Category Archives: Sheep Communique

Total Control … Thee Oh Sees … in Nampa. Huh?

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There are people who considered this show a once-in-a-lifetime kind of a show.  Thee Oh Sees have played a few times in Idaho and they are always much appreciated for playing a gig here whether it’s a house show in Boise or a coffeeshop in Nampa.  But in many respects it was Australia’s Total Control that made this evening most surreal.  This is a band that everyone should know about, but you kind of got the sense only a handful of the hipsters on hand really knew what they were in for.  All I can say is it was one of those evenings when you were REALLY glad to have been born in the right place and the right time … so that you could see Total Control play in … Nampa.

(the first four photos are Total Control and number five is Thee Oh Sees)

 

Spec’s 12 Adler Museum Cafe … a.k.a the best dive bar EVER!

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Rather than give you an abbreviated history of San Francisco’s Specs’ (it’s easy enough to find on the internet … and I highly encourage you to do so) these are facts as I know them:

  • Specs’ is dark, smells of nearly a century of spilled beer
  • Specs’ is one of the last Union bars in the country
  • The walls are literally littered with the most fascinating memorabilia, including the baculum of a walrus (or is it a whale?)
  • I first visited Specs’ 20 years ago at the recommendation of Max Pavesic (the worlds finest archeologist and THE original hipster) who knew of Specs’ in part because Rosalie Sorrels is a long-time friend of Specs – the owner

Apparently There Is No “We” in FASTERthanSHEEP …

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Apparently there is no “we” in FASTERthanSHEEP …  After the first great diaspora, the FtS Sheep-Peoples scattered themselves throughout the land.  And this is how it was supposed to happen all along.  However, when the FtS(blog) returned to take its rightful place in the webosphere, there was some misunderstanding.  You see, despite my intent for FtS(blog) to appear as a “we” it really is just an “I” …  and some people felt that perhaps “I” needed to come clean about the “we” of it all.  So, from now on “I” will be an “I” and not a “we” which should help relieve confusion and apparent consternation. I hope that is abundantly clear.  So, now you know, from here forward, FtS(blog) is just I … Joseph “Sheep Monkey” Pollard.

 

Slow, albeit funky Halloween and a Morphsuit

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Normally the FtS(blog) gang are a reticent bunch, barely making the scene … any scene. But as fate and ennui combined would have it, a few of said gang found themselves nowhere other than the Neurolux on a slow, albeit funky Halloween this year.  Further details are not necessary, we really just want to say that IF you find yourself ever in a similar situation … just find THIS guy in the crowd and instantly you will know you’ve made the right decision to venture out on a slow, albeit funky Halloween (on a monday night no less). ps … DJ Miss Kimberly supplied the funk, and if you know our friend in the morphsuit please ask him to stop trying to make out with our bloggers. It distracts them from doing their job.

(posted eleven-one-eleven!)

If ever someone was truly FASTER than SHEEP …

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If ever someone was truly FASTER than SHEEP … it was Marco Simoncelli.  For many of us here at FtS(blog), Marco WAS MotoGP.  He was young and charismatic and stylish and daring and everything you’d ever want in motorbike racer.  He was THE reason people love motorcycle racing.  Marco was killed last weekend while racing the Malaysian Grand Prix.  Despite the dangers of racing a motorbike at speeds most people can’t really comprehend, his death seemed so horribly unbelievable.  It wasn’t unusual for Marco to go down so early in a race.  On several previous occasions this year, Marco went down early, sliding furiously off the track and into the gravel where he’d pick himself up from the cloud of dust and walk dejectedly away from the asphalt and the action of the race.  This time it was different.  Instead of sliding off into the gravel after his tires were pushed just beyond their limit, Marco fought hard to stay in the race … only to regain traction long enough for his bike to shoot straight back into the racing line … where he was killed instantly when he was hit full on at well over 100 mph by a couple of riders racing closely behind.  His father Paolo was at the race and was there when the medical staff stretchered him toward the ambulance; “I helped them … when they passed the stretcher over to my side of the guard rail I took the stretcher to place it in the ambulance and held Marco’s hand and called to him ‘Ciao Marco’, but he was gone already.”

Ciao Marco

Marco Simoncelli (1987-2011)

Let there be SHEEP!

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On this day a Sheep is born again! Not so much in the evangelical sense, but rather in the Hey, I’m back … did you miss me?  Mind if I come in and visit for a few minutes?  Maybe we could catch up on old times and create some “now” times?

If you were around for the first go around, you remember the small joy that was FASTER than SHEEP.  It usually offered a small amount of joy in one way or another for everyone whose ink-smudged fingers ever fingered through its newsprint pages.  It was a magazine in the sense that it was printed and it was a collection of articles, art, and anything that seemed like it might provide that little bit of joy to someone … anyone.  More often than not it was an insanely self-indulgent participant in the pop culture stratosphere.  To be truthful, I don’t really expect it to be any different this go around.

This is the beginning of an attempt to bring back the past (issue by issue) and an attempt to create a new beginning for something that I hope will have the same spirit and appeal as the original printed version of FASTER than SHEEP.  In that regard, the only way it truly can have that spirit is if a community of artists, wordsmiths, and interesting characters decide to contribute.  So get to work Sheeple!  In the more immediate future, the original issues of FASTER than SHEEP will be posted here in one form or another for folks to revisit … in an orderly fashion of course, so as to not create a virtual stampede of eager readers.

This blog is … FASTER than SHEEP!

Ciao for now!

Sheep Monkey