New Camera!! Meet Herman.

Leveled up my camera arsenal today 10 fold - invested in a Canon Rebel TSi (i believe its the Kiss X3 as the blokes in Japan call 'em) with an 18-135mm piece of glass w/ Image Stabilization. First foray into the fine world of DSLR's for me... can't wait to start getting the good shots now.

Dates are locked in for the big bird now: 1/15 to 1/31. Proceed with the filling of the dates therein. So far, it's Mr. Fuji (yes, r not the t) for the first leg, then Tokyo (early week of the 17th), Nagoya, followed by a romparound in Hokkaido (Otaru? Sapporo? getting naked in the hot springs in a glacier???), then back to Nagoya, with some Mie adventures. Perhaps a trip to the Kansai region? Well, they do have good food there and I like their accent. Nani nonndennen! (what are you drinking!?)

I gotta get back to work though. Burning the midnight oil to reduce the workload tomorrow, which I'm doing from home. Then, Settler's of Catan and *gasp* NEW YEAR'S!

And really, you can't find a finer subject than Conan on HD TV as a subject, right? whoo boy.

Windy

Cold and windy today. Would not want to be in a tall building, nosirree. 24F in a brick building is enough for me. Which begs the question: how high can you get?

Blizzard Kicks off Winter

Old man winter wasted no time at all over the weekend. We had another Nor'easter roll in, which basically dumps a crap ton of snow in a fairly short amount of time. It's been chilly here the past week so sticking to the ground was no problem. Snow started late Saturday afternoon while we were in the city, and by the time we left for a party that evening it had grown to five inches or more. I even broke out my snow pants to wear to the party - zzzhuupp zhzhzuupp zzhuuppp zzhuupp all the way there, which luckily was only a few blocks away. Blizzard continued throughout the party and into the night, and the snow continued to pile away.

Here's a clip I put together from before and after the party:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhlHMl4Lzss

By morning, the snow had stopped, netting us around 8 to 12 inches, with snow drifts up to 3 feet, depending on how the wind blew. And everyone was playing the move the snow game, which is much tougher when you've got nowhere to go with it. Walked around in it for a bit and it was an awesome site. Snow felt like corn starch, all eee eee eee eee. I love how the snow mutes the city.

Music of 2009

End of the line... of the "ought" years. Twenty-ought-nine sounded awesome. So Goodbye, ought-nine: what will we call this decade? The big teens

Out of interest to see how full of shit Pitchfork is, I've taken the time to go through their list of the top 100 tracks of this year. No Scumbag Blues = fail, yet some of their so-called indie glory = total yawn. No JEFF the brotherhood either. And of course they wouldn't know about Bikes... yet.

That's not to say there wasn't good stuff. Of course there was. Most of it I hadn't heard, so I compiled my takeaway here. Ahem.

I've tried to denote songs of the year for given categories where applicable.



98. Future of the Left "Arming Eritrea". Love me some crunchy vacuum cleaner guitar. Lyrics reminded me of the Maxass rant Onion-O: "Eric, get off the roof!"

91. HEALTH "Die Slow". Sheet metal rock. Incidentally, I caught the tail end of their live set but didn't really care.

85. Wavves "No Hope Kids". Loser rock. I like writing songs like this and then drinking some more.

84. Junior Boys "Parallel Lines". Spark it up brutha, and let's head out to Long Island. I like the snare sound a lot, sounds a lot like the Konami snare from old NES games. There's some cool synth bursts here as well.

71. A Sunny Day in Glasgow "Close Chorus" Good use of texture.

68. Röyksopp [ft. Robyn] "The Girl and the Robot" Dance song of the year I've never heard at a club because I don't follow that scene?

61. Atlas Sound [ft. Lætitia Sadier] "Quick Canal" Atmosphere runner-up award.

58. Fever Ray "If I Had a Heart" Darkest song of the year. Alien chick vocals. And a sweet video.

56. John Talabot "Sunshine" Now we're getting to some serious beats. Love the tribal rhythms. Bit crusher curtain flusher.

54. Joker & Ginz "Purple City" Fat rubbery synth lines. Kinda like the Satanic Turd demo from Fruity Loops 3.

53. The xx "Islands" Late night bar music. Last call, then find your shoes.



50. Matias Aguayo "Rollerskate" Inspiring. Want to build a scary castle with legos now.

49. Yo La Tengo "Here to Fall" - Drums. Sound. Great.

42. The Big Pink "Velvet" - Computer beats



35. Micachu and the Shapes "Golden Phone" - was this the sound of nonsense in 2009? if so, very tastefully done. love the keyboard browness and the 8-bit tone banks. Skid marks at the end. Now don't forget to wipe.

27. Four Tet "Love Cry" - Need to pick this up on vinyl. This is the kind of music designed for record players, sending radio transmissions, and building a secret door to a hidden room.

19. Joker "Digidesign" - 8-bit synth rubber bee rolls. And the "doing~!" spoon-like hits spread throughout? win. and the synth part that sounds like "No no no no no no no no!". Brilliant.

16. The xx "Crystalised" - another groove for late night chilled pears.

13. Neon Indian "Deadbeat Summer" - brown beat of the year?

10. Washed Out "Feel It All Around" - pull down your pants song of the year.

And there you have it. None of their top labeled tracks seemed to do it for me.

Tales from The Subway Platform

It's the slapstick you wait a long time for. But when it happens, you can't stop laughing.

It started with a glance, then I saw it. While getting off the 4 train and heading up stairs, I watched the figure of a guy below me, platform level, lose his footing and slip on something. "Gaww!" he shouted, and got bumped and unpopular for messing up the "escape" route for everyone around him. A crowd of people turned and stared: he stepped on a banana peel. On the busiest platform in rush hour traffic. Hah haw!

Book of the morning: Dummies book of Yorkshire Terriers. She was reading the chapter about "Doing the do: grooming". I can only imagine if you read it, you'd learn a thing or two about what do about the bow and those hair braids.

Michel Gondry
I picked up the new Michel Gondry DVD this week, came out in April this year. Another solid 3 hours of music videos, short films, behind the scenes. Here's a good one: Classic-yet-corny Paul McCartney's Dance Tonight, complete with a a rare but totally sweet live cameo of Michel playing drums at the end. Kinda hard to see in the Youtube clip, but it's totally him rocking this disco beat with Paul, and it's way cooler than the song itself. It's the best party ever, a funkadelic version of happy hell, Paul's discotech. Everyone parties hard, and the postal driver goes MIA.


Finally, I heard the news today, oh boy: Chris Henry, RIP. Jesus. Why.

Groove is in the heart!

End of the year. Funny how stressful it makes folks: so much to prepare for Christmas, travel, visiting friends, family announcements, and more. People need to just chill the fuck out, settle their shit down. Bring on the slow life...

