I'm going to start this post with an apology. I've been horrible at mixing up my dates lately, posting the Summer Smackdown movie night too early and leaving the Marty Walker opening off of the list last week. I'm going to start a "Check Out" section where I will include a few ongoing or closing gallery showings and museum exhibitions. This section is not meant to be comprehensive, just a sampling of some favorites and reminders of openings you (or I) may have missed. I promise you that I will strive to become a more thorough and comprehensive fake journalist sidekick. Now on to the list.

THURSDAY

Ech-o Panel Discussion (Centraltrak) 7pm

Summer Smackdown Movie Night (4129 Bryan St)
Okay, it is for real today. They're showing Teen Witch, and get ready for the Most Popular Girl Contest.

FRIDAY

Academia: Pushing the Boundary (the MAC)

Michael Ledoux and Shane Pennington (HCG Gallery)

SATURDAY

Pathway Deluge (Mighty Fine Arts)

CHECK OUT

Group Hug (Marty Walker)
Featuring work from gallery artists Frances Bagley, Douglas Leon Cartmel, Ted Kincaid, Tom Orr, Matthew Porter, Susie Rosmarin, Jay Shinn, and four new artists to the gallery roster: Archie Scott Gobber, William Lamson, Marc Lüders, and Pard Morrison.

Tim Noble and Sue Webster (Goss-Michael)

Cory Arcangel, Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied (And/Or)

El Franco Lee II (Angstrom)

Photo courtesy of Marty Walker

Want to see Shearwater, the Kadane Brothers and The Theater Fire at Lola's in Ft. Worth on Friday? We have a pair of tickets to give away, and you know what to do if you want them. Email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com by 5pm today for your chance to win.

Detour with Black Tie Dynasty | Schwa | Sally Glass downstairs and Dance Your Face Off upstairs (The Cavern)
I was officially sick of making fun of Black Tie Dynasty several months ago. I mean, it's clear that these dudes don't really have a shot at "making it" anymore now that ripping off Interpol rip offs is no longer cool with 14 year olds. Right? Oh well. Maybe we should let them die peacefully. Anyway, for those who didn't know, Detour is a new arts/music monthly at the Cavern that will feature art work, DJs, and live bands. They made the unfortunate choice of BTD as a headliner this time (although the fact that it is an acoustic set will make it a bit easier to ignore), but they also made the wise choice of Schwa as the DJ and our friend Sally Glass as the featured artist. As anyone perched atop a tower at a SXSW house party will tell you, she's like the most amazing photographer in the fucking world and shit.... ha ha, you don't get the WSJR inside joke. Anyway, she'll be selling some of her photos at the show, and even if you don't believe me when I tell you that they're good, you can rest assured that you'll see some people you want to see at this thing, because Sally is kinda a big deal in Dallas right now. Believe it.

Ghost Pizza with It's What We Get | Yeahdef | Young Doc Gooden (Hailey's)
Diverse group of DJs playing tonight, ranging from Doc Gooden's chopped and screwed dirty hip hop to disco/house sets from Its What We Get. Solid.

The Scoop (Fallout Lounge)
Lots of downtempo and breakbeat and jazz influenced stuff. Pretty low key if that is what you're looking for this evening.

Duh... we have a pair of Boris tickets for their upcoming show this Friday at Rubber Gloves, and we plan to give them away to one lucky reader. Email weshotjrtix@yahoo.com any time between now and tomorrow (THU) at Noon if you want your chance to win-- we will select a winner randomly. Please make "Boris" the email subject and include your full name in the body. Good luck best friends!

Don't really have time to say much today. Let us know what you think of our Tom Waits preview from last night, I'm kind of in the dark about what the general consensus is.

Islands | Awol One | Crayonsmith (Granada)
I don't know what else we can say about Islands. They have a big MTV logo on their Myspace page, so I guess that's cool or at least a sure sign of success. Awol One is a label-mate of Islands, has worked with Kool Keith, and is also part of the hip hop group, Shapeshifters. Some of the backing tracks sound pretty decent, but I didn't have enough time to form a decent opinion of the rhyming. Crayonsmith is an indie pop group from Dublin.

La Dispute | Broadcast Sea | Spark Is The Diamond | Pools | Jubilee | Daniel Rice (1919 Hemphill)
I'm glad to see the Observer has taken a profound interest in 1919 Hemphill shows of late. Even though it's annoyingly transparent, it's ultimately a good thing if it helps keep the lights on.

