meat beat manifesto

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. ;)

Edge of No Control

Posted on by grahams

Last night’s Meat Beat Manifesto show at the Paradise was fantastic. I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the show since I hadn’t seen them in a very long time (a decade plus?) and the past few albums have been mostly good but not great. But Jack and gang blew the doors of the place and everyone seemed to really be enjoying themselves… They played stuff from their whole backcatalog, but seemed to focus on the more upbeat stuff as opposed to the mellower stuff… It was a pretty intense 2+ hours…

Jon Whitney shot a bunch of video and did an interview with Jack for The Brainwashed Brain video segment “The Eye”, which will probably be up in a few weeks, and his friend Dan shot a whole bunch of stills of the show which came out great.

Weekendish

Posted on by grahams

This weekend rocked, plain and simple. Adam and I spent 48 hours preparing for Sunday’s meal, which turned out fantastic (and leftovers mean a fantastic lunch as well). We only made the grilled jerk pork (which is what required the multi-staged, 48 hour brine/marinating process) and the orange sauce, and skipped on the slaw and chorizo fried rice, but it still was amazing. Ming Tsai doesn’t disappoint.

This weekend was also the glorious IC3 weekend, which was also not a letdown. Friday night’s “2000th Dish Special” was a whole bunch of fun, and last night’s “21st Century Battles” were great. Mad props to Bobby Flay who definitely worked on improving for this rematch. He cooked some dishes that blew us out of the water (wish we could have tasted them), and he deserved to win.. But I think we can all look forward to the “Best out of 3” battle in the future. :)

I lost my wallet for about 30 minutes this morning, which pissed me off. Sometime yesterday I must have decided to put it in my tool drawer (obvious location for it). For some reason I didn’t think to look there right away this morning, and my heart was skipping many beats. :)

Oh yeah, Sunday afternoon I got some pizza at the Boston House of Pizza, which is a block away from my pad. It was probably the most acceptable pizza I have had here yet… It isn’t Enzo’s, but it will do. :)

Time to do some work and kick back to some Meat Beat Manifesto….