Working up my top songs of year list. Starting with going through Pitchfork's top 100 list, lot of interesting stuff there, some good, others head scratchers. Oh, the youth I think. Might be another day or two before that's all together.

Had the holiday party at lunch today. Italian and sweets galore, oh man it hurts to think about at this point. Also had a fun activity where lots of folks brought in pictures of themselves as children and we had to guess who's who. Tougher than I thought, well, everyone got old. Old photos with faded colors, or black and white, for those that lived in the world when it was only greyscale. I'm glad life's in color now.

And wouldn't you know it, R started a blog as well! It's here: http://life-with-r.panyamedia.com/ So for all the stuff that I could be posting about, but don't? It has a home now, as told by R! Leave her some comments if ya can. Dig?

Afro Season

So. My hair fro'd out again. It's been three months since I had my hairs cut. And it's definitely got that bushy bushy thing going on.

I, for one, embrace the bushy bushy. A full head of hair at my age is alright. I work a weird job where hairstyles seem to be accepted in all styles (though no other afros!), so why the ef not?

This time, I decided to name it. So say hello, meet Harris. Previously known as "the Beavis". Also been referred to by a former half-black co-worker as "The Biscuit". It's not a true fro in the sense that it's not curly curly, but shit, it does have some lollipop properties. Everyone can pat it, just not at the same time because my head's not that big. Yet!

This is It

Saw the Michael Jackson movie two weeks ago. Wanted to catch that sucka while it was still in the theaters as I may have missed it otherwise. The question had long loomed in my head, assuming he hadn't died, was MJ physically able to make a comeback, and if so, would it really have been all that? And also, how ridiculous was the set to be?

The flick was entertaining. Hard to call it a complete movie as it really seemed to be the content for an additional disc that would have accompanied live concert footage. Started with the dancers auditioning, the moved on to a lot of rehearsal footage. Here, MJ showed that he was in fact in good shape, moving around like the liquid alien he was. Just trying out ideas it seemed at times, it still looked very complete and would have looked very impressive in the live setting.

For each song, they played one complete musical take and then synced up multiple video takes - sometimes side by side, sometimes part by part (a verse here, a chorus there). Also had some interesting behind the scenes stuff, such as dancers working with trainers, MJ checking out the set, trying out the pyrotechnics, filming the new videos. Perhaps the most interesting was seeing MJ working with the band, working out a very down tempo, dreamlike version of the intro to The Way You Make Me Feel, which may have been the moment that I made me think, shit, this guy's a genius (and an alien!).

The band was huge - two of everything, one on each side of the stage. The hot blond guitarist Orianthi Panagaris completely shredded through the Van Halen solo in Beat It, and there's a scene later on where MJ was all, "This is where you shine. Shine for me".

Set was huge, of course. There were cherry pickers, holes in the floor that could shoot people up, a huge video backdrop that would have featured an all-3D extra for Thriller, explosions, fireworks, a bulldozer, and god knows what else. Hardly transportable, hence keeping the shows in London. They didn't really go into the specifics of the set, but it was easy to get the gist of it all from the movie.

And that's it, this was it. What could have been a comeback of a lifetime turned into an abrupt career end and a huge financial burden for anyone invested - I'm sure any figure there is MJ sized, astronomically (hey, he was an alien after all!)

Freakin' Mario Bros.

Hooked on the brothers? I am. And so is Reiko. We're both dorks! And it's awesome. It's our new evening spectacular: forget crappy television programming, we've got New Super Mario Bros. Wii.

For the first time ever, we've found our game that we can play side by side - the co-op nature works beautifully. The gameplay is straight-up old school Mario: 2D side-scrolling with collecting as much loot as possible along the way before making it to the flag pole.

And it's total fan service this time, bringing back all the best elements of SMB3 and SMW (Yoshi!), and adding that to the formula crafted for New Super Mario Bros. for the DS. The new power-ups are also sweet; the beanie propeller hat may be best form of flying yet as it can really save your ass, and the penguin suit's special sliding and swimming abilities, coupled with the ability to throw ice, also make it a well-balanced suit.

Finished the game last Friday but going back now to unlock everything and get all the coins. Just completed through world 3 yesterday, working on 4 now. I'm an addict: I can't stop until I've got everything this time.

Live Report: Skeleton Key & Jesus Lizard

Forgot to tell you that I saw Jesus Lizard on Monday night. Fucking awesome, down and dirty. I don't know how I missed out on them (and the Melvins) while growing up, but they're right they're in the same vein that spawned out Bleach. Anyway, David Yow is a total nut live and was diving into the stage (with wired mic) every other song, and came back to stage early on with a huge gash in his face, blood running down his face and hands. Hell yeah.

The write up on Brooklyn Vegan summed it up well:

"[It's hard to] understand how frontman David Yow & Co. have managed to bring back this band - essentially dormant since 1999 - with this much ferocity. Yow may be 10 years older and a bit worse for wear, but the man caterwauls with an intensity that most 20 year old pretty boys will never match. The Irving crowd - a good portion of whom, at this 16+ show, were not even born when this band began in 1987 - remained in a frenzy throughout the set, turning the Irving floor into a thrashing sea of bodies, flying beers and more than a few sets of broken eyeglasses. While Yow stage-dove, mic in hand, the band delivered their tightly wound hardcore like the experts they are. Covering a range of the band's catalog and with two encores, the 23-song set gave audience members a lot to scream about."

Indeed.

Skeleton Key was also rather bad ass, had this minor chord stylings that to me sounded a lot like Failure. Didn't realize how long they had been around - some white hair men in their band. Liked their noise percussionist, who was bangin' on some gas tanks, sheets of metal, and other rusty objects that I can only assume requires a good tetanus booster shot on a regular basis. The main drummer could have done a bit more though.

Martha Martha Martha!

Early up today to do something a lil' bit different: attend a live taping of the Martha Stewart show at her theater in Chelsea. Never had been to a live taping before, but it was pretty awesome sitting in the audience. Very large and spacious studio, very well lit with these huge overhead light boxes. The "windows" in the background gave a nice shot of NY that wasn't really there but were lit well. There was also a warm up guy who was probably coked up (with a name like Joey Cola, how could he not be?) and got everyone hootin' and hollerin' at 9am.

Today's theme: Thanksgiving Side Dishes. Awesome.

But the "king" in my opinion was the savory roast pork crown. Hot holy Jesus did that thing look good. Had never seen one before. They even made gold pantaloons for its (awwwww!).

Here's the segments, videos from today should be live soon:

Roast pork crown
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/crown-roast

Green Bean Casserole
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/green-bean-casserole-edf

Creamy Califlower Puree
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/creamy-cauliflower-puree

Root Vegetable Gratin
http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/root-vegetable-gratin

Crafts: Hand Bleached Place Mats (this was cool)
http://www.marthastewart.com/article/hand-bleached-place-mats

A couple of lame things though:
1. Martha is pretty much a bitch. During the set, she had a scene where she was talking with another special guest. And cut her off at everything she said. Second time, at the end, a girl was asking how to make a good pie crust ("they come out either too flakey or too runny. what should i do?") and after asking her if she read and followed her (Martha's) recipe, she said "If you're illiterate then there's nothing I can do for you". Crap damn.

