.::.

I'm moving....

2008-04-15T09:56:00.003-04:00

It's been almost a year since I've written here. So, in the spirit of try to do something with this whole "blogging" thing for myself; I'm moving.

http://sotherewewere.net

Update your bookmarks.

It looks like crap right now. Mainly just all default settings, with my old posts imported for posterity's sake, but when I have some time it'll look sweet.

Sidenote: Someone bought the domain sotherewewere.com .... wtf? People monitor the interweb registrant sites to see what domains are being looked up and then snap them up. I guess so that they can try to sell them back to you. I emailed them to ask how much they want....no response. Effing trolls. So, someone bought my domain before I could get to it and will never use it.

Damn you, procrastination. Damn you.

A quick little self/friend-promotion....

2007-05-04T11:14:00.000-04:00

so, as a little side project taking what i'm learning from my job and as a favor to a good friend (the best one), i have been putting some effort into building a website, a blog.

it is definitely worth the read, he is quite a talented writer....so go check it out and take a look at my handiwork.

The site is Chispa Stories and the blog will document my friend as he travels throughout Central America looking for delicious and, at times, scary food.

seriously, go.... now.

What a Reunion Show, I need to Stop Missing These Things...

2007-05-01T16:46:00.001-04:00

Some of you may or may not know that Rage Against the Machine reunited at Coachella this year. All reports say that it was politically charged and absolutely amazing. The guys at Stereogum had this to say:

"Killing In The Name" was particularly insane; you haven't lived until you've yelled "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me," pumping fists with 60,000 sunburned kids in the desert.

And with a set list like this, who is to say any different:

01 "Testify"

02 "Bulls On Parade"

03 "People Of The Sun"

04 "Bombtrack"

05 "Bullet In The Head"

06 "Down Rodeo"

07 "Guerrilla Radio"

08 "Renegades Of Funk"

09 "Calm Like A Bomb"

10 "Sleep Now In The Fire"

11 "Wake Up"

12 "Freedom"

13 "Killing In The Name"

By the end of that you had to have experienced some sort of cathartic musical revelation, or just ended up really, really angry....at everything.

Texas Is The Reason live in Buffalo: 4.20.96

2007-04-20T12:17:00.000-04:00

brandon at Lake Erie Monster has decided to start posting videos of concerts that he taped in Buffalo between the years 1995 - 1999...and i wholeheartedly support his decision because the first is a monster.

not having the time or money to get to NYC for the reunion show this past november, i will still absolutely settle for a 31 minute recording of a concert a decade ago approximately thousand miles from where i was living at the time.

on redirects and media conglomerates...

2007-03-22T10:15:00.000-04:00

so, during the normal meandering through the interweb that makes up my daily routine, i came across the bodog myspace page. "huh", i thought to myself and loudly across the office, "this is a great looking myspace page...i wonder if they manipulated the page themselves and what does the coding look like to do that." i was looking for some ideas and this type of layout would work really well for a client. i pulled up the page source and saw that all of their images and video were being hosted on 'http://creative.myspace.com'. ok, interesting, so it looks like they probably paid a pretty penny to get myspace to design and/or host their layout for them, which explains why the page, in some fundamental ways, can't just be a modified profile like the one's available to us peons.

well, i decided that i would take a look at that root 'creative' site and see if this is a service that is offered publicly and might be democratically available, like most other myspace services have been in the past, or just offered to those with the big bucks. what happened next was rather amusing, though probably just to me. i typed in 'creative.myspace.com' and after a couple of flickers, really milliseconds, i was redirected to this page: http://streaming.myfoxatlanta.com/.

"what?!?, how did i get to my local fox affiliate's streaming media site," you may ask. well, as if to hammer home the point that myspace is home to the "big boys" now, my ip address was tracked and i was sent to my closest fox media website. "why?" fox, myspace, and a litany of other media outlets are now all part of the same media empire belonging to one Rupert Murdoch. i know this is not particularly earth-shattering, but it definitely shows that the media world is getting smaller. myspace and fox on the same level, who would've thunk. plus, i now definitely have my work cut out for me to keep up.

songs that played:
the used - buried myself alive
dirty on purpose - mafia lights
dntel - last songs
luxury - the needs of the many, the needs of the few

.beans.

you can't buy this kind of advertising...

2007-03-19T15:11:00.000-04:00

and he is absolutely correct about the waitress thing...

Explosions in the Sky - Lenny's Bar - 3.13.07

2007-03-15T10:36:00.000-04:00

the picture is awful, i haven't really even begun to explore the pic taking capabilities of my blackjack.
anyway, nothing quite prepared me for the sheer amount of noise that was generated by EITS on stage that night.
before i get any further though, let me say that i thoroughly enjoyed the opening band the paper chase, very mathy and melodious at the same time.
anyway, i don't say "noise" in a bad way because, although at times overwhelming, it served as a perfect counterpoint to the quiet, introspective moments. i will say that i got to know the face of the bassist/guitarist very well as he was the only person visible on stage to me while the two other guitarists fiddled with effects peddles and what-not. the show was absolutely transcendent, just standing there and letting waves of sound wash over me was a great way to spend a tuesday night. i had read in several places that the albums that EITS have put out haven't been able to capture the intensity and rapture of their live performances and that is exactly correct. the wife and i fall asleep to the fiday night light's soundtrack almost every night (admittedly the most mellow album), but sleep was the farthest thing from our minds as we watched them sway. the haunting and beautiful melodies that i have mentioned before were brought to life a thousand fold during the hour long set. the phrase that i came up with the describe the show was "indecipherably separate" in that you knew that there were different songs but knowing where one stopped and another began was a difficult task. so, i just closed my eyes and found myself transported. while i usually prefer more interactive shows, this was definitely just a passive indulgence of brilliant orchestrations.

along those lines, i do feel that this is a form of what could be described as some sort of "new classical" music. bands like mogwai, godspeed! you black emperor, EITS, and mono piece together movements no differently than the masters did, symphonies and requiems that last anywhere from three minutes to 30 minutes.

my e-music has renewed and i made some interesting choices, so once i get it loaded and playing i'll let you know how i liked my choices. although, as i mentioned before, one of them is the new EITS and i'm sure we all know how that will go.

.beans.

songs that played:
jeremy enigk - been here before
metric - too little too late
jimmy eat world - goodbye sky harbor
bright eyes - gold mine gutted

cleaning house and making it nicer...

2007-03-12T18:06:00.000-04:00

as you might could tell, i'm in the process of updating the blog to something a little more fanciful.

short story is that i was running out of sidebar space to put stuff in, so i added one over there to the left so i could put more stuff up there.

also, if you look at the last couple of posts, you can see that i have made the posts "expandable", so check for a "read more" button to get more ramblings.

be back soon...

does anyone believe this...?

2007-03-02T15:55:00.000-05:00

Ever wondered where the ubiquitous "devil horn" hand gesture came from? Here is a video of Gene Simmons taking credit for the whole thing.

An urge to explode..

