they don't call him the boss for nothin'

before i sidetrack myself, thanks to everyone who made it out on a school nite to the basement for last nite's show with strays don't sleep et al. i hope that you were as impressed with everyone else as i was. now...

i'm in the midst of hour number 4 of boss-ness today. in case you didn't notice, bruce springsteen's new album, devils and dust, came out today. it's been released solely in dual-disc format with loads of special features. vh1 classic's dedicated their programming today exclusively to all things boss. how lucky am i to have eyes and ears today?

as i watch him mesmerise a stadium full of spaniards by himself with a piano (playing sprits in the night) i am fully convinced that if i ever become an eigth of the artist, performer and writer that bruce springsteen is, i'll consider myself a raving success.

a boy's gotta have goals, right?

nightclub jitters

what would a day be without a replacement's reference?

Nightclub jitters, I take a drink before I hit the town
Night life critters scurry to that sultry, smoky sound
Hurry now the sun is goin' down
To the nightclub jitters, only thing that scares me is the dark
The night life critters: "What's the cover? Where should we park?"
Stay at home just once for a lark.

They say "Now don't be a stranger."
It really don't matter to me
I'd be willing to wager
That it don't matter much if we keep in touch


Nightclub jitters, I take a drink before I hit the town
Night life critters, they scurry to that sultry smoky sound
Oh hurry now the sun is goin' down

They say "Now don't be a stranger."
Hell, it really don't matter to me
I'd be willing to wager
That it don't matter much if we keep in touch
Don't matter much 'cause I got a touch

In the nightclub
In the nightclub

i've got a big show in a few hours. for the first time in a while i'm nervous about playing, mostly due to the inordinate amount of pollen in the air today and it's ability to close my throat up to an uncomfortable width (opening?). officially starting the nightclub jitters...right...now.

ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

on the off chance that anyone reads my ramblings...

just found out that it's officially an 8.30 start for tonite's show at the basement.

set your alarm clock's before leaving...it'll be a late nite.

show update for monday...

just wanted to let everyone know (all 4 of you that read this) that david mead has been added to the bill for monday's show at the basement. here's the revised lineup/time sheet (as far as i know):

9- newton dominey
9.30- jeremy lister
10- david mead
10.30ish- strays don't sleep

i haven't heard that the door charge has changed, but it's possible it might jump to $7 with the added talent.

if you were on the bubble about coming out, come off it...see you there.

if/then

we (the public) often hear of the "liberal media," and it's never referenced in a positive way. liberal is apparently the new leprosy. i was thinking it through and something just doesn't make sense to me:

-if almost every major media outlet is owned by a mega-corporation (tv, newspaper, radio, movie - at last count almost all are owned by 1 of 6 companies),

-if it's no secret that almost all corporations ("big business") favor conservative, more business friendly political organizations (read: republican), and if the same is true for the ultra-wealthy who own or control these corporations,

-then why would they allow the companies they control or own to promote liberal/progressive viewpoints that are counter to their beliefs and objectives?

hoodwinked? maybe...

post-script-
for a more detailed and intellectual view on the media and how it is used against us, please read manufacturing consent by edward s herman and noam chomsky.

today wins

i've debated on whether to post this (knowing full well that there are probably 4 people that read this). it's openness to a degree that i'm not comfortable, but i'm stuck at work and have to find some type of outlet before i totally lose it.

i'm sad today. and not in a "rainy days bring me down" sort of way. i mean in a deep, painful, "chasm in my chest" sort of way. we're talking lump in your throat since lunch time sadness. it's been a long time since something like this has happened. the damnable thing is how subtly it happened and how forceful it's been. i was reading the blog of a friend of a friend and came across the following:

My mom called yesterday and told me how badly she wanted to fix this problem for me. That's what she did for me as a kid. She reminded me of the time when I told her I needed some brownies for a class project the night before they were needed. She stayed up all night and made brownies from scratch. She reminded me of all the assignments she patiently helped me on that were due the next day. In general, my mom was queen at saving my butt in hard situations (hey, I'm the youngest, we're spoiled like that). She sat on the phone and wept that she was unable to fix this problem as she has done so many times before. She expressed her longing to make it all okay and right.