2. No free samples! The beans smelled so good while cooking, and that roast looked awesome. None for us.

3. The camera man did not swoop on our section during the commercials! We were the only section left out. Made us all feel ugly.

A couple of cool things:
1. I got out of work to do this. Awesome.

2. Free stuff: a free 8.5-quart stainless steel casserole pot, a special knife for spreading peanut butter and cleaning out the jar, a packet of bouillon, cooking chocolate, a bag of peanuts, and some hand creams. Awwright!

So anyway, it was a very enjoyable alternative to work today, and really, I'd go to just about any tv set just to see the so-called magic that is show business.

The End of Baseball

For the first time in I couldn't tell you how long, I followed the post-season of baseball a bit more closely this year. And with of course, due reason: the yanks were in it for the long haul. Never been a Yankees fan before. I still oppose their greedy get rich scheme by charging out the wazoo for tickets. But they are international superstars, and I guess I can appreciate them for that, so this year, I gave in and became a semi-fan. I'm not a fan, but a well-wisher in that I don't wish them any particular harm. Actually, I enjoyed Cliff Lee driving them up the wall and getting personal back-to-back wins. Game 1 was insane, he was a god on a mountain.

But then, there was the Gorilla. Fucking Matsui, the Designated Hitter. How American League! But game 6, whoa boy. Three consecutive at-bats with 2 RBI's each time? Outta control. The pride ran high: R was shouting with excitement, a sense of nationalism only experienced when you're on the other side of the world and you watch one of your own deliver the goods. Totally deserved it too, with his contract ending at the end of season. Talk about kicking it up a few notches for a performance review.

And so that's it: we're left with football and then it's good bye sports until the weather warms up.

Halloween Forever Part 2

A nice Halloween, this one. Decided to go for the local party this time and ended up at the den of the Northeast Kingdom, a quick 3 blocks away. Love how I can walk down the street and end up in this totally midwest looking downstairs den. A friend's ex was playing drums in the band, which put on a good two sets, the first of which was a sleazy, 70's style porn throwback complete with a wah-wah and some slithery bass played by a drag queen. They have Yuengling out of a can, good portions of spicy beef jerky, and two meat pies, each order cost only $3 each. Deal.

Decided I had enough of that by the end of the first set and was getting itchy from all the facepoint. Thick oil on the face can't be good for my wimp ass skin. So I went home, took some final pics, and got cleaned up - to go back out and get in the middle of a construction zone that had 9 active cement mixers pouring concrete into my train station. Lots of awesome diesel noise, also some good blue collar new yorkers that came up to me: "what's the scoooah?" (yankees vs phillies game 3), "what's that foooah?".

Next day: sunny and awesome. Bottled up the Oktoberfest, so that's in line now. Appearance and smell alone gave me good hopes that this one perhaps came out better than the last batch, but now it's the part where we play the waiting game. The bitch! Afterwards, we headed down to Prospect Park, our first time since leaving the place. Totally gorgeous day for it, got there around 3:30 or so and just walked along trails we had never gone before. Spent some time feeding the ducks, geese, and swans, and got some excellent field recordings of them with my new Zoom H2. Made our way up to the northern part of the park and tossed the frisbee around during sunset, which was like 5:03pm - so dark so early. Good thing my frisbee glows in the dark, so we got some extra mileage there. Completely dark by the time we made it out of the park.

Got some pics from the weekend up on facebook.

And check out the ducks, geese and swans! There's some rippin' radimatudes in there, listen for the Prudence-like urp urp urps.

Halloween Forever Part 1

Halloween, you are my favorite holiday. It's the only time of the year where you can get dressed up however the hell you please and it's totally cool because so is everyone else. It's the time when we stop to think about what scares us, and then we go out of our way to get spooked anyway. Classic horror movies are in constant rotation at theaters, haunted houses spring up all over, and everywhere suddenly tries to look dirty and covered in cobwebs. And then there's copious amounts of candy, which I've already a fair amount of and look forward to getting more tonight.

R and I decided to kick off this year's crazy weekend with the Zombie Prom @ The Delancey. Coworker Jacob and his wife were working the pictures (complete with a blood-splattered back drop), and very fitting that everyone was dressed up in their best Zombie outfits. Special nods to Baby Teardrops who took the stage first and looked like the crew from a downed airplane, complete with a sexy flight attendant on bass. Though I didn't get to play live, I came dressed in my best zombie drummer costume.

Tonight, the real craziness begins: I am death.

Oh, more zombie prom fun:

Horseriding

It was brisk Columbus Day here, but perfect for a trek through the woods on a horse. We took the subway down to the LIRR, took that out a bit, and met up with my coworker Chris (narrator from the reception video) and his wife.

Two things about riding a horse: they totally have personalities that can lead to unexpected situations. At one point during our trip, we came to a stop, and I guess my horse did something to piss off the horse behind it, because suddenly he just started to take off into the woods with me in tow. I was able to whoa him to a stop but it could have ended up with me slamming into a tree. The other thing is, man, that's a large dump they take, and when you're in line with another horse in front of you, objects appear larger. Plop plop plop.

Getting up to a trot was awesome. And dangerous. Sadly, Chris' wife's horse has asthma, and kept on stopping anytime we tried to book it up a hill. And I was right behind, so it's like, well, there goes the ride.

Made a bonfire at lunch too. Nothing like a fire during the daytime, even if only for an hour. We got it roaring nicely.

We also saw Paranormal Activity, the new horror thriller that gave me the chills when I just thought about it again. The girl sitting across the aisle from R threw up just when it was starting to get creepy! Never seen that in a theater, so that set a new bar.

An Awkward Thought after Drunken Beligerrent Confrontational Rock, Go

Today, Show day. Afternoon gig, early. 3:30 early. Practice at 1 to get the jets warmed up—that's the R. Mike wasn't there; he was doing his pregame warm-up—that's the DBC. Although, only three bloody Mary's by show time was hardly a dent. He did smell kinda funky though.

When I got to the practice space, there was a guy sitting outside the building on the dirty sidewalk. It was a bit chilly out, and furthermore he was in the shade, but I quickly noticed that he had just picked up something wicked shit cool: a brand new Canon Rebel. Turned out to be his first DSLR. Now, I don't own a DSLR, but I have wanted one for at least a year now—holding out for an affordable one with auto-focus HD video. (realistic? I want to think so...) It's more-or-less a good practice at my job, and why not—I have so much reference material and professional advice just an excuse to get out of my desk away. So I basically shared the enthusiasm. Then I went to the practice space, the "ps", grooved some beats, ran through the set sans vocals, came up with a cool space groove, worked on a new song (tigerrrs!), called a cab and headed to the LES. Before we left, we met the guy with the camera from before, heard they had a show today as well, and then realized who they were: Go!, the headlining act, that's been around since perhaps the late 80's or very early 90's (saw a 1990 vinyl of theirs today).