2007-03-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

in what i'm sure was brought on by my mention of explosions in the sky in my last post and the appearance of it in a google blog search, i received an email from a publicist asking me if i had seen an interview with explosions on MTV URGE.

this works for me on many levels:
1) this guy was on top of his game and hitting up blogs that are talking about, not just the product he is repping (turns out he was a rep for URGE), but the bands that they are featuring. this is a great way to generate interest for URGE, especially focusing on a sub-national band with a loyal following, like explosions in the sky.
2) the email was addressed to me, my real name, and was not trying to be overly hip or buddy-buddy, just very simply, "thought you might be interested in this".
3) it came from an actual person, not a generic mailbox.
4) i responded to the e-mail and received a response within 15 minutes, which is very important in this give and take "social media" world.

here is what i didn't like (and has nothing to do with the publicist):
*click for larger image*

the program required to watch this interview does not run on a mac. why? i'm just speculating, but my best guess is that Viacom, who owns MTV, is in bed with microsoft on some level. and since it looks like URGE is also a music store, they don't want it to be cross-platform and head to head against the itunes dominated mac world. which also means that anything that is purchased from URGE will not play on an ipod, only on "plays for sure" devices, which are advertised on the site, thanks to the ongoing DRM wars. of course, in the FAQ they try to point the finger at Apple for using a different DRM product, AAC, but really both sides are playing against the middle. and bill gates has not come out and said the he would ditch DRM tomorrow if the labels would allow him, steve jobs has done this. at least point the finger at the right entities, the record labels, not at the competition in a feeble attempt to cast them in a bad light.

on that note, emusic just became the second most popular music download site behind itunes and they have mp3, DRM-free, files for download. but sure RIAA, unrestricted files hurt sales. who are you kidding anyway?

anyway, in another great move by the publicist, he sent me the transcript of the interview after hearing of my platform issues....very cool. so expand the post to read it:

URGE: In terms of the writing and recording process, how do these songs come together? On one hand, they're incredibly precise, but there's also a very organic, loose feel.

Chris Hrasky: We don't have a very good process of "Here's how we do it." It's a lot of trial and error. This album took quite a while to do. We spent six months working on it and wound up throwing it all away. It can be fairly arduous. There are certain patterns where we do one thing that leads to another, but typically, it's fly by the seat of our pants.

Matt Smith: The first two albums were fairly easy to write. I mean that was six or seven years ago, but I don't remember anything traumatic happening. It was still a part-time thing. We all had day jobs, and there weren't really any expectations about where things could go. The album before this one was pretty difficult just because we weren't coming up with material, but for All of a Sudden ..., the problem was the awareness that people were waiting for it. We're already pretty self-critical and adding expectations to the mix almost makes you not want to do it! [laughs] But we got over it. We're big boys, and after a while, you just want to make an album you're happy with.

URGE: So then, if writing can be squeezing blood from a stone, what's the recording process like?

Hrasky: We mostly record live, and that has its own set of problems. You'll be playing an 11-minute song and you get to the eighth minute, and you start thinking, "F**k, don't mess this up." And we screw up a lot. I mean, some of these songs are hard to play! There are flubs everywhere on albums. We just try and use the more charming mistakes, but we're dedicated to recording live. We might overdub tambourines or something, but we really try to keep it as us in the room, and that can be kind of scary.

URGE: Is there any kind of razzing that goes on if the same guy keeps screwing up a take?

Hrasky: Hah -- not really. We're getting better at it. You get in a sour mood after the sixth take. Then you gotta get a pizza or something. You can't get mad. We all screw up. There were points on this album where I simply could not play the drum parts. You get to a point where you're on whatever take and you just know you're gonna screw it up.

Smith: We really like the mixing process. The recording process is kinda nerve-racking to be honest.

URGE: You've talked about how the expectations are tangible now. Ever since Friday Night Lights, people probably associate certain songs with a paraplegic football player. Have you had to let go of some of your personal relationships with these songs? In a larger sense, do these songs have meaning to you guys? Are they about something?

Smith: In terms of people equating things to Friday Night Lights... that's always been a tough decision for us. We don't want, in five years, for people to say, "Oh, that's the Friday Night Lightsband." That's not why we wrote those songs. So it's pretty tricky. It isn't easy for us to just say, "Go ahead, use the song."

Hrasky: We have a song in a car commercial. I'm completely embarrassed by it. The only reason we did it was financial security. It was a time when it was kind of necessary to get some help, but that was really hard. My parents will call and say, "We saw the commercial again!" They're parents, they get excited, but I don't even want to see the thing. We just sold it. There's nothing beyond that. We did it for money and it sucks. At the same time this is our job now. You do start thinking about if you get married or have kids, then the band has to support that. So, we're only just coming to terms with the idea that this is what we do.

URGE: It must be hard to think of your art as a bargaining chip.

Smith: When we write it, we're not thinking about the commercial value of our music. I'd rather have this be my job than any of the jobs I've had before, but it's a tension. None of us are completely comfortable with it, but ultimately it's our decision.

URGE: But with the TV show, there definitely seems to be a pretty complimentary relationship between the music and the narrative it's scoring.

Hrasky: I make a huge distinction between the commercial and the show. I haven't actually seen all the episodes of the show, but it's been pretty acclaimed critically. I don't have the same guilt with the show; I just don't want to always be associated with it. And up until now, that hasn't happened. We haven't had that at all, and it has introduced our stuff to tons of people who wouldn't have [previously] listened.

Smith: A lot of times it is weird though. You'll see a scene and Lyla [a character on the show] is crying her eyes out, and you think, "Well ... that's one way of thinking about it!"

URGE: Is there much of a working relationship with [the show's creator and film's director] Peter Berg?

Smith: For the film, we went out to California and talked with him, saw some dailys, and tried to figure out which songs fit which scenes. And that's how "Your Hand in Mine" became the film's main theme. Mostly, we work with the music supervisor. They ask to use three songs for scenes, and we'll tell them you can use these two, so on and so forth.

URGE: Has soundtrack work always been a collective goal for the band?

Hrasky: Definitely. We had worked on some short films made by friends and then all of a sudden we're at Universal Studios, and I'm thinking, "What the f**k!?" And that's a credit to Peter Berg because he was able to convince the studio to use some obscure instrumental band from Texas in his football movie.

URGE: You're heading out on tour, and I noticed there are few alternative venues, not just rock clubs, listed as destinations. You guys certainly don't seem to do the Sigur Ros thing where you only play, like, cathedrals filled with ice sculptures.

Hrasky: [laughs] Right. We're not playing the New York Public Library. We're a band. We totally love playing different places, but for the most part, we play wherever people want us. We'd like to play more offbeat places. I heard Arcade Fire is playing five nights in a church in New York ... we don't have that kind of clout yet! But I like it when bands do that kind of stuff. I saw Low once play at the Johns Hopkins Library in Baltimore, and that was incredible.

URGE: The band has a really cohesive, singular sound, but what are your individual tastes as listeners like?

Hrasky: Well, the record we all love is Sunset Rubdown. It's the solo record from the guy from Wolf Parade. That was my favorite album from [2006].

URGE: Do you listen to much music that sounds like Explosions in the Sky?

Hrasky: I like Mogwai. I don't listen to them that much anymore, but they're a huge reason why we exist. It's funny though, none of us are really that into Mogwai or Godspeed You Black Emperor. None of us listen to that much instrumental stuff -- weird composers here and there, but not a lot of stuff that you'd think as influences and our sound.

URGE: What's the most unlikely stuff you listen to, given the sound of the band?

Smith: I've been listening to a lot of Clipse recently. That's the best record I've heard in a long time. I listen to a lot of hip-hop, but that's really a cut above.

URGE: I feel a collaboration in the works.

Smith: Tell their people to call our people.

i have the regularity of a menstrual cycle...

