traveled into the city today to visit an independent bookstore that was holding a book signing for the new R.E.M. photo book, Hello.
Signing the book was the photographer David Belisle and lead singer Michael Stipe.

It was a good decision to head in, as we got to talk with some cool fans while waiting on line, and got to meet Stipe and have him sign our book. Sure, being superfans is not really our thing, but it was a nice excursion from working on the house.

Some cool moments:
• An older woman walking by asked what the line was for. When she was told ‘R.E.M.’, she said “Is it a seminar on sleep?”
• I got to hear Michael (when about to sign our book) say, “S.Rod? Is that how you say it?”
• S.Rod asked Michael if he would play our friend’s favorite track “Monty Got A Raw Deal” at their Atlanta show (which our friend will be at)— Stipe’s reaction: *snicker* “Fat chance.”

As you may have guessed from the title, today was yet another day in the basement. We’re still trying to finish all of the odds and ends that I left at the end of last fall. Luckily, this was perfectly fine with us, since it was muggy for most of the day. Then after dinner, there was a huge thunderstorm. Yeah, I’ll take the cool and dry basement, thank you.

While I was working on aligning the framing for the three doors (two to the HVAC room and 1 closet), S.Rod was measuring and cutting pieces of drywall for the soffits. Then I would stop and hang the pieces of drywall. In addition, since all of the areas have something under construction, everything is displaced— as we got to each area, we have to move all of the things out of the way.

Despite working all day on this, we still have more to do. This is why contractors have crews to do this type of crap, and while other ones take months to do it. To complicate things, we have afternoon plans tomorrow (albeit one-of-a-kind plans) , so it will only leave the morning to get things done. Hopefully, we can get an early start and bang a lot of the pieces out.

Nevertheles, this project has lingered on for too long. I’m beginning to worry that my time and effort are catching up with what I could have just spent to have someone else do it last summer. Hopefully not though. Cheers.

And here I thought that no one in their right mind would ever want to be Mark Sahm.

I got a letter from my credit card company today with a new card attached that had a new account number. I had not lost my card, and it wasn’t up for renewal until next year, so I knew something had to be up.

It turns out that there was a “merchant database compromise” and my old account number “may have been illegally obtained”. While I’m glad this was caught before an order for SW replicas and blow-up dolls showed up on my statement, I would like to know who the merchant was that dropped the ball and make sure I don’t give them my business. Or was this a clever way for the credit card company to say it was them who fucked up?

I guess I will probably never know. What I do know is that all of the things I have auto-linked to that old account number have to be updated now, and that’s a real pain in the ass. But I suppose this is better than knowing there is another Mark Sahm running around out there with the illegal power to buy a kitchen’s worth of new appliances. Cheers.

In April, I flirted with the idea to dust off a ‘failed’ project. Then I got discouraged because it seemed like too much work to take on at the time.

In May, I had a conversation with someone about him picking up a failed project of his and trying again; that he may as well do it, because what the hell did he have to lose?

In June, I decided to take my own advice, with a little help from my old self.  In other words, the rumors of the 2nd Novel’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Of course, I’ve made way too promises over the course of this novel’s existence to even say that I will definitely finish it.

But again, I’m going to try. What the hell do I have to lose? Cheers.

I mentioned the other day that I really need to replace my 2001 G4, as my program usage is extremely limited by the slow processor. I was hoping that Apple would update the Mac Pro this week, so I could pick up one of the current ones in a closeout sale. But they did not update it… yet. So being the budget minded homeowner that I am, I shall patiently wait for the updates to come. This way, it’s less damage to the Somrod savings.

In the meantime, I may as well write down the configuration that the future me will be purchasing. Hopefully I can check back and see how much I saved by waiting, instead of buying something now.

Sahm’s Mac Pro Specifications 6/11/08 – Price on Apple Store: $3,549.00

• Processor: Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon (8-Core)
• RAM: 4GB (4×1GB)
• None
• Hard Drive: 320GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
• None
• None
• None
• Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
• Two 16x SuperDrives

I think the clutch is stuck. It won’t shift into gear. This was supposed to be fixed a long time ago. But it’s not. This is what I get for depending on others.

So here I am in the dead of winter, stuck at the end of the driveway, where the melted snow collects. I’m sitting and shivering in a car that was supposed to hug curves, kick up leaves in its wake, and have people turn their head in jealousy. But it’s not.

It could be the alternator, but I’m sure the clutch has got to be stuck. I don’t know how to fix either of them. And I’m getting colder the longer I sit here.

Before I started writing this blog post, I opened a new track in GarageBand and began remixing for thirty minutes straight. This was done without listening to more than the first 15 seconds of the song. In other words, I was remixing blind. Just switching instruments, adjusting effects, turning digital “knobs” and so on.

At the point that the thirty minutes ended, I rendered the track and waited to hear what would play… there was some good and some bad. But this was to be expected, as I would never believe that even the best of random remixing could net you a winner on the first pass. At least, not if you wanted it to sound “different”.