ABC no Rio: the thing I didn't know about until tonight was that it's getting torn down. No surprise there, as the place is an absolute wreck on the inside, and today was the second time we've had the duty of throwing down there. You can see the basement through the floorboards in the main "gallery", and every room is coming apart at the seems. (By art "gallery", I mean that there was a shitty collage piece hanging on the ceiling, but really, nothing but old velcro on the wall and a boxed-chart on the wall showing volunteer's hours. yes, it's like a cooperative that runs this thing. to quote vocalist Mike Braverman, "if you have any objections to the cooperative, you must speak to the counsel of elders in Swahili. None of the counsel of elders, speaks Swahili.") The whole place reeked of Kerosene or diesel fuel; if someone tried to light a fart, they could blow the sucker down. But as they announced, it's getting torn down, and apparently the cooperative owns the building now and can do as such, and they're building something better on top. So the end of an era there.

DBCR's set: Fire Drill set check in front of everyone; someone said it sounded like Sonic Youth. Haven't figured out if that's bad or good yet, but I'm gonna say that's good, but he was probably being sarcastic and we weren't doing anything crazy with it. Then: didn't see this coming, but they had to check the mic (first show, so they had just turned on the PA. no mixer, just one of those dedicated crappy PA's with built in mixer!) and out comes Jeeves*, who launches into this totally brown, urban-flavored diatribe rhyme poem, and then ends with saying DBCR! At this point, I forgot to ask the question until now: who the fuck was he? Then we played our set: Drop Down, Flamejob, Ken's Trunk, Donk, Reverse Broken Window Theory Part 1, and Let Them Eat Bikes. Played great, strong show. Also, had at least three decent photographers going nuts. Jason broke a string and did the fastest restringing live I've ever seen. And in the back of the gallery, there was a 71 year-young maverick, complete with hat and visors, fingers in his ears, but it was all good because today was...

Special parent / family recognition day!

Ken's dad came down for the show, which was awesome. And I had never seen Ken's dad before so I was a little bit surprised. Also in from out-of-town: Brianna's mom from Cali, and the guitarist from Go!'s mom was purportedly there.

After our set, Rob the adventurer, R and I headed down the street to The Johnson's, right next to Neighburrito, and got a round of PBRs for $1.75, a good price for this city. And it's dog friendly too, so a Mos Eisley of people and dogs. Charlie came up in discussion. Long live Charlie.

Got back to ABC no RIO for the #4 slot, Awkward Thought, Ken's old band. I had borrowed their drummer Brian's kit. He's a total bad ass heavy hitter, and even wears a shirt that reads "JUDGE" really big on both sides and has these mean looking mallet-hammers. So fuck yeah. They hung this awesome banner behind them with a cop, but I forgot what it said. Vocalist dressed up with a road-crew body suit and a black ski mask. I had never heard them before, but they had a good entourage that knew the lyrics to their songs, fighting for the mic midsong to sing along. Like live karaoke, but the genre is live New York Hard Core at a total shit box. It's practically gay if think about how close sweaty men are getting just to get their lips on the same mic. Scream me a river! Also, some serious moshing broke out during the set, which hits just about everyone in the room since its so small. I enjoyed my role as "pusher".

Between sets, I noticed two of the photographers talking to each other, so I went over to get their names and contact info. The first guy had taken several shots of me, so I wanted to make sure he was cool and not just stalking me. Legit. The other guy spoke very poor English and was having a hard time communicating. Fortunately, he had just come in a few hours prior from Tokyo, and there you have it—communication.

Naoki Rakuman, aka Luckman Photo. He pulled out his iPhone and thumbed some galleries. Solid fucking A list of famous actors, musical performers, talents, new anchors. Mostly Japanese but an honorable amount of Westerners as well: Nicholas Cage, Halle Berry, John Legend. Another section: nude. j-glamour and j-nude. Very, very hot. And Naoki also got some DBCR in there.

Bought two 7" from the vocalist for Go: Death or Glory, which has 4 songs on each side, and Backdraft, which has a handwritten white label on the outside of the sleeve that reads "Intense". Both recs from the vocalist. Too bad my turntable here has needle.

A note about Go! and 7" vinyl: that is their thing. Seems like much of their catalog has been released on 7". Thing is, their songs are typically in the range of 45 seconds to 1:30 tops. So they can get by with a 10-track release that's like 14 minutes long, ie two 5 track sides that are 7 minutes a side. And maybe I'm completely wrong about all this, but they certainly had a lot of vinyl there today, as well as all the other bands.

Now, let's Go! Special note at the start about ABC no RIO's 20 year anniversary of NY hard core. They opened up with their seven second opus, "ABC no RIO", their tribute that dates way back. Then they launched into their set, which were a series of quick blast riffs that typically consist of two riffs, one of them being the "lightening round". Vocalist, despite his age, looked in good shape and gave his all. More crowds of men were happy to help funnel lyrics when they knew the song, which happened at a much lesser frequency than the previous act.

The vocalist gave me the notion that this is probably what the guys from Corrosion of Conformity and DRI probably looked something like. Jean shorts and a chipped front tooth, well spoken. PA should have been up more but it was squealin' bad so it had to come down.

Also liked the drummer's cymbals: Zildjian 19" medium crash for a nice big ripper, and 22" medium ride to balance. Paiste's version of Fast Hats / Quick Beat as the HH, but I saw the bottom on top. Don't know what was underneath.

Go's setlist ended up being two full columns on page of around 20 songs each. Made it through in about 1:15. Another jolly good show!

Things going on right outside mah door

So this is a special time for us here in the city.

The UN is about to start their General Assembly tomorrow, and I had to ask the question, what the hell goes on there? among other things, Obama just showed up this morning, and with all the heads of state around, security gets extra tight here, as well as numerous protests that follow them around. i guess there's a big Iran protest tomorrow, so I'm going to film one of our photographer's talking about how to photograph it from a photojournalism aspect.

Among other VIPs, Japan's new prime minister Yukio Hatoyama will be there, as well as Qaddafi from Libya: his first time in his 40 years in power.

Here's the full answer to what's going on behind the doors.

Lock Stock and Five Cloudy Towers

Saw this awesome special on one of our Spanish channels earlier about the bridge viaduc de Millau, which connects Northern Europe to Southern France and Spain. From what I read and saw on tv:

Its architect, Sir Norman Foster, has said driving across at a record 270 metres (885ft) above the Tarn valley should feel like "flying a car".

In the clouds, indeed:


Holy crapolinies!