2007-03-01T10:04:00.000-05:00

that is to say that i noticed i've been posting about once a month and since i'm not the female reproductive system, that just doesn't work for me. so, yet another half-hearted commitment to update more often.

life is going well, there is marathon training, working, and then more working and then the running. that's pretty much it, but that's ok. work is kinda like play at the moment, trolling the intertubes for information, ideas, and traffic. the wife and i also get plenty of quality time together while running for hours at a time.

my latest dilemma goes as such: the new explosions in the sky album is officially out...but i don't own it yet. why? you may ask. well, my emusic subscription does not renew until the 11th of each month. this is the only downside to emusic that i have found so far, i really want this album but cannot justify purchasing the cd from a store when i can get it from emusic if i just can wait it out 10 more days, which will also be 2 days before they arrive at lenny's in atlanta to blow my mind.

speaking of concerts that i am going to see, i have found a very cool little tool that may pique the interest of a few of you. iConcertCal is a free plug-in for iTunes that will scan your music library and then give you a calendar of when bands whose music you have will be coming to town. which, by the way, rules. there is a feature like this on last.fm that also does recommended concerts based on your musical taste. so, between the two i have put together a fairly decent calendar of concerts for this month. expand the post to see the shows that i will be attending:

March:
13 - explosions in the sky - lenny's
16 - maserati - the earl
22 - aqueduct & youth group - the earl
22 - the appleseed cast - drunken unicorn
30 - the draft (ex-hot water music) - the masquerade

as the more astute of you may have noticed, i have double-booked myself for the 22nd. i really can't decide which show to attend and am really very upset that this decision even has to be made. advice?

.beans.

songs that played:
bright eyes - lover i don't have to love
the postal service - this place is a prison
the get up kids - impossible outcome
m83 - unrecorded
red animal war - the insanity

musically socializing on the network tubes...

2007-02-16T16:57:00.000-05:00

i am a music dork, unapologetically so...it is never ending, and my mother ship has called me home. last.fm is now my favorite social networking site (myspace be damned, for me its like mixing business and pleasure now), head and shoulders above the rest. based solely on music, this network aims to bring people of the same musical taste together and through those connections, help you discover new music. it's absolutely brilliant. there's a lot to it and is probably best discovered on your own, but if you have any questions please ask. as stated previously, i'm a dork and have explored almost every option available to both mac and pc users.

sign up, start scrobbling (yes, there's a whole new language to learn) and be my friend and even if the meter says our "musical compatibility" is something other than "super", i'm sure we can find some common ground.

mac users - check out peel. it is an mp3 blog aggregator that sorts mp3's that are posted on your favorite blogs, organizes them in an itunes-ish window and then lets you stream and download songs from that window. a must have for new music discovery. the program is free while still in beta but will be $15 once the testing is done, so get on the ball and get it now...we all like free stuff.

i like the fall of troy right now, some of you will also like it, i'm gonna go ahead and say that most of you will not....so there it is. here are some songs:

- Rockstar Nailbomb!
- F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.

.beans.

songs that played:
Taking Back Sunday - Great Romances of the 20th Century
Judah Johnson - Star Struck
The Gloria Record - I Was Born in Omaha
Camber - Wait

new lovedrug stuff...

2007-01-22T15:54:00.000-05:00

after a long wait and several minor touring stints, the new and much-anticipated album, everything starts where it ends, will hit stores on march 6. lovedrug managed to wrangle their way out of their contract with columbia records so now this new album will be put out on militia group.

here are a couple of tracks:

doomsday & the echo
happy apple poison

honestly, i haven't been super-impressed with lovedrug in concert but the last album was great. so, if they are a better studio band than a live band then this album should be a keeper, too.

.beans.

some more random things...

2006-12-12T15:55:00.000-05:00

so, i basically work with social media sites (web 2.0, this guy is a 2.0 guru, and this site is really cool) in an attempt to create new marketing and pr initiatives via these mediums. i am exploring this role, as are many in the marketing/pr field as it is still a very "trial and error" strategy, some stuff works and some does not. hopefully, we can come up with more "hits" than "misses", i think we can...in fact, i'd have to say i'm pretty confident we can. i have some possible future stuff coming with clients that may or may not be in the works....

here is something that didn't work, and something that i, thank god, would never think of perpetrating:

Sony Takes It Up the Ass for Fake Blog

transparency is just so important that it can't be over-stated. i was a blogger first (albeit a very inconsistent one but a blogger nonetheless) and now i have a job in that arena, i'm not pretending to be a blogger, i just work as one now (and a myspacer, facebooker, digger, del.icio.us'er, feeder, etc...).

one of the biggest things that i have learned is that there is a tremendous amount of work that goes into the back end of these kinds of projects and can come out looking relatively small when put in front of clients and employers, or at least that's what it feels like (definitely with one of the sites which took me quite some time and is still very basic, however thats got to do with learning actual web design as i go). however, i can definitely feel myself beginning to think more creatively as my brain gets used to working in that way again after my insurance and non-profit stints. i like this.

anyway...

i know i mentioned judah johnson in my last post, but i really can't say enough. the whole album is really good and might be one of the best of this year (this may have inspired me to write a "best of 2006" post, but we'll see, we all know how that goes).

last night my emusic account refilled, so by this weekend i will be 130 songs "richer". here's to hoping i make some good choices.

songs that played:
seville - cold shoulder
764-Hero - loaded painted red
american analog set - where did you come from
one line drawing - candle song
maharaj - an insect (officially now some of the most unlistenable stuff that i won and i love it)
jeff buckley - mojo pin

actually, on this note, what do you guys think of the "last.fm recently played tracks" thing in my sidebar? does it help anybody feel like they know what i'm listening to at the moment? does it help anyone discover new music? it doesn't really fit over there size-wise and i don't have the time to go in and mess with the code, but if even 1 person likes it, then it shall stay.

falling horribly behind...

2006-11-27T16:46:00.000-05:00

as was pointed out on my wife's brand new blog in her comments section, i am now employed as a "blogger", so to speak, and should act as such. however, i am still in a content limbo and will most likely remain in such a state. so, for now, i will try to get back into things and write about life and music and other assorted things that only a few people actually care about.

the thanksgiving weekend was interesting, so here it is in "things i learned" format:

"emo" has lost all meaning to "kids", it is no longer the thing that i once loved and still do (in secret). apparently, the only way that the word "emo" is used nowadays is when it is followed by the word "fag"...which is pathetically disappointing on so many levels.
a 17-year-old confirmed for me my worst fear that i am now "the old guy that still acts young and thinks he's cool". how do i know this? i started to feel this way during a conversation with my wife's young cousin, so i asked... am i becoming "the old guy that still acts young and thinks he's cool"? the reply came, "yes". somebody sell me a burial plot. (this also relates almost directly to my first weekend learning).
black friday is not nearly as metal and cool as it sounds. i'll admit i was gung-ho about it; a little piece of americana that i had never experienced. 2 red bulls and a lot of standing in line later, i just needed a nap (i AM getting old). i did get some good jeans out of it though...
family rules, there are no other relationships like it. i wish that i had been as close to my grandparents as my wife is. i only have one left and i see my "grandma" maybe every other year when i can afford to fly to the UK.
long car trips with family do not rule. actually, that has more to do with the "long car trip" part than the "family" part.
rats eat plastic. why? i have no idea, but they do. how do they survive if they think plastic is food? answer me that.
my dog is awesome, many other dogs are not....that is all.
and last but not least, i learned that just when i give up on a season, the dawgs will come through; first auburn, now georgia tech...i am definitely more optimistic about next year than i was after the kentucky game.

my e-music account has been upgraded, so i am now at 65 songs per month...plus another 65 from, let's say, "an associate" with whom i have an agreement. anyway, here are some finds from that obnoxiously large amount of music that is now residing on an external hard drive that i purchased so that i wouldn't bring down my new macbook in one fell swoop:

Judah Johnson - Little Sounds
Antlerand - Now It's a Year

I am also really digging the new Brand New album, but they are too big to allow song downloads now...so go to their myspace and listen to Sowing Season (Yeah).

Also, local Atlanta band, Manchester Orchestra, who are good and play around town quite a bit, so maybe i will see you there....i'll be the one who looks a little more relaxed because i'm not the deer in the morning's headlights anymore.

.beans.

songs that played:
failure - stuck on you
braid - quarters
mineral - july
radiohead - (nice dream)
of montreal - knight rider
outkast - two dope boyz (in a cadillac)
brand new - the quiet things that no one ever knows
matt pond pa - fairlee

a new "yob" and a nice dip in the pool...

