Happy National Day of Slayer!
music
Music Update
Here’s some music-related updates:
- The first CD from Mike Patton’s new project, Peeping Tom, his the streets this Tuesday. I got my hands on the CD a little early and it is awesome… The first really accessible-by-the-masses album from him in a long time. It’s probably about as close as you’ll see him get to pop… Anyway, the band (featuring Dan The Automator, Rahzel, Dub Trio, Rob Swift (X-Ecutioners), and Imani Coppola) were on Conan O’Brien on Friday… Check it out. Also, an interview over at Suicide Girls
- In other Patton news, Rhino finally released the two classic Faith No More videos, “You Fat Bastards: Live at the Brixton Academy” and “Who Cares a Lot: The Greatest Videos” (a.k.a. “Video Croissant”) on DVD last week.
- Brainwashed is celebrating it’s 10th anniversary with a weekend festival in November. Brainwaves is going to be held at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, MA. The lineup so far is pretty out of control, you should totally check it out!
The Dresden Dolls
There was some of the usual circus antics between them and the Dolls. Our seats, which looked great on paper, were terrible. Although we were only four rows back from the stage, Amanda was almost completely obscured by the amps, and so we spent the whole show leaning over to try and see both members of the band at once. Brian hit as hard as ever, and Amanda’s voice was about as “on” as it’s ever been. They seemed to play for like 2 hours, playing tons of covers as well as most of their new album, “Yes, Virginia”. It was a fantastic show, even if it went way past Corinna’s bedtime… :)
Portrait
Oh yeah, my birthday.. thanks to all the well-wishers and gift-givers.. I got a bunch of great books, music, and DVDs this year. For my birthday present, Corinna took me out to dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club. I am not usually a fan of getting dressed up to eat, but it’s nice on occasion, and this was totally worth it. The food was completely delicious, the service was mind-blowing, and the bread pudding was unbelievable.
Tonight we are catching the Beastie Boys’ concert film, “Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That”, with the film club, which will hopefully be a blast
“Layla” : Music :: “Full Metal Jacket” : Film
Continuing the “I am a Jackass” theme of late, this weekend I was doing some of the aforementioned home improvement and managed to smash the shit out of my thumb with the hammer… A beautiful blood blister formed but I don’t think I did any serious damage. The trim around the front door looks quite a bit better now, and will look even better once it isn’t Primer White. Next up: Stripping and painting the radiators! FUN!
I’m finally writing code at work again, but only because I am forcing the issue…. I’m auto-generating my ICD/Design document via Doxygen, hopefully that won’t make anyone here blow a gasket.
Armed Audio Warfare
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
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
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 Sirius Radio
I was flipping through the stations this morning and came acrossed a station playing MC Hawking’s “All My Shootings Be Drive Bys”. That’s just awesome.
1-09-06
This weekend was fun… Flew the helicopter, convalesced, watched “New York Doll” (highly recommended). I’m feeling quite better, seem to have dodged the mega-congestion I usually get after the sore throat phase of colds, I’m only slightly congested today.. Got my first dose (aside from the radio tests he did last week) of Stern on Sirius on the ride in this AM, which was cool… George Takei is an awesome choice as an announcer, his voice is fantastic.
Plague-ridden
Last night before bed I noticed the beginnings of a sore throat, so I popped back some Cold-Eeze. Around 5:00am I woke up with a terrible sore throat, and got up to get some water as well as another lozenge. I went back to bed and tossed and turned but couldn’t fall back asleep, so around 6am I decided to just get up, shower, and get to work. I got to work at 7:15am, which I believe is a new record for me at Goodrich.
I cancelled my subscription to Audible subscription yesterday… I had the plan where you get 1 audiobook and 1 subscription a month (which I used for Car Talk), but I haven’t been listening to the audiobooks during my normal commute, so they’ve been piling up.. I still love their service, and will eventually buy books piecemeal once I plow through my backlog, but the subscription is a bit too much in this age of podcasts… Not to mention Howard Stern… :)
Yesterday I bought a Sirius Satellite Radio receiver for my car with my Christmas cash.. I hadn’t been listening to Howard very reliably during my commute because my commute was just long enough to get two blocks of commercials and one block of content, which was pretty frustrating… I had been eyeing Sirius for a year or two now, but Howard is definitely what pushed me over the edge.. The best part was after I installed it in my car, I turned on Howard 100 and they just so happened to be doing a studio gear test at that moment with most of the crew, so it was like a little preview show. I’ve heard rumblings that the show will still have commercials, which would disappoint me (and probably cause me to drop my subscription, if they were overbearing), but hopefully they won’t be there (or at least won’t be bad). I figured the price of the Sirius subscription is less than what I was paying each month for Audible, so it’s a bit easier to justify. The other reason, besides Howard, was that without listening to the Radio anymore I was discovering less new music, so hopefully this will rectify that as well.
Interesting Short Documentary on Sampling
Can I Get An Amen? is an audio installation that unfolds a critical perspective of perhaps the most sampled drums beat in the history of recorded music, the Amen Break. It begins with the pop track Amen Brother by 60’s soul band The Winstons, and traces the transformation of their drum solo from its original context as part of a ‘B’ side vinyl single into its use as a key aural ingredient in contemporary cultural expression. The work attempts to bring into scrutiny the techno-utopian notion that ‘information wants to be free’- it questions its effectiveness as a democratizing agent. This as well as other issues are foregrounded through a history of the Amen Break and its peculiar relationship to current copyright law.