Check out this awesome flyover (brown moment at 2:09 ~ 2:11 with the cars):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbQc5QgH4Ws

Also, we got the front door finally fixed today. Always good to have the door fixed. We've been coming in through the roof. Which is not so bad, because the ladder next to the front door is fun to shoot up, unlock the door to our private roof entrance, and then boulder down the stairs to get in. Or, when that's been locked, really ninja it down the back fire escape. Yes, I can say with full confidence from my metalurgy studies at OTC Daihen, that crawling over the edge of the top of a tall three-floor building via an old, rusty ladder, is not only dangerous, it ought to be illegal. I did it once, poor R had to do it twice.

At least we can lock that window now that the door's fixed!

Live Report:: Deeeeeerrhoof

After a lengthy session of recording some DBCR vocals last night, Ken and I headed out for the Deerhoof show at Le Poisson Rouge, which sounds like it could be "the red poison", but actually just means "the red fish". Because, Deerhoof was playing! Ah those rascals.

Welp, they managed to sell it all out, so we started asking for tickets. Apparently we were not the only ones as there was a line in front of us. Crazy part was when we found two tickets available, two folks that had been there longer than us through a big stink since, in theory, they were next in line. As if. We kept asking for close to 45 minutes before the show kicked off. Right then, Ken was able to score a single ticket. We kept asking around, but the door staff didn't want to let anyone in, despite the fact that they were not a full attendance. After the third song, I told Ken to head in and I kept asking around.

After about their fifth song, I gave up. Just didn't care anymore. A guy who walked out said if he could transfer his ticket to me he would have, as it actually was totally packed inside. So this confirmed, it was like well, don't waste your time. So I went home and to bed, and that was alright. They'll play again, and I'll get my ticket in advance.

Live Report:: Sleepy Sun and Autolux

Late shows on Monday nights: it's like, man, you're asking a lot of me. 7:30 doors open but the first band doesn't play until 9, well that's just selfish when you're charging $7 a beer. End result is getting home around 1:15ish on a work night.

So the upside is we saw all three acts last night. First up was Bridezilla, from Sydney. Basically, all a bunch of cutey pie girls with a stud model named Josh Bush on drums. Alto-sax + violin melodies usually aren't my thing but they managed to pull off some neat tricks so, we're cool.

The next act was the tough one to follow. Sleepy Sun from San Francisco is hands down the most psychedelic attempt to throw back to the 60's I've ever witnessed. Thank god the crowd wasn't the same way or I would have choked from the Patchouli. But as an act, they were actually totally sweet and at some points so ridiculously doing their thing that I just couldn't stop laughing. Not at them, but with them, and the whole concept that this was the way it used to be. High marks, check them out.

Autolux was very awesome too. Mixed set of material from the first album and the unreleased new album. I was a little bit surprised to see they had no lighting rig with them, something which I think was really big in all their early years and also incorporated when I saw them open for NIN. If I could do it over again I'd stand closer to Greg Edwards on guitar, rather than right in front of the bass, which puts up the better part of the fight when it comes to making noise. Carla on drums is also interesting to watch - nobody really plays traditional sticking on a kit anymore and I like how it forces her to come up with different fills to accompany that. Because coming up with new fills? Almost always happens by accident.

Elevator Man

Busier than before these days. Like, work all day, play house all night. To rephrase:

Well you say I'm twenty something and I should be slacking. But I'm working harder than ever, and you could call it macking.

New home is coming along nicely. Very nicely. Fire hydrant was open again yesterday and continued to flow all night. Probably a waste of water! Will get a video of this soon, and set it to some classic Collective Soul.

Awesome DBCR show this past Saturday - our best to date. And, so as long as you bought a beer, you got a ticket for a free pizza. Not a slice, but your own 9-incher. Which is beyond cool. As Ken our bassist summarized:

It just goes to show that if we go in relaxed and prepared, we'll nail it. The soundcheck was a good idea. That way we know we sound good level-wise, so it's one less thing to worry about and we can just focus on playing. The long practice before probably helped too. I thought we were all on point.

And I'm in "love" with this "blog":
http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

Finally, I'll leave you with this:

After my 3pm cookie run to Subway today, I came back to the building and took the next elevator. Normal. But the business man in a suit with his pants partially down and belt loose? Not so normal! I didn't notice anything on the floor, so I'm just going to hope he was doing some adjusting and that the elevator speed was quicker than he anticipated. Then again, we do have the Temple of Understanding on 16F. Who knows!

New Way Home

Wednesday night, and we picked up the keys to the new place. Couldn't go in that night due to the second coat on the floors. So we went yesterday instead. Or rather, I went, got off the train, walked into C-Town, which I imagine is other-worldly and awesome, similar to the Big A my brother frequents, except it was way more King of the Hill Puerto Rican: signs are in Spanish, as is the radio station and commercials, as is the staff and most of its inhabitants. Dedicated sections to Goya foods. In other words, welcome to Bushwick!

When I realized they didn't have cerveza fria for sale, I walked into the bodega right at the corner of our street. 24 oz tall boy of Coors Gold for $1.25, hot damn!

So let's see the new place...

1. Here's me in the living room. The crap on the left was cabinets for the other unit. It's not there. Towards the ceiling, its now got the A/C venting. Stairs to the roof on the wall. Chandelier suspended from the 10' ceiling, with recessed lights.


The other guys in this picture are presumably the guys moving next door. Because, they were there to sign the lease. Only we were too, and technically they should have never seen it because we had told the landlord the night before we wanted it, and agreed to pay the deposit the next day. Only it got listed anyway, and these guys jumped on it via a broker, who got more money from them, and wanted to appease them (because they paid more!). But we were insistent, we found it first, claimed it, and the landlord was able to talk them into the other unit. Good for us!

2. The stairs. They go to the roof. The top is so bright because we have a sun roof, that is brighter than the sun. Hence, white! I really like the single bar going up the middle.


3. The kitchen. Featuring double appliances in this picture (sadly, they're gone, went next door I assume.) All new everything: stainless appliances, cabinets, floors. Added to ceiling now are the pipes across the top for A/C.


4. Front door. Look up: in addition to the window and skylight, there's an extra door up there. Which sharply drops off! Gotta watch out for these sorta things.


So that's the first round. We're starting to mobilize and get some stuff up there this Sunday, then next Saturday is the big moving day. Excited!

On the L

On the L train this morning:

The rider next to me, a portly gal with some interesting fashion trends, was blasting Windowlicker. One of my favorite beats of all time, well, it sounded really funny coming through the tinny exposure of her factory iphone earbuds. I guess I was proud of myself that I could pick it out - how many times have you heard someone else's music and tried to figure it out? And hear what you think is one thing when it's totally not? No mistaking this one!

And then, gramps got on board, sporting the ever awesome old person VR visors. And, couple that with his huge headphones and it looked like something you might see on a "Take me to your leader" or something. yeah. awesome. Viva old person visors!