2006-10-25T16:28:00.000-04:00

while my updating at this blog has been, at best, woefully deficient. i have managed to parlay my prodigious blogging skills (????) into a new job with a pr firm (that is to say that i have somehow managed to completely pull the wool over their eyes and convince them that i am capable of things that i am clearly incapable of and would be obvious if they would just read this blog....hmmm, have i said too much?).

this also means that i am leaving the world of non-profits and jumping back into "corporate" America and, god, am i ever ready. however, in working for a small, indie PR firm i have managed to retain a fair portion of my soul, of this i am very grateful.

songs that played:

seville - sleep on my side
dillinger escape plan - jim fear
thunderbirds are now! - from: skulls

.beans.

watch and be amazed....

2006-10-11T09:18:00.000-04:00

this runs at just over an hour, but i may watch it 42 times.

Mineral - 1998 - Last Live Show

.beans.

list of shows that i may or may not attend...

2006-10-04T09:59:00.000-04:00

the bolded ones are the shows where you can definitely find me.

October
4 - The Hold Steady - Earl
7 - Mastodon – Masquerade (AM+C)
12 – Atreyu – Tabernacle
14 – Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Tabernacle
19 – Pet Shop Boys - Tabernacle
20 – Broken Social Scene – Variety Playhouse
20 - ICP - Masquerade
22 – Minus the Bear – Drunken Unicorn (MJQ)
23 – Minus the Bear – Drunken Unicorn (MJQ)
27 – The Decemberists - Tabernacle
28 – Thunderbirds Are Now - Drunken Unicorn (MJQ)
29 – The Album Leaf, Chin Up Chin Up – The Earl

November
6 - New Found Glory – Masquerade
9 - Reggie and the Full Effect, Cute is What We Aim For – Masquerade
9 – Panic at the Disco, Bloc Party – Hi-Fi Buys
14 – Cursive and Jeremy Egnik - Variety Playhouse
19 – Death Cab for Cutie - Fox
22 – Lovedrug, Brandston - Masquerade

no promises about show reviews as i made that mistake before and did not come through with anything. my blogging regularity can only be described as infrequent and disappointing... such is life.

songs that played while writing:
braid - capricorn
maritime - people, the vehicles
five eight - bad for us

.beans.

i like it, i really like it...

2006-09-20T22:36:00.000-04:00

self-described in a tongue-in-cheek manner as "straightedge texas softcore", there are a lot of things about this "band" (it's actually just a guy named Dan) that some (read "a lot" of) people will scorn...mostly the about about PlayRadioPlay! section of his myspace page.
personally, i care not. as some of you may remember from the very beginning of this blog, i grew up around a very strong "christian alternative" scene in and around Atlanta (this was before anyone called it the ATL) and the country and some of the best music that i own, and still listen to, came from that scene, both locally and nationwide.
devotion to a faith, just like to a girl (oh-so emo), and the emotions that go along with that make for honest and thoughful lyrics at times (even before Jeremy Enigk announced his conversion, the internal struggles created incredible poetry, don't even get me started on mineral).
a certain lack of gimmicky-ness is sorely missing in my music collection nowadays. he might be much younger than me and possibly still youthfully naive, but for the love of god he can write some great songs. dare i say he could give Ben a run for his money in his best Postal Service moments.

No apologies, i like it....done.

PlayRadioPlay!
- Madi Don't Leave
- Compliment Each Other
- Decipher Reflection

these are also the songs that played while i wrote this post.

this might call for a dig into my past in a later post, just to prove a point.

.beans.

could this really be happening again...?

2006-09-15T14:43:00.000-04:00

according to the website itshappeningagain.com, it actually is....well, happening again.

holy long list of expletives....this would be an uncredible experience.

(click image for larger view)

read more about it here.

TITR myspace page

new good music....

2006-09-13T15:10:00.000-04:00

i love hot water music therefore i love the new band that has been formed from bits and pieces of that band: the draft.

if you also like hot water music, then you will also like the draft.

do you see how beautifully simple my logic is, it is so beautiful in it's simplicity.

some people say my middle name is, in fact, "logic". others just call me "so-crates". i try to remain humble but the sheer amount of adulation makes it difficult.

so to all of you.... you are welcome. i will indeed keep bringing you delicious new music when i feel so inspired and it will remain brilliant in its delivery.

here is a bit of biographical info from the website:

Jason Black, George Rebelo and Chris Wollard had ventured out of suburban Florida with a focused purpose- turn a few chords and a melody into the most alluring and innovative sounds you've ever heard. Often mentioned in the upper-echelon of post hardcore with Fugazi and Quicksand, this trio made raspy vocals, odd time signatures, and awkward melodies a thing of beauty. Jason, George, Chris and new addition, Todd Rockhill performing under a new moniker- The Draft, continue pleasing crowds with hard hitting, prideful vocals and intelligent melody. At the peak of musical integrity the new name has rejuvenated the trio to a level unrivaled by past projects.

you can also check them out on their myspace page where you can also download some songs.

.beans.

songs that played during this posting time:

failure - segue 3
the decemberists - eli, the barrow boy
at the drive in - enfilade
planes mistaken for stars - scratching rounds

new release tuesday...

2006-08-22T10:06:00.000-04:00

the new cursive album, happy hollow, drops today on saddle creek records.

listen to these and then go and buy it at your local record shop.

cursive - happy hollow
- dorothy at forty
- bad sects

you can also stream the album at the top of this page.

also dropping today:

Paris Hilton - Paris Hilton

i would not suggest listening to and or buying this in any way, shape, or form.

Outkast - Idlewild

however, i would definitely suggest this album as it sounds like it could be interesting. listen to bits and pieces of it on their myspace page.

new post at WCP...

2006-08-21T16:14:00.000-04:00

like i said, if i'm gonna write about poker then it would probably be for Wicked Chops Poker.

so i did and have and you should go read it.

super robots of profit generation

i just ain't buyin' it...

2006-08-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

this clip looks horribly staged and is 10 mins long so i wouldn't blame you for not watching it.... apparently, Kelly Clarkson showed up at a Metal Skool (80's metal cover band) and was recognized by the band who asked her on stage and then got her to drink straight out the bottle, as it were, and asked to see her chubby bunnies, who wouldn't.
they correctly point out that the only reason she would be there is to create a more "edgy" image for herself. however, i have a better question: What in the hell kind of image is the lead singer for Yellowcard trying to create by hanging out with Kelly Clarkson?!?!? i won't make fun of him for going to see this show, because i would be there in a heartbeat, just his choice of weirdly drunk and make-up less company....actually, now that i think about it, i'm more disappointed in her for being there with him.

the best music video ever...?

2006-08-17T13:22:00.000-04:00

so this isn't high-budget Jamiroquai-style music video makin', but this is by far one of the best and most entertaining videos i have ever seen.... they definitely can't dance like Jay Kay but dammit it's brilliant! (at times it almost reminds me of the dancing in The Full Monty)

ok go - here it goes again

ghosts riding on my ship...

2006-08-16T15:58:00.000-04:00

so i sent out an e-mail to my group of fun-loving friends with a link to this article and also a link to some videos on youtube (including this one which makes me laugh a lot)....all to do with the "new" phenomenon sweeping the web that cites it's origin in a song by E40 in which he repeats the phrase, "ghost ridin the whip"...

this was the response i received from one of them. i never thought kids in/on/around cars could inspire such vitriol...

I love how silly reporters think they understand the history of names and trends and phrases when something "new" happens and all they did was look on wikipedia for their research.

Ghost riding is an updated version of car surfing, which has been going on for decades and has killed young people across the country.

