David Grubbs

Squirrel Bait practice photo from the Walfords' basement, 1984, in the brief period when Peter had just joined and we were a four-piece with Britt Walford on drums. When I saw Lance Bangs' Slint documentary "Breadcrumb Trail," so much came flooding back about hanging out during practices in the Walford basement, whether with Squirrel Bait or watching Maurice and, later, Slint. Note the laundry basket to the right of me. Clark and I were juniors in high school, Peter a sophomore, and Britt . . . in the 8th grade? (RIP Ron Walford, Britt's one-of-a-kind and deeply supportive dad, who would return to playing piano in his jogging shorts upstairs whenever we took a break.) Photo: Boyd Hancock. @colclark67 @dragcityrecords @commissar69 @brittwalford @therealpetersearcy

Pegg LIVE featuring David Grubbs Francis Kite Club, Thursday, May 21st at 6:30 PM. FREE. RSVP at the 🔗 in bio Another evening with @isnot.music at @franciskiteclub . This month, David Grubbs @blackfaurest joins us with a reading from a new work-in-progress, plus a set on solo electric guitar. Xander Duell (aka Pegg) plays new songs you haven't heard yet, plus some covers we love. 📰 Free zines as always!

They exist (once again) — thank you @dragcityrecords

2/3 of SQUANDERERS chilling in Brooklyn. The third SQUANDERERS album is headed your way this fall — details to come. @squanderers_official

Greatly enjoying Andrew Durbin’s “The Wonderful World That Almost Was: A Life of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek” at the same time that I find myself writing about Susan Howe’s “Titian Air Vent,” which celebrates Thek’s work. Susan and I were delighted to include Thek’s “Child’s Arc de Triomphe” (1985) on the cover of “WOODSLIPPERCOUNTERCLATTER.” This late work of Thek’s is a favorite of mine — it always stops me dead.

Gibby Haynes, Kramer, and the filmmakers of “Butthole Surfers: The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt” take the stage after a screening at Nitehawk Cinema in Brooklyn. Definitely the hardest I’ve laughed in some time, a whole spectrum of kinds of laughter. Numerous mysteries were revealed, and some new ones were created. I’m going to be thinking about this one for a while, just like I’ve been thinking about the Butthole Surfers since first seeing them in the fall of 1985, in the period where Kramer was playing bass. That particular show they arrived at the 9:30 Club in DC about an hour after the opening band finished. I remember them racing through the crowd with gear above their heads, and the elapsed time from busting through the front door to raging full-force onstage couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. Regret is one of the film’s themes, and I have the small regret of Squirrel Bait not saying yes to opening shows for them in the spring of 1986. (What were we thinking? College.) The last time I sighted Red Hook resident Gibby was at a kid’s birthday party in Prospect Park in 2005. I myself was at a kid’s birthday party (my kid’s birthday party), and almost every adult who arrived at the party immediately asked, “Did you see Gibby from the Butthole Surfers at the next birthday party?”

It’s release day for the repressings of both Squirrel Bait records! Couldn’t be more grateful to the folks at Drag City for shepherding these back into print. We really were children then. (Photo by Gail Butensky of Squirrel Bait at the Cat Club, NYC, summer 1986.) @gailwithacamera @colclark67 @therealpetersearcy @commissar69 @dragcityrecords @

The internet tells me that Palace’s “Arise Therefore” was released 30 years ago today. Of all the records I’ve played on, this is one of my very favorites. The session was complete magic. We rolled into Pachyderm Studio in rural Minnesota after dark one evening, and when we woke up the next morning everything was covered in fresh snow. Will, Ned Oldham, Steve Albini, and I had an unbeatably fun next several days. Most tracks are first takes live in the studio, with me having frantically written piano parts early that morning. Will seemed surprised if asked to do a second take, and he’d take the opportunity to handle the vocal differently. I still think that Will is one of the great improvisers I’ve seen in action. We finished recording and mixing in a day and a half. The setting for this recording has more than a few similarities with the fictional studio (Skylight Recording) in my book “The Voice in the Headphones,” down to the final scene of the snowball fight in the heated swimming pool. @wignifier

Congrats to the ever-brilliant Craig Dworkin for his “The Sound of Thinking: A Listener’s Companion to Conceptual Music,” out this month from the University of Chicago Press. I was happy to provide a bit of back-cover testimony: “Declaring that ‘even the most esoteric music need not be off-limits to nonspecialists,’ the practitioner and scholar of conceptual writing Craig Dworkin sets off on an abecedarian’s course through largely uncharted musical practice. The Sound of Thinking is a joy not only due to its vast research and wild associative leaps, but because Dworkin is a brilliant prose stylist whose comic panache pairs well with the deadpan stare of much of the work gathered here.” https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo263811657.html @uchicagopress

Anybody want to try to name that tune or identify the artists? This test pressing made my day — announcement coming soon for a new duo album.

David Grubbs playing live “Queen’s Side Eye” from his latest album Whistle From Above (Drag City, 2025) at the Polish Institute in Rome on January 17, 2026. Excerpt from full set at the Polish Institute of Culture in Rome on January 17, 2026. An amazing night curated by Flaming Creatures, a Rome-based non-profit cultural association devoted to experimental art and music, curated by Giuseppe Armogida. FULL SHOW LINK IN BIO The show offered a dreamlike way to experience Grubbs’ latest compositions, drawn from his most recent album, Whistle from Above, released by Drag City in 2025. Alongside the intricate paths traced by pieces such as the title track, “Snake on Its Tail,” and “Poem Arrives Distorted,” there were also surprises, including a magnetic reinterpretation of the GASTR DEL SOL classic “The Seasons Reverse,” as well as several unreleased tracks like "Surefire", and old classic as "Creep Mission". #davidgrubbs #livemusic #composition #songwriting #postrock

Very sad to hear of the passing of the great poet and unique intellect that was J.H. Prynne. He was kind to come to Susan Howe's and my performance at Cambridge in 2009, suddenly materializing afterward full of questions and insights about what he had just seen. The conversation continued at a nearby pub with Prynne and his coterie of students, who hours later seemed genuinely shocked that I'd opt for sleep instead of further conversation after closing.