Moving Again

So, after the taxing 3-week search to find a new home, it's decided. Signed the lease on Monday night. Get to pick up the keys next Monday. We're officially moving to Bushwick.

The decision, like most moving decisions, was a hard one to make. Compound that with the cost of rent in NY and it's all the more a harder decision to make. And then you've got the fact that folks seem to love paying Broker's Fees (who the fuck thought that would be a good idea?) and you can really get yourself into a corner. The whole endeavor has is bittersweet but we're moving on.

In the end, it came down to what we want vs. what we could get for our money. We really like the our neck of the woods in Prospect Heights right now; 5 blocks to an awesomely awesome park is going to be hard to let go. I don't think I'll miss the 7th and 5th Ave crowds and double-wide strollers as much, nor outrageous $12/lb. bacon, but it was nice having the variety around.

But that's just it. We've been priced out of our neighborhood. Without getting too much into the financial side of things, if we were to stay where we're at, what we want runs for a good $500+ more per month than we're willing to spend. Obviously, people will pay that, as it just seems to have become an acceptable rate for the area. I will not, I can not. Can't just say goodbye to my hard earned monies so easily.

A key component for me was the outdoor space. It's hard to describe how pissed off I've been about not being able to use our existing yard due to landlord negligence. My grill currently sits parked next to the fridge in the kitchen. We lazily leave shit like papers and loaves of bread on its side rack. Meanwhile, he just sits there, mocking me for not turning on the gas and throwing some ribs on. Enough! That's so going up on the new roof.

The place we've found is the shit though. 2BR, full gut renovation: all new electric, water lines, windows / insulation / dry wall, individual hot water heater, deep bathtub, stainless kitchen appliances, full cabinets / drawers, oriental paper lighting (round in the bedrooms, cool squarish in the stairs), private stairs to the huge roof (shared just with whomever ends up next to us), view of the city, 2 blocks to the Jefferson L station. Renovation style was done as a "modern old building": they've kept brick exposed, all hard-wood floors, and even left some original ceiling rafters in place. It's not fully completed, but I've seen enough at this point to be won over and then some. And it's brand spanking new on the inside.

To all the naysayers who are like "ewwww.... bushwick? are you fucking serious? you're gonna like, get killed!" ..... well, i highly doubt that. Basically its a straight up Puerto Rican block, kids running around outside, and the good news is you can't hear any of that from our floor. I think our block is smack in the middle of a transitional neighborhood on the rise, so it's interesting to see how this will grow.

To all the Park Slopians we're leaving behind: I'm serious about joining BKB this fall so look for me there. And I hear (and can vouch from one ride last Friday) the G is running more frequently now. So we'll head down there, and you can head up here, we'll rock.

Zombie Blasting & the Power Shot

Cashed in some amazon credit and picked up House of the Dead: Overkill and a Nyko Power Shot on the cheap the other day. It's rare that I can find a game to play with R, but the thought of a handgun with unlimited ammo flew with flying colors. So beers in hand, we sat out last night to see what this B-movie knock-off was all about.

Let me preface my quick review by stating that I didn't have high expectations for this game from the start. In fact, I was looking for something with potentially shallow depth, good for a one-time romp, and then perhaps pass it along to the ages. Found it here. The story, which intentionally tries to be ridiculous, is only made more annoying by the fact that I can't figure out how to skip the cut scenes, which revolve around an African-American spewing the f-word as if it was going out of style. Nice.

As for the game, it's mostly fun, but my major complaints are this: slowdown when more than three enemies are on screen, and the gun cursors are both white (with colored tracers when moving). The latter of which wasn't as much of a problem for me but it got R pretty lost feeling at times.

Also ran into a technical glitch during the first boss. Had him at about 3/4 destroyed when one shot into him locked up everything. My wiimote was stuck buzzing, with a high-pitched stuck sound coming through the stereo. Really annoying bug, wonder how many other people have seen it?

Made it through 3 stages last night, hopefully the game picks up a bit. The carny stage was pretty sweet now that I think about it. One thing's for sure, the game definitely needs to be played 2-player, because otherwise it'd feel way too much like a chore to complete.

Bodyboarding Jones Beach

Woke up, hit the market, hopped on the LIRR and went to Jones Beach the other day. Awesome day with a nice hot sun and clear skies, and 5 foot waves made for a hella good weather. I always wondered about the beaches here and if they'd get warm enough to swim and play around in the surf. Good news is, they do!

By the time we got there, the beach was getting a little bit crowded, too much for surfing at least. So what's left? Body boarding. Had to buy one but a small investment for some good rides. Or maybe.

In actuality, the waves were fiercer than anything I tried to ride in the past with a board, and relentless too. The kind where, after recovering from the last wave, you're about back to where you were before the next big wave comes in and sweeps you back. It's like putting your finger in front of an ant always. The little guy's just gonna lose, every time, but eventually he'll make it somewhere. Here, these waves? Trying to fight mother nature? No no no no ... not gonna happen. Even diving through, especially with the body board, was a bit tricky.

To tell the story, I busted out the water paints. Reiko added the pen work. Here's me waiting for a wave...


So basically, I noted that there were three kinds of waves I was getting for potential rides. The best and of course hardest to find was what I would consider the good ride wave: the incoming wave picks you up and pushes you in for a good slick ride that can be 25-30 yards or more on a good boosty. These are the reason to ride waves obviously.



The second kind, a new phenomenon to me was what I call the "alley-oop", which essentially pops you up on the brink of the wave, giving you maximum view over everyone else in the surf, a peak-a-boo if you will, before pulling you back, behind the wave. An interesting view, but a cheap thrill, and usually wasted because the one after it might have been "the one".




Third, and most common, was "the dredger": you get locked in and perhaps a good ride for the first half a second, and then shit! the wave spills over with a sharp push that brings you straight under, and drags you to shore, underwater in the wake. These are not only disorienting, but downright dangerous because you get the shit kicked out of you, can't breathe, snapped neck, and even scraped knees. And there were lots of them. I let my buddy Chris try out my board, who promptly returned it to me after getting caught in one of these. And this is the kind of chaos you'd have to make it through to get out to the breakers.



The other thing that was interesting about the beach was that it would see weird cycles of relentless surf, followed by a calm patch, and then the waves would start breaking way out there. Wrecking any chance for a ride, of course, but at least giving something to play with.



All and all, the surf was awesome but a bit rough for riding. Felt awesome for swimming, and I could easily dive through the waves. But I bought the board and will definitely hit it up once more before summer's over. The beach man. It's there. It's eternal.

The Triple Entendre ... in Japanese

As a fan of general linguistics and conversation, I'm all about the casual use of double entendres. I mean, talk about spicing up a conversation! Even rarer to this I would say would be a triple entendre, though for this rare gem I'm going to say that you have to cross multiple languages and semantics for it to get in play. Obviously, the context and listeners language abilities also comes into play in this case, making it that more of a well-played item when it shows up.