Nope. Actually, "ghost riding" is when you take your bike and push it down a hill to see how far it would go and how it crashed. The name comes very obviously, form the fact that a ghost is "riding" your bike. Hence, ghost riding. And crashing is a given in ghost riding, not a maybe. That because ghosts are terrible at riding bikes and are very malevolent by nature. Seeking to completely destroy your bike because they hate you for not being a codemned soul and forced to walk the earth for eternity. Its a scientific fact and everyone knows that.

So, now we have ghost ridin the whip. Well firstthing, you don't ride a car. You drive a car. So ghost ridin a whip would mean there is a ghost ridin your car, i.e. there is an invisible ghost on top of your car. That is stupid. In that case, I am ghost ridin my truck out in the parking lot and really every other time something or someone is not on top of my car. But even then, maybe the ghost is on top of them. I would be still be ghost ridin. This is something completely different. Sure, some of these kids might ride on top of the car. Or get out and walk like 3 feet by their car or dance out of the window. There is no ghost "controlling" your car if you haven't left the front seat. And I know for a fact that ghosts don't show up for a couple of seconds of riding or driving or whatever, only for the longer trips that end in destruction. Now if you got on top of your roof while you the car is moving and there is nobody in the driver's seat, well that's another story isn't it. But something tells me there won't be many people doing that. Regardless, it wouldn't be ghost ridin or it would be ghost drivin because that is what the ghost would be doing, driving. So name it that or something else. Call it surfin the whip or ghost surfing or gay riding the broof. The real truth is, that this has nothing do with do with ghost riding, does it? Really, it is just an updated version of a chinese fire drill. Except the car is moving. Which I am sure has happened more than a few times by accident during a real chinese fire drill. And believe me that is a lot more scary than planning some sweet street moves with your boyfriends. But ghost and whip sound a lot cooler, don't they? So we'll let you have your fun for now and enjoy your Web 2.0 fame while it lasts. But guess what E40 and other rich high school kids with a video camera, if you want to do it right and be really "hard", you would just get out of your car and watch that mug go down a big hill and see what happened. Then, and only then, will you be truly ghost ridin the whip. Suckas.

one of my other friends then responded with the below video:

the final nail in the coffin....?

2006-08-16T12:15:00.000-04:00

so according to this site, i can brag about how much my blog is "worth" by posting the following graphic:

My blog is worth $1,693.62.
How much is your blog worth?

i feel very conflicted about this and whether or not this is something to brag about. seems like an awful lot of hours to pour into something for such little return....but then again if i could actually get that amount then i might consider selling. turns out my blog would be worth about $500 if that were the criteria....

i've looked at my friends blogs' and they appear to be worth about the same, some less and some a little more....so, i guess i can't really expect any more than that. however, i found a blog that some guy started about his car that's worth more than mine, that was kind of demoralizing. then again, i'm not really sure how the worth is calculated.

oh well, here are some songs and i'll see about getting back in the swing of this thing:

portugal, the man
- stables & chairs
- aka m80 the wolf
- tommy

video of lovedrug live at CBGB's: wma

brandston - today (smashing pumpkins cover, live at the fireside bowl)

please point me in the right direction...

2006-07-28T11:04:00.000-04:00

so i'm having some directional issues. i used to write exclusively about music, with some poker and college football thrown in; however, i found it entirely too draining of my time and energy to try and keep up with every single band that puts something out. i even found myself posting about stuff that i didn't even really like all that much, just to have something to write about. keeping up a regular posting schedule about music requires an enormous amount of time, not in the posting, but in the researching and listening and i only want to post about music that i've actually listened to and i don't spend a lot of time in the car and there's a lot of good tv to watch...
so now what do i do? as you can see i have sort of devolved into this random thought blog in which i post whatever comes to mind at any given time, with no direction or consistency of content.
this can be amusing for a while but i know that when i look for a good blog read i search by subject, not so much by author.....do i need a subject? i'm not so keen on reading about the random happenings in the life of someone i don't know, so why assume that my random life events are blog-worthy? i guess that begs another questions.... do i cater to those that already read this or try to attract new readers? is that effort futile in itself with the sheer volume of available reading and blogging nowadays?

i could try to go back to music and just post less-often but with higher quality (theoretically) but the most read blogs are the ones that update frequently.
I could be a local ATL blog but there are a bunch of good ones already.
if i'm gonna take the time to write about poker it would probably be for Wicked Chops...
plus my favorite college football writer just started a blog so that's pretty stiff competition....

what's my niche?

any ideas?

the answer will probably be music, my first love, with occasional randomness but i would still like to know what you think.

i may also go for a layout/format change pretty soon, maybe a new title bar design....i am up for submissions.

.beans.

some random things...

2006-07-24T11:02:00.000-04:00

give it a second to load, but worth it:

Zidane: A World View

i'm gonna be in vegas, aug 2-7 for some WSOP viewing and coverage with the boys (and my partial employers) from Wicked Chops Poker. if anyone reads this and wants to say hi in vegas, drop me a line, otherwise just look for the swarms of adoring blog fans following us around the whole time, or possibly just look in the bodog room.

then again my mom and wife won't be there and no one else reads this.... so, "hi, self. we should hang out in vegas while you're there. that would be rad".

also, anyone feel up to staking me? remember, i have a non-profit life... i feel like poker could be my way up out the....cubicle?

.beans.

quote of the day....

2006-07-21T09:23:00.000-04:00

the title infers that this will be a daily thing, but my readers (hi mom and wife) know better than that. i just happened to find a quote that i thought deserved mention:

"The guy who drinks the blood of his competitors did."

- Pat Forde of espn.com referring to which version of Tiger Woods showed up to play at the British Open.

over the top? yes
tiger bandwagon? absolutely (full discolsure: so am i)
drinking blood? awesome!

here's an mp3 to celebrate with:

3 inches of blood - deadly sinners

ways i kill time...

2006-07-14T10:17:00.000-04:00

so on top of e-mail, IM, myspace, and reading about the world cup, college football, music, poker, and assorted pr blogs, i've added another way to kill time at work...

officepirates.com

brief question: can anyone tell me how to embed a hyperlink into a pic? i have limited html code knowledge and would like to be able to add this trick to my repertoire...

what the crap...

2006-07-13T09:03:00.000-04:00

this is my version of a great cuban sandwich for the day... set aside 4:58 of your day for this.

they look so god-same like the same person....

this charming man...

2006-06-28T10:34:00.000-04:00

with over 5000 songs on my ipod and within the span of 1 hour, i have heard 2 separate covers of this charming man by the smiths.
if the original comes on any time soon, i think the world might end...
seriously, what are the odds on that?

update: apparently the answer is really simple (according to several q&a sheets for some WSOP press releases) the odds are 50/50, either it will play or it won't.

Q: what do you think your odds are of winning the WSOP?
A: 50/50, either i will or i won't

this answer came up more times than i care to describe...

so much to say...

