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Thursday, September 30, 2004

deux thangs...

1. Photos

Even though there's all of 3 hours left in the month of September, technically these photos aren't outdated. I've created a gallery of pics from both DT's retro birthday party at The Coil, and Carpet's Drink-A-Small-Town-Dry birthday party at parts unknown. You'll notice that we look horrifically sexy. Well actually... we just look horrific. Either way, enjoy browsing the pics, creeps.

2. Email of the day

Witness the electronic mail based hillarity:

I wish you guys could get MSNBC because after the presidential debate finished tonight, they had a panel discussion in front of a huge crowd. Everyone was holding up signs like "Kerry / Edwards" and "Bush / Cheney" and there was one guy holding a huge sign that said "POO" and he kept it in the camera throughout their analysis for about 10 minutes.... for some reason I thought of Carpet, and of wine club...

Hope you're all keeping it real,

Geoff

elsewhere

top 11 | I liked this post | adam riff

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Wednesday, September 29, 2004

What?! this post was written in 10 minutes...

Fun Fact: Dave gave me shit the other day for "not calling or emailing [him] to remind [him] that the new Tegan & Sara disk is now out".

Cripes… as if my excessively verbose rock-blogging™ wasn’t already over-kill, I’m required to call you at home about this stuff too?!? Wowzers.

Anyways, Dave, yes the new T&S disk is out, and it’s very pleasing to say the least. It moves forward from where the last disk lets off. I'm shocked that Calgarians can write music this imaginative. 14 smart, melodic, pop-y, synth-y tracks. Well worth your $13. Since you most likely can’t get up from your office desk right_this_second, I’ve posted some T&S goodies. The twins went to VH1 and performed a few tracks off their new disk live and acoustic. The tracks are kinda cool… despite the fact that the full band sound is missing the songs still have a jangly / percussive indie-rock feel to them. The acoustic translation actually works, without coming off tacky. Yay, etc! Download away:

1. Tegan And Sara - You Wouldn't Like Me (Live At VH1) [mp3]

2. Tegan And Sara - Speak Slow (Live At VH1) [mp3]

3. Tegan And Sara - I Know I Know I Know (Live At VH1) [mp3]

elsewhere

this history of music | anticlown | aaa

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Tuesday, September 28, 2004

a few decent days and nights...

For the record, yes, the vanmega ftp server has been down for the last 22 days. Thus, no updates. In response to the 6 billion emails and voicemails I received about the status of vanmega during the downtime, I’d just like to state that the lack of updates on vanmega were not “because [I] was done with the internet”, nor “because of the new-found workload [I] have on my plate”, nor was it “because [I’m] mildly retarded”.

Bottom line, vanmega’s back online. Get ready for a FLOOD of content, photos, mp3’s / mixtapes, incoherent rants about insignificant things. In the meantime, here’s a quick summary of some of the things we were up to during the downtime.

(A) re-accustoming ourselves with the finer nuances of higher learning…

Seriously, going back to school is weird. Like, crazy insane. Do you know how hard it is to sit quietly in a classroom for hours on end while people have never-ending digression-rich discussions about mgmt mumbojumo like “stakeholder analysis across emerging Asian market biotechnology players”?? Goodness!! Also crappy - homework. Beaucoup-crappy - the fact that weekends as a concept no longer exist for me. The perks - falling backing love with the sound of my voice as I drone on about “stakeholder analysis across emerging Asian market biotechnology players”.

(B) falling in love with The Futureheads..

Yah, yah… I know Arcade Fire is the band de jour right now, but dammit, The Futureheads are equally worth their salt. On Sunday, I interviewed the English 4 piece band for Cord, and then watched them tear the roof off the Commodore Ballroom. So killer!! The quickest way to describe their sound is to say they’re an indie-rock barbershop quartet. Early 80’s sounding guitar riffs coupled with wonderfully complex 4 man harmonies (complete with thick working-class English accents). I’ve had their debut disk on heavy repeats for the last 2 weeks and have no intent of curbing my enthusiasm. I’d thoroughly recommend picking up this CD to anyone who enjoys the following things: fun, bliss, dancing in stylish pants.

check it:

The Futureheads - Le Garage [mp3]

The Futureheads - Meantime [video, asf]

(C) being overwhelmed by an urge to consume products with $315 price tags…

It just dawned on me that I NEED a fucking IPOD. Come on. I must have my collection of 100’s of albums at my fingertips, poste-haste. I must be able to broadcast this collection through my IPOD into my car stereo, home stereo, etc IMMEDIATELY. Also, I need a high end pair of jeans ‘cause all my pants are falling apart, and my ass would look infinitely mo’ glorious encased in a high-end denim package. Also, I need a pda to make heads and tails of the 700 assignments / meetings / classes I have each week. I've tried to manually do this, it doesn't work, I need ~~a robot~~ a pda to keep me sane. Respective price tag for these 3 products = $315 each. Someone loan me $945 + tax. Kthanks.

(D) partying like whoa…

Well… ok… maybe not like whoa, but we did tear it up for Carpet’s birthday the other weekend. 40 people shipped to a small town on a chartered bus with the only intention of drinking a backwoods bar dry is dumb-hot! Either way, pictures from the event will be up in a few days. And don’t even get me started about THIS weekend… Penner hits Vancouver direct from Korea. Mully and Wend will also be here. Fear this, kids. Fear. This.

elsewhere

productshop nyc | this is interesting | steal me this for krimmas

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Monday, September 06, 2004

It’s with near certainty that I tell you that the Dave Matthews Band show I saw this weekend was my favourite of the 8 shows I’ve seen in my lifetime.

The funny thing is that I barely paid any attention to anything on stage.

Normally when I road trip to far off places to see DMB, it usually just me and Festive, or me and Zeb, acting like flies on the wall, people watching, and passively absorbing the tunes played on stage. Ha, not this time…

This time we rolled deep, Me, Tk, Sock, Dave, Julie, Gong, Sweet, Zeb and his crew were all reunited and were a force to be reckoned with. We ended up burning the afternoon away tailgating in the campsite, firing back countless gold can Coors, prancing around, and forgetting to eat lunch. Good times. Then the sun set, we trekked down to the Ampatheatre and found our space. For the first third of the show we all just leaned on each other, singing louder than the band, for the latter half we just chilled out and watched silly things like stars shoot across the night sky. I can’t even tell you the set list or what new songs were played. All I know is that DMB played all the songs Julie wanted to hear, and - just as I predicted – DMB played an insanely long and insanely pretty version of “Lie In Our Graves”. Killer… and worth every second of the 1,000 km we drove.

Photos of the Gorge related antics (and for the rest of August) can be found here.

Update: Pics link fixed. You are pretty.

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