I wrecked myself Friday night... it was Rob 2's birthday. He had a party, it involved a Texas Mickey, and a double-dared alcoholic/irony induced trip to the Urban Well (huh?!) for bad dancing/bad vodka.
So the big night for adult halloween'ing in 2006 was spent watching movies, sans costume. No eyebrow, no nothing. Bad job, me. At least some of team vanmega had it sorted.
To supplement my poor showing, here's some very hyper links:
P2P: It's social protest. Quoteable: "aren't defenders of the CD the same ones who killed the vinyl record, first for the vastly inferior sounding cassette?"
Finally, how impressive was Beck's performance on SNL this weekend?! Annnnnd, how unimpressive is NBC's "we won't ever let any of our shows hit youtube" mantra?! Since I can't find a clip of the performance, here's a performance of Clap Hands done live with a kitchen table on some German TV show a while back:
adventures in fake dj'ing: hip-hop + new software edition...
Recently, I upgraded my fake DJ software from MixMeister Pro 6 to MixMeister Fusion... and holy crap, what a difference. In comparison, the old version feels like a toy, and the new program seems intuitive... oh and comes with a rack of effects and looping tools. It's brilliant... and for me, someone who spent years doing real dj'ing, it's addictive. Suggestion: get your hands on this.
To get familiar with the new version of MixMeister, I threw a bunch of early 90's-era partyish hip hop tracks and breaks and then started playing/looping/slicing/mixing/whatnot. The resulting hour has been served up as the podcast below. Here's the tracklist:
Black Sheep - The Choice Is Your LL Cool J - Around The Way Girl Naughty By Nature - Hip Hop Hooray Lords Of The Underground - Chief Rocka Pete Rock & CL Smooth - Soul Brother #1 3rd Bass - Brookly Queens Monie Love - It's A Shame Beastie Boys - Dis Yourself In '89 Rob Base - It Takes Two (Cut + Paste) Big Daddy Kane - Warm It Up Kane Wreckx N Effect - Rump Shaker Showbiz & AG - Soulclap De La Soul - Say No Go Ice T - OG Gang Starr - Who's Gonna Take The Weight (Break) YBT - Tap The Bottle Organized Konfusion - Fudge Pudge EPMD - Crossover Hydrabeats - Break #18 Original Flavor - Can I Get Open (feat. Jay-Z)
quasi-live blogging: the new trailer for season 6 of 24*...
0:09 - Am I the only one who gets weirded out when they see Jack Bauer out of character? Also, why are we seeing Jack Bauer out of character?
0:19 - Hey, is Wayne in charge?! Nice! But how are they going to work the Logans back in?
0:22 - All these doom + gloom text graphics are kinda redundant. We're on the 6th season of 24, obviously a threat will rise obviously only one man can save us.
0:54 - BEST. EVER. In season 2 Jack started the day with a beard, and it turned out to be the strongest season to date. Coincidence we're seeing it again?
1:15 - Hey, Chloe got a make over and she's wearing a suit. I wonder if she got a promotion?
1:23 - Since these initial pre-season teaser clips are made from the first couple of episodes, this image is encouraging. Jack's getting his ass kicked right out the gate. Good times.
1:50 - Why... why... why must you point out the fact that we're about 80 days away from season kick off? With that said, I'm sure a teaser episode will be released in conjunction with season 5 coming out on DVD on Dec 5th.
* Disclaimer: I watched the clip at work, as it was released, and didn't have access to speakers... so, you know, I could be way off on everything here.
Even as a marketer, this kinda makes me wanna puke:
"24 is the perfect stage to spotlight RAV4's abilities," said Kim McCullough, corporate manager of marketing communications at Toyota. "It's a smart crossover UTE that's ready for anything, just like Jack Bauer and the crew at CTU. We think customers will get the message that RAV4 is the ideal accomplice for tackling the every day."
YES, JACK BAUER IS THE RAV4 PERSONIFIED! YES, THE RAV4 WAS LAST SEEN, BOUND AND TORTURED, ON A SHIP FOR CHINA!
Hey didyahear?! As a follow up to the mix done by The Crystal Method in June, Nike tapped LCD Soundsystem to create a new mix designed for - what else? - running. For these mixes Nike used science and what-not and mapped out the common frame work for the pace of a long run, and then the bands built the mixes around those parameters.