2006-06-28T09:35:00.000-04:00

i do have a lot to catch up on. but have you ever noticed that the the longer you go without talking to someone or something (like this blog) it get's harder to update... it's just easier to talk to the person that you update on a daily basis than trying to catch up with the person you haven't spoken to in weeks.
usual conversation with that person...
"how's life, what've you been up to?"
"nothin, just the usual...sleep, work, eat, sleep, and then work more" (forced laughter)
"right on"
"yeah, nothing really big going on around here, just the same old"
"well, that's good"
awkward silence...

now, i'm not saying that it is better talking to the person you speak to on a daily basis, just easier. usual conversation with that person...
"what's up?'
"nothin', just hanging out"
"still recovering from last night?"
"yeah, but i had the best freakin' sandwich for lunch today"
"oh yeah, what was on it"
"it was a cuban and it had just the right mixture of pressed ham and cheese. it was perfect"
"nice, there's nothing like a good cuban"
"i know. hey, you playin' poker tonight?"
and so on...

it really boils down to feeling the need to talk about big, important things with the person you haven't spoken to in a while, whereas the minutiae in life is where the fun stuff normally happens....the obscure happenings that one experiences on a daily basis and that only get shared with the people you hang out with regularly. i become convinced that if i haven't spoken to you in a couple of weeks you don't want to hear about my awesome sandwich experience, that our conversation should be reserved for something deep and meaningful, when really it just needs to be....
it's sad and i don't like it, but i fall into that trap everytime. and then the communications get fewer and farther between because i'm not good at having a non-"important" conversation with my long-distance friends....and i feel like i sound stupid on the phone with nothing to say.

anyway, this blog is much the same. if i leave it for a few days, i feel like i need to come back with some spectacularly funny observation of a recent event, or a monstrously huge musical find, or an important breaking piece of news (does anyone read this for news? if so, i'm sorry). however, as with conversations with friends, i will try to not feel so burdened with my updates and just talk instead. most of the time people don't care what you have to say, just that you are talking to them or writing something for them to read during the horribly boring moments of their work day.

so, to all my friends...i will call you and i will tell you about my sandwich (which i did have yesterday and was f'in delicious) because i miss you all terribly and look back fondly on those days when you knew about my sandwiches.....or "we can make sandwiches".
and, to all of my readers (all 4 of you), you shall also know my sandwiches along with my musical finds and my humorous observations.

"and i knew you. the good and the bad. the days i recall being
wonderful. and i lost you. because i held it back. please tell me that
everything will work out fine. pictures taken fast. the proof that i've
known you. in albums stuck to bleach. but memories they'll keep."
- last days of april, the days i recall being wonderful

good god, i'm so freakin' emo sometimes...

songs that played:
christie front drive - about two days
maharahj - secret
phil collins - one more night
pedro the lion - to protect the family name
minus the bear - monkey!!!knife!!!fight!!!
jimmy eat world - for me this is heaven
braid - please drive faster (live)
my hotel year - key exchange

and also...

2006-06-19T14:20:00.000-04:00

one more additional weekend note.... nacho libre is hilarious, not in a laugh-'til-it-hurts-in-the-movie-theatre way, but in a napoleon dynamite/anchorman/zoolander see-it-several-more-times-and-quote-it-for-the-next-10-years-kind-of-way.
we went to the buckhead backlot theatre to see this movie because they serve you food and boozahol while you watch the film and we thought, "what a great idea! dinner and a movie all at the same time". not much you can do wrong with beer and wine (except urinate in it) but the food was terrible, so i would not suggest falling into the same "genius idea" trap that we did....if you live in atlanta and go to movies.
however, that night did begin our string of transvestite and aston martin spottings. 3 of each within 24 hours.
i would like some interesting thoughts on what the correlation could be between these two things....

this is your chance for redemption, let's get creative.

.beans.

songs that played:
old crow medicine show - i thought you could use a little southern comfort
spoon - small stakes
converge - dead
braid - bridge to canada

the weekend in review....

2006-06-19T13:58:00.000-04:00

as most of you may have noticed, i do not post on the weekends... i fully believe in lazy saturdays and sundays but usually end up busy beyond my wildest dreams (or nightmares). unfortunately, this leaves me with the daunting task of trying to catch up with the happenings on a monday morning while also trying to catch up with my work... i know, i didn't believe it as i was writing it either.

anyway, football notes since my last post:

- england looked like they were finally putting all the pieces together at the end. rooney pulled attention away from the others which led to a score. however, pull attention away from him and he'll score, either way works for me.
- the us played badly and over-aggressively, the italians played worse, the refs were even worse than that.
- france is not good this year, too many individuals, no team.
- brazil is showing some cracks but may not run into a team that can exploit them before they patch them.
- australia looks pretty good, i'd like to see them in the next round.
- ghana over czech republic, czech republic over usa.... doesn't take an SAT prep course to figure out the logical winner of usa : ghana.

oh, and due to the complete and utter lack of suggestions for downloads i had to go and do my own research and came up with some winners. look for reviews coming up shortly.

songs that played on my ipod while writing this post:
my little dog china - the velvis carnival
alkaline trio - hell yes
sorry about dresden - the convenience of indecision
pedro the lion - a mind of her own
sunny day real estate - waffle

wow, viva spain (i wrote spain because i couldn't figure out how to insert a tilde)...

2006-06-14T15:31:00.000-04:00

spain 4: ukraine 0

now that is how you win a game. a very impressive display of football prowess by the spaniards, especially david villa and xabi alonso. anyone who knows me, knows of my soft spot for all things spanish, so i was very happy to see this victory. maybe this year will be the year that they finally put all that talent together.

since brazil only beat croatia 1-0 does that mean that spain is better than brazil.... because croatia and the ukraine are basically the same place, right?

there is no "brazil" in team...

2006-06-14T09:29:00.000-04:00

i was incredibly underwhelmed by brazil's performance yesterday, 1 - nil over croatia is not an auspicious way to start a repeat victory campaign. yes, i understand that they got their 3 points and at least they didn't come from an own goal (like england's), but the expectations are much higher for this team. the question for brazil has always been whether they would would show up as a team or just a group of highly-talented individuals. yesterday, they looked more like the latter. some great individual flashes of brilliance but no real cohesive team playing. if they want to repeat and continue their string of world cup victories, then players like ronaldo, ronaldinho, and roberto carlos will have to start sublimating their own talents to the team ethos for the greater good. if not, they might just get rudely knocked off of the laurels on which they have been resting.

'"i know you can be overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed."...pause..."i think you can in Paris"'

5 points and gratuitous name placement on this widely read, much-linked, and infamous blog if you can guess the quote.

.beans.

in summary...

2006-06-13T14:14:00.000-04:00

well, i suppose that i asked for any number of smart ass answers if i ask such a broad question like "what music should i download"....

let's review the suggestions that I have received so far:

Dixie Chicks
Soul Asylum
Air Supply

now that's quite a range and the only band mentioned that I have ever listened to or owned anything of is soul asylum....and that was in 1994, but i really would like to listen to that again (black soldier, white fight/fill up the tank, let's go for a ride/sure like to feel some pride/but this place just makes me feel sad inside).
the dixie chicks suggestion just isn't very creative, and i think the fact that you remained "anonymous" shows that you know that, too....try harder next time.
however air supply is a brilliant pick as far as sarcastic answers go. old enough to be ironically funny and close enough to the mark to feel slightly uncomfortable, mainly because if an air supply song were to come on the radio, you would know every word or at least the chorus (even the nights are better/now that we're here together).... and by you, i mean me.

better answers:
rick astley - whenever you need somebody
tag team - whomp! (there it is)
now that's what i call music 10 (UK series) track listing (note: my parents bought me this to go with my first walkman, and includes the brilliant pogues' song fairytale of new york)

work harder people, this isn't a game.
i expect more.
smart-assedness is life.
if you're going to do it, do it right.

.beans.

"those are not spirit fingers....theeeeeeeeese are spirit fingers"

yikes...

2006-06-12T14:33:00.000-04:00

Czech Republic 3 : United States 0

there went all interest in soccer in this country...

any suggestions...?

2006-06-12T11:43:00.000-04:00

my e-music account is about to reload with my next 40 downloads..... any suggestions on what i should look for?

this is a what is on my "saved for later" list, anything strike you guys as "must haves" or "don't waste your time"? also, possibly expect some reviews in the next few weeks, possibly not:

Her Space Holiday - The Young Machines
The Mercury Program - All the Suits Began to Fall off
The Mercury Program - From the Vapor of Gasoline
Dirty on Purpose - Hallelujah Sirens (this is a definite review, this should be super-good)
The Appleseed Cast - Peregrine
Alkaline Trio / Hot Water Music - Split EP
King For A Day - Before I Go
Elf Power - Walking With the Beggar Boys
Enon - High Society
The Get Up Kids - Live! At The Granada Theater
The Blood Brothers - Crimes
The 101 - Green Street
The 101 - The 101
Statistics - Leave Your Name
Pinback - Summer In Abaddon
My Hotel Year - The Curse

.beans.

we'll take it...