I wish she could.

my mom died about 6 1/2 years ago. november 16, 1998 to be exact. it was unexpected and it wrecked me. i dropped out of college, drank ALOT, and gave up on just about everything except for music. i guess this is how i grieve. things have been better for a while. i still get choked up over little things, there are a couple of movies that turn on the faucets, i get a little quiet around the holidays. for the most part, however, i function like a normal, slightly fractured member of society. you wouldn't look at me and think, "wow. i bet that guy's mom died." unless you saw me today.

things like the above make me miss my mother terribly. they sneak up, kick you in the balls when you're looking the other way and then leave you rolling on the floor wondering how it can possibly hurt as bad this time as it did the last. here's the weird thing: i take some strange sort of pride in the fact that i can get my ass kicked by something little like that. to me, it means that i still love my mom as much as i did on november 15, 1998. it means that i still miss her as much i did on november 17, 1998. i don't think about her as much as i used to, but how could i function if i did?

i still see and hear her ghost every now and again. i don't mean that in the sense that i see an apparition or a specter or anything like that. i mean that i hear a voice that's almost just like hers coming from another table at a restaurant, or that i do a triple take at someone in the car beside me driving down the freeway. in some ways, just like the sadness, it's kind've nice for that brief second to think that i see her or hear her. and, just like the sadness, it's gone before it's been there too long.

that's it. that's why i'm sad. here's your daily dose of the replacements:

From the very first day that you were born
to the very last time you waved and honked your horn
had no chance at all to watch you grow
up so sadly, beautiful
up so sadly, beautiful

Baby needs a brand new pair of eyes
cause the ones you got now see only goodbyes
had no chance at all to let you know
oh so sadly, beautiful
sadly, beautiful

Well you got your father's hair
and you got your father's nose
but you got my soul
sadly, beautiful

From the very last time you waved and honked your horn
to a face that turned away pale and worn
had no chance at all to let you know
you left me sadly, beautiful
left me sadly, beautiful
Sadly, beautiful
so sadly
so sadly
"sadly beautiful" from the album all shook down by the replacements

i guess i should also mention that i used the quote above with no permission whatsoever. it'd probably be polite to at least let you know where it came from. joe hays writes a blog that a couple of friends and acquaintances link to in blogs of their own. the quote is an excerpt from this entry:
http://brooklynchurchplant.blogspot.com/2005/04/april-20.html

i know this has been a long one. if you got this far, thanks.

monday, monday (da da, da da da, da)

my mondays lately have been quite a drag. i don't know if it's just a rut that i'm in, or if i'm doing too much on the weekends or if maybe working for the man is finally getting me down. i can't put my finger on it. all i know is that the words of paul westerberg keep ringing more and more true for me:

"anywhere is better than here."

therefore i am currently accepting:
-record deal offers (not the 12 for a penny kind)
-rut-busting advice
-vintage clothing store recommendations (it's hard damn work finding a french cuff shirt from the 50's or 60's with 37" sleeves. people must've been midgets back then.)

odds and ratios

so i did my taxes this week...

whilst reflecting on the amount of money i spent trying to become modestly famous compared to the amount of money actually made i thought of two quotes that i want to share:

-there are, literally, hundreds of dollars to be made over dozens of years in the music business.

-the income tax has made more liars out of the american people than golf has.
-will rogers


in other news, i saw a friend of mine, jeremy lister, play at 3rd & lindsley last nite. i'm not claiming bias here because i have loads of friends who i think can't play for crap. jeremy is fantastic. please check his music out. you will not be disappointed. in other, other news, there was a band that played a few songs before jeremy that was made up of a dale earnhardt jr lookalike, a hobbit, and a truck driver. the hobbit scat rapped and played at his guitar, dale jr played bass and the truck driver played the bongos. i'm not making this up. they were not fantastic. it was 15 minutes of my life that i sorely wish i could have back. i'm quite certain that they'll have a record deal soon and will be all over tv...

have fun today paying the man for services not rendered.

show...apr 25...basement...nashville

thought it'd be better to do 2 posts in one day than to put a show alert at the bottom of a regular post...

i'll be playing at the basement in nashville (behind/underneath grimey's preloved music on 8th ave) on monday april 25. i'm opening for strays don't sleep, a new band formed by my friends neilson hubbard and matthew ryan. i'm pretty sure things start at 8. i promise it will be well worth your cover charge. please come out and make yourself known.

...in the land of rhinestones

so this is my blog. hi. my name's newton dominey. i play music, mostly of my own creation, that falls into the wide genre of folk-roots-indie-pop-rock. people always ask me, "who do you sound like?" i am very bad at answering this question, but i'll give it a shot: if you like listening to the lemonheads/evan dando, elvis costello, big star, neil young, and ryan adams, i think you'll like listening to me. (side note: musicians absolutely (sarcasm alert) LOVE that question. just like filmmakers like it when you ask whose movies they imitate or when you ask a painter whose work they copy. i know it's a semi-necessary question, but we at least like to pretend that we're original.) there, that's done.

i'm from texas and i live in nashville, tn. because i've been scolded recently for making the comment that tennessee sucks, i'll just say that i enjoy living here but that the humidity doesn't quite agree with me. i've been here for a while, long enough anyway to remember when bar nashville was the ace of clubs (and had go-go dancer cages), 328 performance hall was awesome, the nashville knights were the only hockey club in town and downtown was scary.

i'm going to try to use this as a more casual way to let people know about shows and other goings on. if i can, i'll try to do some photo and song uploads. if i can't, you can always see plenty of pictures and hear plenty of songs at newtondominey.net or at myspace.com/newtondominey.