Disqo Disco (Fallout Lounge)

Styx | Boston (Nokia)
A woman once shared a story with me about a stripper she knew that would dance almost exclusively to "Mr. Roboto" when she performed. I've never quite figured out if that made me feel more sorry for the dancer or for Styx, who surely took this little rock opera atrocity seriously.

Tom Waits (Palladium)
Tom Waits is coming to Dallas tonight and it's yet another obvious and classic example of an artist whose record sales do not necessarily reflect his actual cultural impact, judging by the wide spectrum of people that have been freaking out. I've never seen so many of my friends gladly pay 102 dollars (!) for anything. Not vintage wine, not Air Jordans, not stupid video games, not delay pedals, and not even a rare record that I can only assume does not have his music on it. I would hope that nobody would ever pay over a hundred dollars for anything released on Anti, aka Aging Rock Critic Music 101. Good taste prevents me from typing what I said out loud to a buddy after he excitedly told me how much he paid for his ticket, as if Mr. Waits and The Palladium ballroom were doing him a favor. And that's along the lines of what I said he should do at that price-- personally perform an enthusiastic and intimate sexual favor for everyone in attendance. I mean, who is this guy? The Eagles? Oh, wait. They were one of the first in a very long line of awful artists to cover his music.

Speaking of covering his music, people have been equally freaked over, albeit with an almost universal negativity, actor Scarlett Johansson's new Waits cover album, "Anywhere I Lay My Head." This record has been trashed by critics, but really it was dismissed long before it came out. I get it: an a-list actor's crossover into music is offensively smug, since she chose one of the last sacred characters of American Popular music. I just thought I'd take a minute to inject some sense into this blanket dismissal, as well as some good old fashioned devil's advocacy, and of course, the underlying and unspoken truth that these versions might be better than the Waits originals. We'll work up with some background, factoids and a little compare and contrast. This is my gift to all my favorite annoying Waits-heads, friends and family included, in the form of a special extended It List. You'll love it...

Waits, as an Artist

Waits is a good songwriter. I usually hate the "good songwriter" argument, the one I had heard countless times applied to Dylan and Neil Young by ignorant blowhard customers as they chatted with one another in the years I spent as a record store clerk. The argument is that yes, they are good songwriters, but suffer from the paradoxical affliction of interpreting their own work worse than anyone else in the world. The opposite is usually true and the work of all three men has been watered down by many a lesser artist, the end result inevitably choked with enough studio glitter to irritate your eyes and especially your ears. But at a certain point in Waits' career, his cartoonish over-singing sapped some of his authenticity, increasing the odds that others would be able to interpret his work to sometimes better effect.

He was kind of a lounge music joker before he met Kathleen Brennan, who hipped him to Beefheart, a true visionary that he's often compared to despite the fact that he somehow failed to recognize Beefheart, even though they shared the same manager for a time. But Beefheart was begotten not made, a true American orginal that came out swinging right out of the gates and onto his debut platter. He didn't have to build up to his strange atonal approach from some cheap nightclub act that borders on stand-up comedy.

Who Better?

Everyone has been up in arms about the sacrilege of this concept, as in "How dare Scarlett Johansson record these neo-standards by one of our greatest living treasures?." Examining the ways in which the work of Ann Margaret, Diana Dors and Eartha Kitt has been lionized not only as something other than kitsch but as some sort of previously unheralded genius might be a good way to evaluate how this project will age. Who would you rather do Waits covers? Until recently, it was quite a few ne'er-do-wells and credibility starved fools that had tried their hand at what is classically melodic yet lyrically treacherous material, which often puts extra pressure on the artist to breathe authenticity into this heartbroken hobo schtick. So who are we to believe has done this with any success in the past? The aforementioned Eagles? Springsteen? How about Rod Stewart's version of "Downtown Train?" Never really bought it. And as far as Waits himself directly participating in the recording sessions of those he has inspired, the man himself collaborated with Primus. Would any super-fans like to try to defend that? Scarlett Johansson would never collaborate with Primus, so she is much cooler than Tom Waits at least in that respect.

It is also worth mentioning The Ramones owe their last great moment to Tom Waits, and I owe it to them for forcing me to reconsider his work. I was introduced to Waits in my early teens by my family, specifically my uncle and father who tried to tell me how "weird" he was. Looking at a scuffed up cassette copy of "Big Time," I almost believed them. Then I heard some faux scatting and put the tape away for awhile. But the Ramones cover of "I Don't Want To Grow Up" is by far the best song on Adios Amigos, their last studio album.