Because we give upwards of 110% around here, I took the LCD Soundsystem mix, 45:33, with me on my weekly 10km jaunt through Jericho Beach. Here come some comments:
While the mix is LCD Soundsystem-esque, it doesn't mirror their body of work. It sounds very smooth, less agressive and less glitchy, and there isn't a single reference to daft punk nor art-school Brooklynites in little jackets... actually, it's 95% instrumental.
Yay! Science really works and pacing for the mix felt natural. For me, it felt a bit mellow at the start, but by the halfway mark my steps were effortlessly aligned to the tempo.
The mix has 3 distinct movements; the first two were great, the last one - a cool down - was too long (5+ mins of a 45 min mix) and too soon. Assuming you're running a set distance and watching your time, would you actually slow down towards the end?
An improvement for the next mix would be to extend the total time. 45 minutes is a fairly aggressive time for a 10km run, and I'm assuming Nike is going for the weekend warrior athlete with this. 60 mins total time would make more sense.
Regardless, it's a solid mix and blows the doors off most other purposefully designed for athletics music (I'm pointing at you Jock Jams and all that endless cheesy eurotrash techno that I've suffered through at the gym).
Oh GOSH! I have to start this link queue by posting a link to this: biggest post in the history of forever. The dudes at underground kingz have compiled a massive (100+) list of out of print hip hop albums that are floating around on rapidshare, etc. I had a lot of these albums on tape growing up and I figured I'd never ever hear them again. I say this without hyperbole... this is the best thing I've ever come across on the internet.
Halloween is 2 weeks away, and I’m faced with a dilemma.
Last year through some combination of luck + dare + Tk’s creativity I was Sandy Cohen's eyebrow. The result = bestfuckingever. How do I know this? (1) look at the picture above, (2) we went to crashed a 200 person house party and I was happily asked to be in upwards of 100 pictures with random strangers, (3) a girl that Tk works with overheard someone at a bus stop in east van gushing about they saw someone dressed as an eyebrow and that it was "the raddest thing [they’ve] ever seen".
Here’s the tricky thing, between random post-Oct 31 wearings of the costume and the great house move of summer ‘06 the costume got thrashed and was sent to the dump. Pour out a little liquor for your fallen homie.
Based on all this, I pose the following question to you:
Should I be the same thing I was last year, and create an eyebrow 2.0 costume (complete with furrier-fur and a shoulder harness that doesn’t cause half your back to go numb), or should I go with something completely different this year?
Also, I’ve been receiving a boatload of traffic from people looking for "Quagmire costumes" and "how to make Glen Quagmire costumes", etc. I assume that they’re being lead to the image above. Sorry kids, I can’t really help you, as I barely know the guy in the costume nor did I ask how he made the "mask". What I can recall was that the face was made out of plywood and that was a massive harness around the back of head. Ummm... so knowing that, get crafting, kids!
reviewed: sufjan stevens w/ my brightest diamond at St. Andrews Wesley church...
The cool thing about this show was that it was one of those sum is greater than the parts kind of gigs. Never mind the obvious (i.e. Sufjan Stevens as a headliner), rather consider the fact he's touring a with a costumed 12+ piece ensemble featuring keys + percussion + strings + horns, and consider the fact the gig took place at a huge church complete with 14th-century-style sweeping vaulted architecture. The evening was sensory overload (well, in a mellow way) and it made the countless Commodore gigs I've seen look relatively bland and lazy.
With all the above said, it's hard to comment on any big standout moments because I spent my time at the show trying to keep up with everything that was going on stage. Moving back and fourth I watched each band member do their respective thing, happily getting lost in the layered details that Sufjan songs tend to bring. Jacksonville, complete with the extendor-jam-out ending was fugging brilliant.
The opener, My Brightest Diamond, kinda stole the show - not so much during her set of opera vocals meets the bridge from Smashing Pumpkins’ Disarm meets moments of early Portishead - but with her performance as a member of Sufjan’s band. She played everything from keys to guitars, and occasionally chimed in with flawless harmonies, oh and danced her ass off... it seemed like she was genuinely entranced during the performance. Sidebar: My Brightest Diamond looks exactly like Adio. It’s uncanny.