2006-06-12T09:45:00.000-04:00

so, i know that england won by an own goal... but as the title of this post suggests, we'll take it. 3 points are 3 points no matter how you come across them. paraguay is not an easy team to play coming out of the gate. just need some fine tuning to the line-up and the game plan, and a little more fluidity between mid-field and the strikers and we're all the way to the final....plus it also gives rooney some more stress-free recovery time. if the game against trinidad and tobago goes as planned (although they were downright impressive one man down against sweden for the entire second half) and england can go into the game against sweden with 6 points, then rooney can just sit and recover until the round of 16 starts.
on top of all of that, turns out that the brewhouse (as i thought) is a brilliant place to watch the matches and i was joined by 6 of my good friends and 150 of my other closest friends at 8.45am. they put flat screens out on the patio and much fun was had by all.

seguing nicely from my mini soap-boax moment in the last post about indifference to "football" in the us, the boys over at wicked chops poker have written a much longer piece about said indifference and even included a hilarious and poignant e-mail rant that i received from FOB (friend of beans), crawford. go and check it out, if not for that reason then just the eye candy alone.

.beans.

so close...

2006-06-09T14:18:00.000-04:00

well, the opener of the world cup just concludeed and costa rica lost to germany 2:4. i was really hoping that costa rica could pull that win together, but germany played well. i was very impressed with the costa rica attack, wanchope showed himself to be a world-class striker.

anyway, the tourney really starts for me tomorrow. i will say that it is difficult being so excited about the world cup in a country that is so indifferent to this sport. all the begging and pleading won't get me out of work early on a friday (unless i take vacation time), but it will get the government and the rebels in the ivory coast to sign a one-month truce from one of the bloodiest conflicts in africa and pause presidential campaigning in latin american countries....sigh.

and apparently, getting up at 9am on a friday doesn't appeal to many of my friends, so it may just be me going solo.

go England!

in the most unlikely of places...

2006-06-08T09:34:00.000-04:00

apparently, i am so behind the curve on music nowadays that i had to go all the way to Costa Rica to learn about an album that i am really enjoying... thank you zach and carrie and the bumpy ride to playa avellana.

ac newman is also known as carl newman, the brilliant pop songsmith who fronts the new pornographers, but to me he is the guy whose album i found 2 years after it's release date and this causes me no end of shame. much has been said about his ability to craft pop gems as the singer of the afore-mentioned group, and this solo album, slow wonder, is no different.

you can stream or download clips of the whole album at his site and here are some full mp3's for your listening enjoyment:

::ac newman - miracle drug::
::ac newman - drink to me babe, then::
::ac newman - on the table:: (this is a clip of my favorite song on the album)

just for posterity's sake, here are some mp3's from the new pornographers

::the new pornographers - use it::
::the new pornographers - twin cinema::

response to comments on prior post...

2006-06-07T09:07:00.000-04:00

1. no, it is not cheating to cut and paste from an e-mail, if you wrote the original e-mail... it is still something that i wrote....your opinion is wrong.
2. thank you, we'll see if it's good to be back... being as how the critics were just waiting to pounce.
3. both ellipses and sarcasm are indeed back.
4. i am back to no caps, for some reason the auto-correct function worked for half of my last post....then stopped.
5. unfortunately, anonymous, in this case, does mean wife.... if you can't do it, criticize it. (buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn).

the real question is: who is "not my wife"? and while the answer would be "everybody else", i am curious... i thought her and my mom were the only one's that read this.

baby steps, just baby steps...

2006-06-06T15:52:00.000-04:00

i'm going to try and work my way slowly back into updating. i'm making no promises but i'll give it a shot.
i've been on vacation/work trips for a couple of weeks but i do have a new pc at work so now i have for-profit speed at a non-profit job which equals free time to post.
i'm also using performancing for Firefox, so it makes it a little easier to just click a button and update instead of logging in and other stuff.
i'm also considering making this more of a life blog than a 100% music/poker focused blog. those things are both part of my life but i think i will start discussing other things as well, since i really don't have all that much time every day to research new poker/music stories and posts.
i might even start posting some pics of my random days.

btw, 3 days and counting to the start of the World Cup. I was in San Jose, CR 2 weekends ago for work and they are going nuts about the first game. They play Germany in the opening match of the World Cup and are convinced that they can win as the underdogs. I'd like to see it happen. One of the people i met gave me a costa rica world cup t-shirt, so if i can skip out early on friday, i might just wear it and watch the game.

concerning the world cup:

I was not satisfied with any of the printable schedules that were floating around, so I made my own...i'm a dork. I will be endeavouring to make it to the England games for definite and as I work for an international organization, I expect them to be super lenient about such an international world-changing event....in other words, I will be getting to some of these games through any number of fake doctor's appointments and general, "bye, i'm leaving, England's playing" attitude. There are other games that appeal to me and I might try to get to, time and schedule permitting.
For those of you who might be in ATL and want to hang out. The fun and games (actual games) will start at 9am this Saturday morning at the Brewhouse in L5P when England plays
Paraguay. Yes, they will be open, the games is listed on their match schedule and according to their site "all games are LIVE". The crowd, I imagine, will be excited, but probably not hooliganistic, so no trampling of fans or collapsing pubs.

maybe i will see you there...

ok, now i'm really excited

2006-03-30T14:03:00.000-05:00

i just caught a myspace bulletin about a new thursday song, and although i wasn't overwhelmed by the previous single from the album... this is awesome. i mean it. awesome. with a capital "awe". the song is called "at this velocity" from the upcoming release a city by the light divided. very raw, ol' fashioned screaming, great breakdown, just really good.
click on the link below and then click on the album cover to stream the song.

// ALTERNATIVE PRESS MAGAZINE \\

i am now really, really excited about the thursday/minus the bear show mentioned in my last post...

.beans.

oh the places i'll go...

2006-03-09T15:06:00.000-05:00

here is a list of my possible concert schedule for this spring.... you should come by and say hi.

march 19 - thunderbirds are now - drunken unicorn
march 22 - straylight run - the loft
april 5 - death cab - tabernacle (actually sold out and i don't have tickets, any donations??)
april 8 - the sounds - masquerade
april 18 - criteria - masquerade
april 21 - still remains - masquerade
may 16 - thursday/minus the bear - the loft

see you around...

.beans.

new album...

2006-03-08T16:02:00.000-05:00

one of my favorite 80's tinged albums from a few years ago (huh?) was living in america by the sounds... a great, infinitely listenable mixture of synth pop and indie garage rock. if you haven't heard it, i would suggest it... it was a great summer album to ride around with the windows down.

the sounds have a new album coming out on March 21st, dying to say this to you, and it promises to deliver the same quality music and the same feeling for summer driving, especially with how nice the weather is in the atl right now.

go listen to the songs stream on their myspace page

for all you atl dwellers, they are playing at the masquerade on april 8. come dance your ass off...

.beans.

new thursday single...

2006-03-02T09:53:00.000-05:00

thursday has posted a new single on their site. a little bit of a departure from the screamo we all know and love from them, but starts to get catchy on the second or third listen. although, thinking about it, it is probably more in line with the musical direction they started in with war all the time. nonetheless, you should give it a fair shake and go catch them on their tour with minus the bear on the shirts for a cure tour.

come out on may 16th in atlanta at the loft and we can hang out.