Actor Versus Actor

If you want to compare the two as actors, consider that both have played piano players on film. But Scarlett is actually acting. In the Coen brothers severely overlooked "The Man Who Wasn't There," she brilliantly plays a painfully mediocre teenage musician, and you really suffer with her after a failed audition. Waits usually just winks his way through scenes with all the subtlety and self referential aplomb of an organ grinder and his monkey. He has starred in celebrated features by Jarmusch, Coppola, and Altman, but his acting credits also include "trombone player" or "drunken bar owner," neither of which is really much of a stretch.

Ulitmately, this is comparison is close to a tie since Johansson was in "Eight Legged Freaks," while Waits appeared in "Mystery Men." Waits' music is still his best possible contribution to any film, particularly the last segment in 1995's "Smoke," where "Innocent When You Dream" plays softly in the background and well into the credits. But Scarlett has starred in increasingly worse vehicles since "Ghost World," so maybe a superior version of one of his songs will end a Sony Pictures Classic in the near future, or maybe an updated documentary about Waits using only her music will emerge. I would enjoy that.

Johansson's Ultimate Triumph

It is not inconceivable that someone could like this album more than the originals. At its best, this record sounds like This Mortal Coil, and there are traces of that project's same haunting cover version revisionism since it was actually sequenced by T.M.C. mastermind, Ivo-Watts Russell. Even more impressive is the fairly decent production and guitar work, respectively by people from TV On The Radio and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, two groups who I don't not necessarily enjoy. In fact, that might be the larger miracle here-- an actor, a songwriter, a guitarist, and a producer, none of whom I consider truly great, got together to produce an end result is actually good or much closer to great than would be expected. This record had every reason in the world to suck, nothing at all going for it, and yet... it does not suck. Compare Johansson's album to her actor/musician contemporaries: Jared Leto? Juliette Lewis? Jason Schwartzman? No thanks.

Upon first hearing of this project, Waits diplomatically made the point that a singer must make the song his or her own. Johansson has certainly done that and that's why this impossibly risky project succeeds. In an earlier recording, she competently attempts Gershwin's "Summertime" to merely mixed results since she tries to go for the predictably slow, sultry interpretations of countless accomplished singers of decades past. Had she given it the frosty, post-coma performance technique utilized so well on this record, it would really stand out as something other than a tossed-off celebrity talent show bit.

With the question of authenticity removed from the equation, the overall concept is allowed to materialize. Waits spent too much of his career, specifically the first part, trying to find new ways to say "I'm drunk," and it can really wear thin as far as subject matter is concerned. When Johansson promises that she'll "drink you under the table" in "I Wish I Was In New Orleans," there is a simultaneous absurdity and believability in the boast. Are we to believe that this pampered New Yorker is forgoing another posh weekend on the Upper West Side to instead slum it in the alleys of our own modern Atlantis? Just the fact that her reworking of the song might give the listener pause to consider such things is reason enough to listen.

The diva in a snowstorm feel of the record sometimes sounds like something on Italians Do It Better, and though that's meant as a compliment, I've also heard it lobbed as an insult. The past ten years have brought us many anemic versions of classic songs by songstresses of varying talents, and Johansson fares better than many of them on her debut.

"Hey, Just Have Fun Out There tonight. You Deserve It."

So if you were one of the unlucky fans who didn't have the hundred plus dollars to spend on the non-paper tickets tonight, just rest easy knowing that you can make your way down to one of our few remaining record stores that sells new music and plop down a fraction of that for something you might ultimately enjoy even more. And if you are lucky enough to go, I hope you have fun, and I look forward to spending the rest of my week hearing your oral show reviews while defending this writeup.

Cool Out (The Cavern)

Boris just seems to be one of those bands, you know? Critics love them. People who don't listen to metal or ambient or drone or anything else they've ever done love them too. Metalheads and record collectors are on board, as are people who usually spend their time debating the merits of Cat Power. Personally, I jumped on the Boris train pretty late, hearing them for the first time in late 2005 or early 2006-- a few months before they released Pink, the album that many see as their "crossover" into the peripheral of the mainstream. Ever since that time, I've found the band very interesting-- where they come from, their process, and their place in underground rock music. I've wanted to interview Boris for quite a while because I've always wanted to ask them about their own career and how they viewed their successes as a strange and relatively challenging Japanese psyche rock band that has somehow made a big impression in both the U.S. and Europe. Luckily, Rubber Gloves owner Josh Baish was nice enough to provide us with a wonderful translator, Aya Nakayama, who helped us facilitate an interview with drummer Atsuo. The results are below. We left the original Japanese text in just for kicks.

