April 4, 2014
Trailside Blues
Moonshiner
Old 218
Heaven Tonight


April 11, 2014
Peacemaker
Without the Sin
Winton Flyer
Trailside Blues


April 18, 2014
Three Days
Will to Win
First Step’s a Start
Aimless Charlie


April 25, 2014
Angel at the Door
Curtain Falls
Celebration
Peacemaker

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
 
In other news, it appears that R. Kelly was so moved by the Virginia Tech tragedy, he wrote a song and is dedicating 100% of the profits to the Hokie Spirit Memorial fund. While I initially found this commendable, I was then treated to a sneak peak at some of the lyrics in his tribute song: “Rise Up.”

“Rise up, when you feel you can’t go on, rise up, and all of your hope is gone, rise up, when you’re weak and you can’t be strong.”

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the next verse, in which he will undoubtedly rhyme “fire” with “desire.”

The victims and their families deserve better than this trite, cliche’ ridden publicity stunt.

Friday, April 20th, 2007
10 reasons to forgive Cho Seung-Hui

I have been trying to get my arms around this tragedy all week. I think this is the best I can do. So I now post this open letter to the misguided soul whose place in the world will forever be remembered by his inability to come to terms with it.

1. Your extreme show of violence is truly just a façade for how weak and powerless you really must have felt in life.
2. Your mental illness obviously warped your sense of right and wrong to such a point where you were cut off from society completely—trapped in the shell of your overpowering feelings of inadequacy.
3. No weapon renders the user ‘powerful.’ Power is from within. You acted out of a severe lack of it. Though it was there all the time—you were incapable of harnessing it. Your guns gave you only the illusion of power. A common misconception. A misconception that you alone, among those whose lives you cut short, took to your grave.
4. You failed to recognize the hope, help and friendship offered to you by those that reached out to answer the violent cries for love and help so evident in your writings.
5. What you want to be perceived as your moment of violent glory and infamy is in reality—only your cry for love and desire for acceptance in a world that you felt bitterly rejected you.
6. Your ‘heroes’ were as weak, helpless, hopeless and powerless as you. That you chose to identify with Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold only further destines you to be remembered as one of those rejected, hapless, mentally distorted lost souls whose immense anger and self-loathing led them to a violent end. A sad crown to wear indeed.
7. Forgiveness empowers healing.
8. In the wake of your actions it’s obvious that you had hoped for a reaction of anger, hatred and sorrow. Instead, you are simply pitied. The sorrow is there, but with it comes forgiveness.
9. You have taken away lives, but you cannot take away the memories and the impact these individuals had on those around them. Even in death, the glory is theirs.
10. As one so lonely and unloved, you were willing to embrace hatred. You have not moved me to hate. The reality of your situation was out of your reach; so far from your perception—you were spiritually blind, deaf and dumb. Thus, I can only forgive you.

Thursday, April 12th, 2007



‘Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.’


‘Call me Jonah. My parents did, or nearly did. They called me John.’


‘Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.’



‘I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.’


‘I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.’


‘I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.’

‘Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.’


‘People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.’


‘Still and all, why bother? Here’s my answer. Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone.’


‘The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.’


‘The year was 2081, and everyone was finally equal.
We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap.’



‘To whom it may concern: It is springtime. It is late afternoon.’


‘What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.’


‘Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?’

–Kurt Vonnegut 

Thursday, April 12th, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut - rest in peace.

Friday, January 12th, 2007

ATLANTA (AP) — A body was found in an airplane wheel well after a Delta Air Lines flight from Africa landed in Atlanta on Friday morning, airline spokeswoman Betsy Talton said.

The flight had left Dakar, Senegal, more than nine hours earlier. It landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

No additional details were available pending an investigation by federal and local law enforcement.

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 This year has been very quiet on the Groovy Times front with the only material issued being the Fiskadoro ‘Wilford’ EP, and ‘Sunburn’ cassette. But this will be changing very soon. First the holidays shall bring us the CD reissue/rethink of ‘Christmas on the Brazos’ by the Spies which will include new material.

Following the holidays we will get a major jumpstart as The Year of the Vampire will bring a new commitment to Groovy Times. Fiskadoro is in the process of recording their first album (tentatively titled ‘Houston DNA’). We hope to have this out early in the year along with a Groovy Times Website to keep track of the other material coming which includes-

Pablo Unidos & The Sound of Revolution
New ep, a follow up to the album they released on Groovy Times in 2005. This will see a new direction for the band, percussion heavy. Getting away from the strict dub of their debut. Pablo (ex-The Spies) also guested on the Boomchasers album, released this past year on Ice-Nine.

Dance Ditch
New ep including 3 remixes of songs by The Kimballs (Tom Burns ex-the V.T.O.) and other material as well, brought to you from Steve Ditch (The Republic of Texas).

Solid State
Shocking new free improv band featuring Rich Kimball (Fiskadoro) on guitar and Tom Burns (The Kimballs) on drums. Neither of these individuals has been involved in anything like this before. Think John Coltrane, not John Rotten. There should be an ep out hopefully spring.

Other stuff is still in the planning stages. More news on that when it comes.

-Sharpe James

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

Beefeater (1984-1986) was one of the flagship Revolution Summer bands in Washington, DC. Led by fiery singer Tomas Squip, guitar player Fred Smith and bass player Dug E. Bird they concocted a punk/metal/funk hybrid (with a dash of reggae as well) and took over the stage. They also brought a political element into the DC scene. Something that had not really been delved into by the original class of HarDCore bands.

The lyrics I bring forth today are from the bands song ‘Beefeater’ which Squip describes as “A dialogue between the subject and its conscience, then myself and the subject”.

Beefeater
Sit down to this and close your eyes(if you’re doing wrong you’re not alone)

sweep those thoughts right out of your mind

(there’s no place like hell but there’s no place like home)

settle down and doze awhile

(it couldn’t be right but who’s to say so)

while you’re eating that let me see you smile

(everyone else is doing it you know)

let me run down to the store for a pound of meat

make yourself at home

the flowers are blooming and the birds are all out

(you can’t catch me cause i’m lost in a crowd)

let me think of something nice to write about

(everything’s smiling for crying out loud)

the sky is like water, the clouds are like snow

(its a beautiful day so lets think real slow)

its great to be alive if they tell you so

(i close my eyes and away we go)

i hope it was good it was $2.99

now pay no mind while i run through this rhyme:

a life in a box with no place to piss

looks something like this

an innocent body slung by its heels

molested by chainsaws think how that feels

my mothers creation done nobody wrong

get shot with a gun, you know this song?

a four legged loser born in a trap

with less then a future this sound like crap?

a new born is crying why am i alone?

a mother is dying cut to the bone

sleep on this when you go to bed

(to be led down a hallway and crushed in the head)

and never live at all

a chrome plated graveyard, a ceramic tomb

a sad rivers running, of blood, for whom?

to be all alone, to call a slaughterhouse home

lets say it don’t happen lets just forget it 

there’s no place like home

where the deer and the antelope roam

to call a slaughterhouse home?

merrily merrily merrily merrily

life is but a dream

sleep it off!

(1985)