So what the hell am I talking about? I'm talking about something I said the other day that managed to link up a discussion about Honda CRV productions and itchy girl's parts. All by accident!

Down at Brighton Beach last Sunday, and a Cadillac Escalade followed by an Acura RDX turned past us. Reiko made the comment "looks expensive...", and I asked which one. She meant the Cadillac, which I later found out has a starting sticker price of $62K. I though she meant the RDX, which is actually much less at $33K, but started the discussion that the RDX is basically the deluxe version of the CR-V and that my previous company gained a lot of business from the model change project (codenamed the WQ & ZQ) for both vehicles. Essentially, we designed and implemented the manufacturing systems for Honda's partners.

And on and on I go, explaining in a mix of Japanese and English:

We had a partner who purchased equipment from us that had interchangeable tooling so that they could run 10,000 parts for one model and then 10,000 parts for the other model.

And that's where I got busted.
Reiko:

Chotto matte! Ima manko o itta desho!? (Wait a minute... you just said manko, didn't you!?)

The last part I said while counting the car parts, in Japanese, got me in trouble. In Japanese, 10,000 parts would be ICHI MAN KO (一万個), which is like counting 1 x 10,000, then the counter for items, ko (個). Double entendre: manko is slang for a girl's parts, on par with the p-word in English. So ichi manko, then, would be "1 girls' parts" (一つのマンコ?). But then we have the double play on ichi - literally, itchy, which can also be applied as a modifying adjective in context. So the triple entendre was an "itchy girls' parts" (痒いマンコ).

Anyway, we had a good laugh. The more I thought about it, it was an amazing slip, though I don't know if it could be considered Freudian.

Garlic Scapes

More things on my list of new things, smelly, that rock: garlic scapes.

All over our market right now, garlic scapes are the rage. Never seen 'em before, but really, they look fresh from the garden. Kinda like the little feelers on the end of a squid, but green and garlicy. So we started buying them recently, and they're great. Cook like you'd expect and fit into any corner of your meal. Buy 'em today, I say!

One tasty recipe we just had:

Cut the garlic scapes like green beans. Saute in light olive oil, and add whatever. Tonight, we green pepper and double smoked sausage. Served it with corn starch based sticky flavor juice, it was awesome when served over white rice. It's pretty much up to you to give it the flavor, but just think of them as awesome garlic spikes for your dish.

Good Ribes

These days, I'm hooked on ribes. I'm talkin' red currants and gooseberries, man.

Local vendor at the Grand Army Plaza market has been bringing them down from upstate. First time I had ever seen them for sale, too. Those who know me well know that I'm a huge fan of gooseberries, of which we have a bush back at my parents place. We used to have currants to, but the damn DePompei's tree took over that area and killed it off. Though, the motherlode and parents of both said ribe plants are still thriving at Baba's place.

If you ever need a sapling for growing your own gooseberries, my old man could probably hook you up. Talk to Gener!

Anyway, ribes, man. Awesome.

Buying My Own A-Team Van

If I only I had a place to park it.

And what a cop out and weak sauce down my throat for saying it. Because I just found this: A sweet as shit 1979 black van with red stripes... cue the intro fanfare... and A-team van! For less than a thou. Shit.

It's funny too because when we were little, our parents had an '86 Chevy van that was an absolute eye sore until we were old enough to drive. Did not want to be caught seen in there! Yet, once my brother and I realized that the potential that absolute power house had for videos, the course of our lives veered on a new direction: yes, old gnarly vehicles are the shit. Especially because you can drive the hell out of them and they just keep coming back like the T-1000.

Here's the listing (via Craigslist).

Arf Arf the dog

Alright, time for a more j-flavored entry. Let's start it with a joke:

What's the most popular topic of conversation in Japan in the summer?
Answer: "It's hot!" (暑い!)
Seriously, everyone says it. I'm reminded daily by R.

OK, moving on. I've often thought that Japanese onomatopoeia is more often than not a shade closer to the real thing than our equivalents in English. For example, pigs go "buu buu", which is a hell of a lot closer than oink oink. Other words tend to be less as distinct, but when listened to closely, I think the Japanese beat out the English. Perhaps this is due to their manga culture, where the comic books are fill with written out sounds.

One area where the Japanese obviously struggle with is anything that requires a hard r sound, because it just doesn't exist in the language, period.

I heard a yesterday at the park a sound though that couldn't have been more spot on: this little whispy dog got all riled up and was doing a perfect ARF ARF! ARF ARF! He ran around in circles about this girl with a hula hoop. ARF ARF! One of those instances where I failed to have the camera there. Looked kinda like the Chihuahua - Shibainu mix in the pic but was way more wispy.

Amber Ale In

Last Sunday I brewed up an Amber Ale beer. Unlike the previous Brewer's Best kits that I had used, this was a very generic Amber. So I cooked it up as usual, making good progress on the time. The only real change up compared with previous batches was that at the end, I first reactivated brewer's yeast in a half of cup of water, let it stand for about 10 minutes, then added it to the wort. Stirred and then capped it off.

I got really concerned a couple of days later when I noticed that the water-stopper was not bubbling. At all. No bubbles to me translates as to no CO2 gas, means no fermenting beer. Did I brew it too fast? Was the yeast DOA? What was going on? I emailed friends and family and got some good advice, like stir it up and get them microbes moving.

I popped open the lid the next day, and immediately noticed that the smell of alcohol was there, so something was definitely going on, just not sure what. I mixed it up a bit while I was at it. By Saturday, I cracked it open again to catch a whiff, which nearly knocked me on my ass it was so strong. Gave it one more day for good measure, and bottled it all up last night.

The color was distinctly lighter my last batch, almost like the color in the picture above, despite it being an Amber Ale. I did use a bit more water than usual this time - around 5.25 gallons - so it is a bit more watered down. Unfortunately, while cleaning up after the initial brewing, I dropped and shattered the hydrometer, so there was no way to get a good reading this time. I'm just guessing it's going to land at the 4.0 to 4.2 % alcohol range.

Anyway, I swigged a bit of the leftover after bottling, and as raw as it still is it's got a nice bing to it. Excited to see how this translates 3 weeks from now!

NIN | JA

And... I'm back. It's been a minute, I'm alive and well, just busy busy where the blog's priority gets set to low.

Next topic of discussion before it's too late: the NIN | JA show @ Nikon Jones Beach Theater.

Took a trip last Sunday via two Long Island RR commuter trains out to Jones Beach area, which is about 20 miles or so from my place, but takes a bit to get to. Kind of like the old days when we would drive across town to get to Grandma's. As the crow flies, not so far! But as the wheels roll, strap in for the ride. At our exiting station, I ran into one of my coworkers, who upon hearing about the show on Friday told his wife, who happened to be a huge NIN fan, so they came. Took a 10 minute bus ride from there to the amphitheater, which is this huge cement outdoor venue right on the water. As its now Nikon's place, Ashton Kutcher is all over the place as well, yowzers.