1. Over your career, you guys have worked with a number of different labels. How do you choose which labels to work with on a particular project, and does whatever project you happen to be working on at a given time dictate your choice in label to any extent?

今まで色々なレーベルでお仕事をされてきたようですが、それぞれのプロジェクトに携わるに当たって、どのレーベルを使うかなどはどうやって決めているのですか？それとも、その時に携わっているプロジェクトによってレーベルを決めるのですか？

そうだなあ、レーベルのイメージが作品に影響する場合もあるし、作品がほとんど出来上がった時点でその作品に合うレーベルを探す場合もあるね。毎回違う。

Well, sometimes the label’s impression influences our piece, and sometimes we look for the right label when the songs gets close to being done. It’s different every time.

2. Your sound has changed quite a bit throughout your history as band. What, in your mind, are the forces behind these changes, and what inspires you to start exploring different sounds? Is it something as arbitrary as using new equipment, or is it more of a preconceived conceptualized theme that you wish to address?

バンドの歴史を見てみて、少しだけサウンドが違ってきていると思うのですが、あなたたちが考えるところ、こういった違いの元になっているのはなんなんでしょうか？それからどういったことがインスピレーションとなって、違ったサウンドを探求するようになるのでしょうか？ それはただ新しい機材を使ってみようみたいなことなんでしょうか、それともみんなで決めて提示しようとしているコンセプトのテーマの変化みたいなものなんでしょうか。

いろいろなことが影響してるね、機材が新しい音（音楽ではない）を教えてくれたりするし、それは時には壊れかけた機材だったりもする。その時々で聴いている音楽が影響もしていたね。今はあまり音楽を聴く時間もないし、ツアーとか、レコーディングとかそういった物が含まれる「生活」自体からのインスピレーションが多い。だから極端に言うと今は音楽には興味が無いね。生活、体験、経験そういったものがインスピレーションになってくる。すごく当たり前の事だね。作品は常に僕らを取り巻く関係性（周りの人、家族、社会、世界）のドキュメンタリーになるから、生活の変化が作品の変化につながっていく。「変化し続ける」という意味では変化してないね、ぼくらは。

We are influenced by many different things. Sometimes equipment shows us new sound (not music), and it could be equipment that’s almost broken down. Music that we listen to at times also could influence us. Right now we don’t have much time to listen to music, so we get a lot of inspirations from “life” itself, including touring and recordings and stuff. So right now we are not really interested in music. Life and experiences have become our inspirations, which is very reasonable. Our pieces have always been documentary of our relations to people around us, family, society and world; so the change in our lives leads us to the change in our music. We have not changed in a way that we keep “changing”.

3. Do you sometimes find that some of your fans are disappointed with the new directions you take with your sound? How do you react to this? Does it concern you, or inspire you, or does it not matter much?

ファンの人たちが時には、あなたたちの新しい方向性にがっかりしたりすると思いますか？そういう時にはどうしますか？そういったことは気にしますか、それとも逆に刺激されたりしますか。それとも、そもそもそういったことはあなたたちに関係していますか？

作品に対して賛否両論が生まれるのはすごく自然な事だと感じる。アーティストによっては世界中、皆手放しで賞賛したりしてる所を見たりすると寒気がするね。洗脳されてるのか？って思っちゃうよ。でもファンの反応はまじめに受け取るし、無視したりする事はしない。表現って言うのは発信だけでなくそのリアクションも含めて表現作品だからね。

We feel it’s very natural that we get both sides of an argument; the pros and the cons. It makes me chill when I see some artists get free praise from everybody in the entire world. I feel like they are all brainwashed. We take reactions from fans seriously, we never ignore them. Expression is not just the matter of the sender, but also it includes the feedback.