Finally, A quick note about logistics at the St. Andrews Wesley Church: they suck. As detailed here it took forever to get people inside and once we were in, getting seats was painful. For those seeing Joanna Newsom at the church in December: get there early, expect to stand in line for a while, bring an umbrella and a snack and a couple of beers (we didn’t), and once inside don’t go for the side-stage pews (we did)... while you’re close to the band, you’re seeing their backsides for about 85% of the night.
Hey, Broken Social Scene put out a video for Major Label Debut. Sadly, the video is a departure from their normal level of visual awesomeness, and this time we're treated to a montage of tour footage. With that said, there are a few choice moments and they opted to use the fast version of the song, which blows the doors off the original. So hooray for everything, and here ya go:
Can you spot what's wrong with this iTunes Music Store ad on XXL?
To quote the Catbirdseat, "I'm a firm believer in the notion that there is no program, algorithm, or Web 2.0 service that will ever be able to do better than a recommendation made by a friend that you trust."
Just because we can... and jusr because we discovered we have the Game Show Network on our endless-but-pointless stream of channels on IPTV, wikipedia's list of Whammy quotes from Press Your Luck. Fun game: count the number of quotes that are politically incorrect and borderline racist 20 years later.
reviewed: Art Brut, We Are Scientists, The Spinto Band at the commodore ballroom...
Ok, here's the deal: Dave and Sock are in town, we're hungover all to funk, and there are demanding demands for ceazers and hollandaise (not in the same cup). So to keep things quick you get this review in ultra-modern bullet point format. Yay!
We pretty much missed The Spinto Band... we did manage to hear the last few chords of "Oh Mandy"... which was too bad, 'cause they sounded pretty good.
Just like last time, Art Brut was a shitload of fun. But unlike the last show, it seemed like some of the jokes/irony went over the collective head of the audience. Not sure why. Nor am I sure why the gig was booked at the Commodore. Wouldn't a packed Richards on Richards been more bonkers than a 3/5 full Commodore? I'm just sayin'.
With all that said... Eddie Argos: "If Jay-Z were here, he'd tell me that I 'have 99 problems... but a bitch ain't one'. I'd tell Jay-Z, 'I don't appreciate the misogyny, but can appreciate the sentiment'." Haha(s).
This was the first time I've seen We are Scientists. I like their disk but wasn't that pumped for their live show (again, not sure why). Turns out, for a 3 piece they're LOUD as fuck. Super. Plus, they kept their set pretty casual and uptempo. Super.
There was a really good sense of comrodory between Art Bruit and WAS. The Scientists covered "Bang Bang Rock & Roll", Art Brut took the piss out of WAS 50 times (yes, I'm rounding up), and for funzies both bands opted to fight on stage and steal each other instruments at the end of the night. Well played, boys and girl.
I am up way past my bedtime... and it's all Gong's fault. Dude hopped on messenger last night and was all "it's the 2nd of the month... where's the new mixtape?!". Come on people, you can't rush these things (read: I wanted to watch Studio 60).
With that said, the tape is now online... and hey, it's a gooder. 15 tracks that pair well with turkey, pumpkins, costumes, and whatever other October-related cliches things that tickle your fancy. The tape starts out loud/uppity and then mellows out in the latter half, which is a nice change from the more spastic tapes posted over the last few months. Anyways:
Still going: "Operation: extend the summer way past the Sept long weekend". Don't let last week's stay at home and watch comedy fest activities fool you. It's on.
This time we went out to Vancouver Island and stayed somewhere near Qualicum Beach (I'm not being purposefully vague here, rather, I just didn't pay attention to details). This was the first time I've been to Vancouver Island without going to Victoria to see a show. Holy crap, the coast is gorgeous... and spacious... and clean. Hmmm... yes, I think I've spent too much time in the city as of late.
We didn't get up to much, just chilled and such, but we did manage to meet up with Julie and have a few gallons of vodka at a faux-Earls in the middle of nowhere. Let me tell ya: Julie is beyond happy in her new home/school. It's quite inspiring. Really.
Next weekend, no travel, we're staying home for Mushgiving 7 (SEVEN!!!). Bring it.
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