No, the point was that in thirty minutes, I could change something that I knew well into something completely different. By that accord, could I spontaneously change my life into something completely different in thirty minutes? The old cliché goes that your life could change in a second, from things like a car accident or a lottery win. But while you may have chosen to drive that day or play your numbers, the determinant of the rapid change was external forces beyond your control. I’m more interested in the rapid change that you can institute by yourself.
Read more…

As many people know who have crossed my path over the last year, my labor of love has been the ongoing renovation of the basement in the Somrod Townhouse. We finally crossed one of the major hurdles in the project today: we have built all of the soffits and chases. You have no idea what a relief that is.

You probably also have no idea what the hell a soffit or a chase is, but let me help. A soffit, in the basement sense, is essentially a box made of wood framing that runs along your ceiling to hide ductwork, pipes, and any other unsightly thing. (Unfortunately, I cannot build a soffit to cover up the neighbor’s house across the street!) Soffits are finished by covering with drywall, smoothed, and painted to match your walls. A chase is the standing version of the soffit.

In total for our basement renovation, I have built 7 soffits and 1.5 chases. The first 3 soffits and 1.5 chases were done last fall during my initial drywall run. Then I took some time off from the project (from burnout!). At the time I took off though, the major eyesore left in the space was this massive industrial size ductwork that the original contractor had run right across the center of the main room. It was ridiculous: anyone over 5′10″ had to duck to walk through the room. This was definitely something I could not build a soffit around. More importantly, what good is a finished basement for resale value when it has a giant duct bisecting it!
Read more…

I may as well confess that the only other living organism in the Somrod household has officially kicked the bucket. Yes, I am referring to our lime tree, which was highlighted in previous posts here and here, in better days obviously.

After we moved out of our apartment, the lime tree just never adapted to life in the Somrod townhouse, consistently dropping more and more leaves each month. Equally, it went through many battles with scales, that took a lot of energy from the little tree. In an attempt to jumpstart the lime tree’s health, S.Rod repotted it with new soil. Then we put it in the sunniest spot in the house.

That proved to be the kicker. All of the remaining leaves fell off within a week and a month later, the tree’s body and limbs were as dry as a bone. We finally conceded defeat today and planted some flowers in the large green ceramic pot that had held it. Fare thee well, limey.
Read more…

As some of you may recall, my purchase of an iPhone for S.Rod and I was not well timed. It happens. While rumors of the 3G iPhone released are pretty verified at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday, I’m not really that bummed about it. I’ve had my iPhone for 5 months now, and am glad I did not wait any longer. It’s about the only thing that keeps me sane in my 3 hours of daily commuting back and forth to NYC.

No, the Apple item that I need to replace is my aging 733 MHz “Quicksilver” PowerPC G4 with 1.12GB of RAM. For those that may not recognize the model, this model was announced at Macworld Expo New York on July 18, 2001. I bought my G4 three days later. So yeah… It’s old. Hell, this Mac predates me meeting my wife by two years. How it is even still working is beyond me.

Nowadays, I have to do all sorts of voodoo on the G4 to get Magic Junk Radio released, as well as any time I want to retouch a photo, create some vector graphics, or make a page layout. Don’t even get me started about how Logic Express would crash. Not that I am complaining though. Technically, the G4 has outlived two cars, two iPods, and two wives. Just making sure you were paying attention on that last item.
Read more…

It’s not going to be easy. Five days into my June renaissance, and I have not been able to write the more in-depth blog posts that I wanted to. Each night, I’m sitting here at 11pm pushing the envelope to make my goal, yet knowing that my writing procedure is slow and can never develop one of my thirty some odd post ideas that I have waiting in the draft folder.

Let us hope that in addition to the basement getting some finished soffits this weekend, I also get some of these drafts started so when the hurried work week comes, I can polish them off. Cross your fingers or curse me… I know some type of luck will help me out.

I’m constantly thinking of ideas and inventions that I would like to see developed and marketed. Many of them are in my various notebooks, in the hope they will one day be thrust into reality. Maybe.

But many other ideas are well beyond my scope of reality, since I am but a humble creative person with no money and very few connections. However, there could very well be a web surfer out there who has the money or the connections to make it happen. As I see it, if it benefits me to have, what do I care if someone else does it?

Thus, I have decided to start a category within my blog called “Someone Steal This Idea”. The rules of engagement if you use the idea are simple: 1. Give me a credit line, and 2. Send me a prototype.
Read more…

* A literary passage *

There were days for us all where the lust of addicts made perfect sense. Where a man could indulge without a shred of restraint and love every succulent second, knowing full well that morality and conscience had been thrown to the roadside.

Those were the days when a man could walk outside with the ambition to screw any female that gives him the time of day. Where the man followed the same pattern each night out, like a rat that perfectly memorized its way through a maze. Just to release the angst of youth drop by drop. To explore the depths. To explode. To unknowingly fuck everything up.
Read more…