4. Boris seems to be a band that is almost universally loved by western rock critics. How important is this praise to you,

ボリスは西洋のロック評論ではどこでも評判がとてもいいようですね。こういった賞賛を受けるということは、あなたたちにとってどれくらい大事なのでしょうか？
勘違いであれ、誤解であれ称賛を受ける事は嬉しいよ。そこからまた次の作品が生まれる場合もあるし、常に自分たちに起こった反応を前向きに捕らえて先につなげて行きたいね。

We enjoy getting applause, regardless of misinterpretations or misunderstandings. Sometimes we move onto new pieces from there, so we’re always trying to take that feedback for us positively to move on.

and what are your general feelings about rock criticism? How does criticism from professional critics compare to feedback from fans?

そもそも、ロックミュージックに対する評論についてはどう思われますか？プロの評論家の評判に比べてファンからのフィードバックはいかがですか？

そうだなあ、個人的には音楽を音楽の中だけで語る事には疑問だね。僕らはもう音楽の中だけにいるつもりは無いし、ロックってものが絵画や文学や演劇やその他のジャンルと横並びで語られるべきだとも思う。特に日本はメディアとレコード会社の癒着、メディアは広告でしかなかったりするからね。Smileのリリース、プロモーションで思った事は、音楽ライターは音楽が作られる現場をの事を全くしらない。音楽が出来上がってからしか語れない人達なんだなという印象が強かった。今回は海外と日本でヴァージョンが違うんだけど、そこで何が行われていたのか？まったくわからないんだ。逆に言えば、ミックスの時、ひとつのフェーダーの上げ下げがどのくらい全体に影響を及ぼすか、そんな基本的な事も知らない。ファンからのフィードバックはより感情的だね。今現代はブログやなんかで誰でも発信する側になれる。でも実はみんな発信してるだけなんだよね。海外ではこういったインタビューが個人的なブログから依頼が来たり、ファンの能動性をすごく感じたりする。考えて発信するだけでなく、一度知ろうというプロセスがあり、対話の上で発信して行こうという動きが見られるね。日本は全くそんな事ないよ。取材はメデアがやるもの、リスナーは買って聴く人、作品が作られて行くプロセスに参加しようという意識は皆無だね。ぼくはなるべくインタビューには答えて行こうと思ってる。

Well, personally I think it’s disputable to talk about music within a music frame. We no longer mean to stay within the music frame, and I think “rock” should be discussed with paintings, literature, theatrical plays, and many other genres altogether. Especially in Japan, because of the close relationship between media and record companies, media is nothing but advertisement. What I learned from releasing Smile and doing the promotion for the album was that music journalists know nothing about the actual scenes that we create music at. I was under a strong impression that they are a kind of people who cannot talk about music until everything is all done. In other words, they would not know basic stuff like how much just pulling a fader up and down could influence the whole piece. Feedback from fans is more emotional. Today, anyone can be the one who sends off information with using blogs and stuff, but actually they are just sending stuff off. We feel like fans in foreign countries are more active, like I got this interview from somebody’s personal blog. Instead of just thinking to himself and sending it off, he takes one more step of trying to get to know in the process, like he is trying to send it off based on this communication. It’s not like that in Japan. Interviews are exclusively for media and listeners are the people who buy CDs. They never think about being a part of the process of creating a work. I am trying to answer as many interviews as possible.

5. Your band also seems to garner a great deal of respect from the art world, almost elevating your music to the realm of "high art." This is curious in the sense that you guys often play music that could be described as "metal," which is often shunned by critics and the world of high art as being crude or low brow. How would you explain this? Do you think this is due to a cultural reevaluation of metal, or does it have more to do with your band's approach specifically?

あなたのバンドは、ほぼハイアートの領域まで高められて、世界中のアート界から尊敬を得ているようですね。メタルというのはよく粗いとか水準が低いとかいった理由で、批評やハイアート界というものから遠ざけられたりすることがあるものの、あなたたちの演奏する音楽はよく“メタル”として表現されることがよくある、そういった意味でとても興味深いです。 こういったことに対してはどう説明されますか？これはもっと文化的なメタルに対する再評価によるものなのか、それとももっとあなたたちのバンドによるアプローチの仕方によるものだと思いますか。

アートっていうのは見えない物を見えるようにしたり、新しい視点や、新しい価値を提示したりするものだよね。そう意味では僕らがやってる事は音楽を作る事ではなくて、新しい経験を自分たちの価値観とか生活から作品として生み出して行く物だから、同じような事をやっているとは思う。個人的には「アート」っていわれる事はすごく嫌いで、わけのわからない物や、新しい物は「アート」って言っておけば収まりがつきやすい社会があると思う。その言葉が使われる事で、人々が感じる前にわかった気になってしまうのがすごく危険な事だと思ってる。「メタル」と言うジャンルは逆にそういったジャンル名を持っているが、世の中、批評やハイアート界というものから遠ざけられていたが故にその中ではいろいろなスタイルが自由化されたジャンルだと思う。意味内容がいつの間にか風化したというか。現代の「メタル」シーンだからこそ僕らの事を評価してくれたんじゃないかな？