Anyway, was totally psyched about the show going in, knowing that this is said to be the end of NIN for awhile (5-8 years is my guess), and Janes Addiction is Janes Addiction, knew they were going to be good. Gotta love those shows.

And why not kick it all off with who else than Tom Morello and the Street Sweeper Social Club, "they're not a band, they're a social club. Street Sweeper Social Club." (as vocalist Boots Riley pointed out after nearly everysong). Their songs were solid; I guess I didn't realize that they've been together for some time now. The better half of their set had Tom producing some sweet licks, some very Rage-esque, and entertaining all around.

NIN kicked off their set with a slightly altered, more explosive version of The Fragile's Somewhat Damaged and kept it going from there. The setlist was heavy in older material, in particular 6 tracks from The Downward Spiral, with no new material until the 15th song, Survivalism! (With one song each from the most recent 3 albums; no Ghost tracks here.) Simply put, they rocked it from beginning to end.

Full set list here: http://reflectinginthechrome.com/20090607.php

Compared with previous sets, the visual were surprisingly sparse, with nothing more than some overhead yellowish lights, wall strobes with white / red lights, and a smoke machine that was off the hook. Almost too simple: they could have done a bit more with the overhead lights. But the tradeoff was that the focus was on the music and its performance. For the most part things came across great, but it became apparent that beefy uncle Trent just can't hit some of the high notes he used to, not without sounding entirely constipated anyway. Hurt as a closer, while almost cliche in a sense, was more powerful than I can ever describe and was a perfect ending to see these guys off.

Janes Addiction: Simply fucking amazing set. Everything I had heard up til then regarding the band's reunion sounded too good to be true, but really, they were spot on, tight as ever, and put on one hell of a show. Perry Ferrel floated around the set like some kind of impish drunkard, sipping on his bottle of wine the whole time, givin' respect to the crowd. Solid rhythm section set a perfect backbone for Dave Navarro to create a lead guitar solar system of heavy gravity proportions. (did i just write that? ha!) Visually, the band had a better back drop, with prettier colors and black and white naked ladies, and also used a partial drop down video screen, which took a pretty good beating because...

... it was cold and windy as hell down there. I made a critical error in that it was 80+ degrees when I left our house in shorts and t-shirt and of course didn't think it would be so bad. Yeah right! It was 55 degrees with the wind gushing off the cold water, and on top of that, started to drizzle at bits. Fuck me, that was brutal. Never doing that again.

My other complaint: the venue is dry. Outside of the VIP section or performances, there was no drinking what-so-ever at the location. Seriously? We found out after the fact that you can drink on the LIRR... just bring it on and chug away. Will definitely keep that in mind for next time.

Anyway, awesome awesome show, and worth the trip.

Life in the Fast Train

'Sho gonna make you lose your mind... or keep wishing for more.

One things for damn sure: this ain't no shinkansen.

Took the Acela yesterday from NYC to Boston here for the Flash on Tap conference. First time riding Amtrak in years, and certainly the first time riding their big guns, which they boast to be the fastest line in the US. Supposedly, the stretch between Boston and NYC has some parts wher speeds can surpass 130 mph - and its possible we obtained that speed, if ever for only such a short moment - but for the most part, it really wasn't that fast. Or it didn't seem that way.

Built on a foundation of old rails, it's very clear that it can't run fast for a reason - the cars would simply go flying off the tracks. Not good! But what really got me was how bumpy it was.

Case in point, I went back to the Cafe car (sweet that they had one, but $2 for a can of ginger ale? really?) and as I was walking back to my seat, we hit a bump and I fell over on top of someone. Thankfully for him, my drink only managed to spill on me. Sticky shirt express! Later on, after back in my seat, same thing: two guys were walking, we hit a bump, and I had to push to brace one of the guys from completely falling onto my lap. The seats ain't so easy to grab either.

It was craptastically cloudy yesterday, so I'm hoping for some sun on the way home. Will try and get some good video of the fast parts then, because when it does hit the fast speeds, it is slick. Just beware of the bumpy.

Holy Fuck, A Place to Bury Strangers!

Following on the tails of last week's Melvins show, saw the incredible liquid energy show of Holy Fuck Saturday night @ Bowery Ballroom. Hella good show, just a bit late for me: start time was 11:30pm. Didn't matter, I was really looking forward to the set; when former Enon drummer Matt Schulz came out to set up his drums, I knew it was on.

After standing around since 9:30ish for Crocodiles and then A Place to Bury Strangers, the feet were killing us, and we were lucky enough to grab a table with great view from the upstairs balcony. The show kicked off with a series of songs that sounded new (including "Jungle", which seems recently added to their MySpace page), and once they warmed up the crowd they started throwing some of the older tunes into the mix. A move they did, because the whole venue turned into this electric dance floor, at the very least heads were moving, and for some of the more flamboyants, total dance party USA.

Despite all this energy, at some point about 45 minutes into the show, I started feeling past my bedtime syndrome, probably in part due to staying out nearly 1:30 the night before for a nomikai with Reiko's coworkers. Thus came the weird surreal state of semi-consciousness - falling asleep in small bursts but all the while aware of the awesome show going on around me. Kinda like zoning out while riding the lawn mower and your neighbors are having a pool party, grabbing the wheel in time to make the turn and not crash into the fence. But I came to, and we headed downstairs and caught the rest of the show there. Up close, things looked so busy but with everyone having a good time.

Matt Schulz in particular is a real treat to watch - his style is the epitome of fast and aggressive. The thing that really gets me is his speed and ambidextrousness: He plays a regular 4-piece drum kit, but uses his left hand as the lead for hi-hat work, right hand for ride cymbal. Drum fills seem to be right-left-right-left patterns, but again, everything is lightening fast so its hard to say for sure. The results of the mixup seems to allow for some nice change ups and patterns I've never heard elsewhere, hence my fondness for listening to him play. And, perhaps it was the lack of seeing him at that Enon show last month that left such a meh feeling in my mouth.

As for the other bands, Crocodiles had a modern new wave sound going for them, but as only a 2 piece, they lacked from where they could be with the addition of a solid drummer and bassist. Mostly good tunes, albeit intentionally dated sounding. A Place to Bury Strangers: let down. After hearing all this hype for them ("New York's Loudest band!", "THE band to see at SXSW!"), their opening song came out of sync, with the drums behind the guitar behind the vocals; this happened on a few other tracks. Another track, a slow noise builder, finally came to an end, and... wait for it... they played the exact same fucking thing for another two or three minutes, no double-time beats to save the day. I don't know if it was the venue being mean to them or what, but I was not impressed, move along folks, move along.