jon whitney

Brainwaves

Posted on by grahams

This weekend was the Brainwaves Festival over in Arlington, which was a ton of fun. Jon really did a great job pulling the whole thing together, and while I wasn’t in to every artist, it was great seeing so many different bands. The highlight for me was The Dresden Dolls turning out a great set (even if they seemed out of place in the midst of the other bands on the lineup). Amanda and Brian brought out Edward Ka-Spel (from The Legendary Pink Dots and The Tear Garden) for “Missed Me”. I’m not the biggest Ka-Spel fan (I actually left before his set, closing out Friday, was over, but I was mostly just exhausted).

After a Kelly’s brunch, I made it back to the theatre on time on Saturday Afternoon. This daytime lineup seemed to be mostly noise artists, which can always be hit-or-miss. Fortunately, none of them seemed to take themselves too seriously, which made it more palatable. came out Saturday night to join me, and it was great seeing him again and catching up. Saturday night was definitely my favorite overall night of the show. It was dedicated to Steven Stapleton, who did a “DJ” set playing some of his favorite records. All of the artists Saturday night were enjoyable, but the stand-out band were also the headliners, Volcano the Bear. They had great energy, and while at times they seemed to be in Schtick Coma, they really rocked it out.

I missed the final day of the festival as I had previously committed to heading over to ‘s place for some Nintendo Wii love. He has preordered his and was having a big party to celebrate (and play). We mostly played Wii Sports, Tennis and Baseball are the standout games, but Bowling is pretty cool too. Golf and Boxing were a bit spottier though. Boxing definitely felt like your actions with the remote had the least correspondence to what happened on screen. That, and Corinna kicked my ass at Boxing, so I can’t like it. :P

We played from like noon until 6pm, when and I had to run off to see “Casino Royale”. I really, really enjoyed it, as did seemingly everyone who showed up to the club this week (17 people!). Definitely removed the crappier aspects of Bond for the past however-many years and stuck to spying and action (Parkour FTW).

Armed Audio Warfare

Posted on by grahams

This weekend was hectic! I left Saturday at 5pm with Jon Whitney to go down to Manhattan for the midnight Meat Beat Manifesto show at BB King’s in Times Square. Jon hosts the official MBM website over at Brainwashed, so we had VIP passes which was cool. We rolled into town and met up with and his roommates/friends, who were kindly letting us crash at his place. Luke and Christina (? God i am terrible with names) came with us to the show, and met up with us as well, which was awesome because I haven’t seen him in like 3 years.

We got to the show just as the doors were opening, god it was cold in NYC… Went backstage to say hi to Jack, but I don’t get off on the whole backstage thing, so I just said hi and then went back out to the room to catch the opening act, Dalek. I guess they split with their DJ (whose name was “Still”). To be honest, without Still I just wasn’t interested in the band.. It’s a shame, because they are really nice guys and I’ve really enjoyed them the other times I’ve seen them… This time I was just waiting for them to leave the stage. When Jack and crew got on stage, though, it was like magic. I saw them back in June and it was amazing, and this was no different… Similar setlist, but the crowd was much larger at this show so the whole room just had more energy… The venue sucked (would have been great for old white people listening to Jazz or Blues), but the show was out of control… After the show we said thanks to Jack and Jon got a live CD for Luke as a thanks for his hospitality and we rolled back to Luke’s place at like 3:30am..

Sunday morning we caught breakfast with Luke a few blocks from his place and then parted ways with him… I’ve got to get down there more often to visit my friends in (or, in Kyle’s case, near) the city.. When I go back to NJ I usually plan on making it into NYC but because I am having so much fun with my friends and family there that I usually don’t make it. I think the plan needs to be seperate trips for NJ and NYC, because otherwise it’s too hectic. That way and I can visit with her friends Sara and Dave, who live there too. Anyway, Jon needed to meet up with his friend, musician Little Annie Anxiety to pick up some material he is releasing on Brainwashed. She was in the middle of packing for a trip, so it was a little hectic, but she seems like a wonderful person and she has a very cute chiuahua. I was even called in as nerd support when she had a problem with her iBook… :) On the way out of town we said hi to Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons fame, who lives in the same neighborhood, and who Jon is also friends with… He had just gotten back from a trip, so we didn’t visit long with him, but he seems like a really nice guy.. After that we hit the road and got back to Boston around 5pm…

Corinna and I immediately turned around to go to the film club to see Kairo (Pulse), which is the original Japanese movie that the upcoming (disaster) Pulse was based on. Oh my god was it terrible… It never felt like it went anywhere, and there were so many unresolved or unexplained plot points.. It seems like they were constantly rewriting the script.. So many things were never paid off… And christ, shouldn’t a horror film be at least SOMEWHAT scary? At some point Corinna gave up grabbing my arm when tension was building just because she realized that nothing was actually going to happen.. But even though the movie was shitty we had a great group of people show up last night, including a few new faces. We’re getting more regulars and semi-regulars coming, which is awesome because it means I’m not scaring people off anymore. ;)

I love Italian Horror Movies

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The movies rocked last night, and next week they are showing Lucio Fulci’s “The Beyond” and Michele Soavi’s “Cemetary Man“. My friend Amy from back in Jersey is coming up that day, so I will have to force her to go with me (although I can’t imagine that much arm-twisting will be involved)… I met up with Jon Whitney and Tom the Fish last night, and actually discovered a acceptable (yet not glorious) slice of pizza in this area (at Pinocchio’s in Harvard Square).

Psst… Let me let you in on a little secret: TODAY IS FRIDAY! I am looking forward to this weekend, for it brings us IC3, and I also need to catch up on a little bit of sleep as well.

Time to get some work done!

What a wonderful weekend!

Posted on by grahams

I had a ton of fun this weekend exploring Boston with James, as it is the first chance I have had to really explore what is available to me. Friday night we wandered around Government Center, went to some stores and just enjoyed some of the beautiful (and not-so beautiful) architecture around. We got back really late, as we kinda got a wee bit lost and had trouble locating a T stop. :)

Saturday, we met up with Jon Whitney, who runs Brainwashed, which hosts the Coil and Meat Beat Manifesto official pages. He was a really good guy, and he showed us around Harvard Square, which is a wonderful area. It turns out that one of my favorite NYC record shops, Other Music opened their second store in Harvard Square recently, which is awesome in my book.. :) I also browsed around some other record shops in the area, and discovered that CDs are simply way cheaper in this town for some reason. I picked up a few CDs used:

Sunday, James and I headed back into Harvard Square and ran head first into a street festival… We had some good Barbecue on the street, and heard some street musicians and looked at the vendor’s boothes (but I really couldn’t spend much money, although I could use a pair of sunglasses sometime in the near future). We then headed back and watched Galaxy Quest and the Sopranos.. :)

Tonight is the Matmos/Autechre concert, which should be lots of fun. I will report on it tomorrow… :)