Art is something to make invisible things visible, or to present new view points and new values. In this way, what we are doing is not just making music, but we are creating new pieces based on our personal value or life experience. So it’s kind of like we are doing the same thing. Personally, I hate my work to be called “art” because in this society people often try to push everything incomprehensible or new against the corner by using the word. I think it is very dangerous that using that word make people feel like they understood those things before even they actually feel them. On the other hand, “metal” has the name for its genre, but since metal has been shunned by the society, critics, and the world of high art, we had more discretion on many different styles within the genre. The meanings and content of metal has been weathered. I feel like people appreciated our music through these modern metal scenes.

6. Which one of your records do you feel was a turning point for you with American audiences, if any? Or was it maybe a particular American tour?

アメリカのオーディエンスとの転機になったレコードはどれだったと思いますか、もしあれば教えてください。 もしくはひょっとしてアメリカでのツアーであったとか？

だれもが言うようにPINKだろうなあ。あのときは海外をたくさん回って、その中で見えたロックの未来みたいなのを作品にして行った。だから誰も評価してくれないだろうな、と思ってたし、でもそんなのかまってられないと言う思いもあったね。未だにあの作品に関しては客観的になれないし、自分たちで作った実感も無い。あのときの生活の中ですごいスピードで生み出された物だったかなあ。

As everybody says, it was probably PINK. We were touring abroad a lot then, and we made songs from what we saw; it was something like future rock. So we did not think anyone would appreciate it, but at the same time, we did not care. It is still hard to look at the piece objectively and, we do not feel like we made it. That piece was created very quickly in the life we were living at the time.

7. Are there any Japanese psyche rock or electro groups that you think most people in the United States haven't heard but are highly important and overlooked?

アメリカではあまり知られてないかもしれないけど注目すべきサイケロックやエレクトロのグループなんかは、日本にはいますか？

今回Smileで一緒に曲を作ってくれた朝生愛（Ai Aso）さんはすごく良いアルバムを出してるね。
これはたくさんの人に聴かれると良いなと思うアルバムだね。

Ai Aso who worked on Smile with us has released really awesome albums. I hope a lot more people will listen to her stuff.


8. Do you know anything about Texas? What are your impressions of Texas as opposed to the rest of the U.S., if any?

テキサスについては何かご存知でいらっしゃいますか？アメリカの他の地域に比べてテキサスに対する印象なんかはありますか？

暑い。乾燥してる。NASA! 二回ぐらい行ったからね。肉ばっかり。僕はヴィーガンだからこれはなんとかして欲しいね。

Hot and dried. And NASA! We have already gone there like twice. And it’s meat. I am vegan so this is really tough.

10. What are the best and worst things about touring the U.S. as opposed to Japan or Europe?

ヨーロッパや日本でのツアーに比べて、アメリカでツアーをするに当たって、一番いいこと、悪いことは何ですか？

良い事はオーディエンスの顔が肉眼で見られる事。今ネット社会だから、全てパソコンのモニターの中で済まされて行くだろ？当たり前の事なんだけど、便利さの中でいろいろ大切な事が忘れられて行く。目と目を合わせるだけで、人はすごい情報量を感じる事が出来るし、そういった意味ですごい贅沢な暮らしをさせてもらってると感じている。悪い事はそうだなあ、メンバー、スタッフみんなの体がボロボロになって行く事かな。いつまで続けられるかもわからないから、早めに見ておいて欲しいね。ありがとう。

Good thing is we get to see the audiences’ faces. Everything happens within internet now, you know? It’s very natural, but there are so many things that are very important but are forgotten in exchange for the convenience. Just from looking at each other in the eyes, people can feel lots of information, and I feel like we have luxurious lives in that way. Bad thing is.. well, our members and staff get completely worn out. We don’t know for how long we can keep doing this, so I’d like you guys to come see us sooner. Thank you.

(Boris plays this Friday, June 27th at Rubber Gloves in Denton)

(Defensive Listening contributed to this interview)