****HINT: i couldn't get the media player to work correctly on the thursday page, so check the bulletin board under the "5-4-3-2-1" thread and you will find some links to a downloadable version of the song....if they are still working.

atlanta driving...

2006-02-28T13:11:00.000-05:00

if you have 5 minutes, this is quite an interesting commentary on what it's like to drive on I-285... (just click play down below)

phil collins, a mullet, and a warbling seagull...

2006-02-28T08:56:00.000-05:00

due to non-profit information technology, i have been blocked from communicating with the outside world during the day because all things went wrong with all computers here. needless to say, i am a couple of days late on this review...

show review:

Icons of the Underground
Dekalb Event Center
went to see: Second Shift
unfortunate enough to see: Midnight Ritual

in an attempt to fill an otherwise unexciting friday night with good music, we (me, wife, 2 good friends) decided to take a trip out to the dekalb event center to see second shift play a last second show. we looked up the directions and started on our way. 30 minutes, phil collins' greatest hits, and several loops around a strip mall that included a hispanic butcher later, we found the entrance to the dekalb event center, or atlanta live! as it is apparently also known. we parked with all the other cars and made our way to the box office window. having looked up the show online, we were expecting to pay the advertised price of $10 to get in the door, so we were all a little shocked to be asked for $16 a piece. "that's not what it says on the website, the site says $10", i said. "that's the advance ticket price", replied the guy behind the window. to which we replied, "ok, have a nice night", and turned to walk away. i had not even finshed my complete 180 before the "manager" (i assume this because he seemed to have some sort of authority to make deals) yells, "whoa, whoa, whoa. where ya goin?". "away", we reply. "why? what will it take?", he asks. at this point i am completely taken aback, having never negotiated, bargained, or bartered my way into a show before. thinking that the bands need to get paid, i always pay what i'm asked, so i am left stammering in my steps while my friend regains his composure quickly enough to state what should have been obvious, "we just thought it was $10". replies the manager, "alright, we'll let you in for that. i can't believe you were just gonna walk away..." (as if it were the most absurd thing ever). so we pay and in we go, or so i thought. in a night of concert firsts for me, i was patted down. now, i don't know what kind of shows i normally go to, but that has never happened to me before. it wasn't intrusive, just odd.
i hope you'll forgive the extensive background and description that is going into this review, but i'm finding it very difficult to portray exactly how strange this night was.
the space itself was enormous, not like in an auditorium/hall/theatre type of way but in a hotel conference center/ballroom kind of way. the walls were covered with white drapes with music notes projected onto them, with a bar lining each side wall and a bar all the way along the back wall (and based on the service, 1 bartender for the entire place). up front was the stage, set back into the wall, about 10 feet off the ground, a very grandiose positioning. but based on my pat down, it must have been that high out of necessity (very much different than the vibe at 10 high). in one corner of the room, there was a bed up on a stage with palm trees and a sign that read "Photos: $5.00", not even really sure where to begin with that. then dotted sporadically about the room were tall tables, with tall couches around them, with white tablecloths and candles. again, very odd vibe for a second shift show. we find a table to perch at, and begin looking around for any familiar faces, or even a familiar style of dress. we order some drinks and listen to dj sky, who put together a very interesting mix of old-school hip-hop that kept us fairly entertained for quite a while. oh, that and the drunk migdet looking fellow with the mullet who almost got beat up by every guy in the place for staring and then standing too close (6 inches at most) to the ladies that they were with.... fun. "wassa mattah, you godda prahblem wif me?", "no, just go back to your table", "wassa problem..." (stumble, fall).
what felt like 2 hours later, the first band came on... midnight ritual. as they took the stage, my spidey-sense was tingling that we might be in danger. the lead singer (female) was wearing a black leather mini-skirt with a white faux-fur vest and then matching white faux-fir leg warmers, the guitarist was wearing a purple velvet jacket, and the bassist had on a sleevless "spam" t-shirt. now, i'm not a fashion critic, but none of this adds up to anything good. normally any manner of dress can be forgiven if the music is right, unfortunately, there was very little redemption once they started playing. the music was a very weak stab at an indie-garage feel and the singer sounded like she was trying to imitate karen-o, but failing with the whole singing thing, plus karen-o just has an attitude and stage presence that you cannot duplicate. i wish i could say something positive, i usually try to, but there was just nothing. the faked attitude mixed with the bad music made them very unlikeable. they couldn't even give their music away, they tried, most people left it sitting on their tables.
after a break to switch out equipment, second shift took the stage.
the negatives: the sound system was obviously geared toward a more urban sound and at times the bass and kick drum were drowning out all other instruments, including the vocals. the height of the stage and the set up of the space did not lend itself toward a large amount of crowd participation which has a certain effect on a band in that they cannot feed off crowd energy as easily as they normally could, that and the crowd was standing 20 ft away from the stage and there were only 20 of them, everyone else remained seated.
the positives: every time i see baker and the guys perform, i am more and more impressed with how tight and solid they sound. they are performers and the music plays out well to a diverse audience. despite a lackluster audience, they put energy and effort into putting on a good show. the upcoming gig at the roxy on march 31st should be a barnstormer.

second shift left the stage and we left the dekalb event center....and listened to more phil collins. then we called it a night, a very strange, eventful, but ultimately satisfying night....and, thanks to a colorful cast of characters and second shift, worth every penny of my negotiated entry fee.

.beans.

taking the designs of our backs...

2006-02-24T11:37:00.000-05:00

if you like t-shirts and also cool designs then you should check out Threadless t-shirts. they accept t-shirt designs from regular folk and then they put them up on the web and have visitors to the site vote on them, and then print up a limited run of the winning t-shirt design. if your design wins you get $750 and $250 of store credit (about 16 shirts). you can also join a sort of "t-shirt of the month club" for $200 for a 12 month period, plus a $30 gift certificate when you sign up. so 14 shirts for $200.

anyway, if i could afford it, i would join. the designs are like the ones on the left here and pretty nifty as a whole.

.beans.

what's the word i'm looking for...

2006-02-23T10:28:00.000-05:00

be it vindication or redemption it doesn't really matter, because i won. weekly poker game went very well for me, all the way to the end (and 12:30am). i played a much better game and the luck went my way this time... and there was plenty of luck that came my way, i won't deny that.
that's all i have to say about that because i don't want to get yelled at for writing about this weekly event more than i apparently should be.

"...and i'm back in the game"

10 points for the movie quote.

.beans.

i'm ready for my close-up...

2006-02-23T10:20:00.000-05:00

so, earlier this year i made the joke that the mythical album chinese democracy would come out in 2006 just like i would get famous for writing this blog. turns out i may need to start looking for a manager and an agent, any takers?

leaked G'n'R tracks give fans hope - yahoo! news

of course, the tracks have been pulled down so i can't find them anywhere, i was a little behind the curve on this.

i still have mixed feelings about "buckethead" on guitar. wait, no i don't....it's a stupid gimmick, give me slash any day.

.beans.

everyone deserves a second chance...

2006-02-22T09:14:00.000-05:00

so i heard this song forever ago and dismissed it because i was pissed that the guy left taking back sunday for this gig. but i just reheard it the other day, and in all fairness it is a good song and really catchy. i think you guys will like it, its so totally emo.

straylight run - existentialism on prom night

(i don't care what you say, tell all your friends is and amazing album and i still listen to it a lot)

read all about it...

2006-02-21T15:54:00.000-05:00

a new article is up at WCP by yours truly...

my wife told me that i should stop writing only about poker stuff (especially the weekly game) on this blog and add more diverse postings... so i put up the music post below, not because she said so, but because i felt like it. really, it was.

so i bring it to the people: do you, like my wife, hate me?
is there any other subject on which you would like to me to spit knowledge at you? like a white, severely less-talented krs-one... "because he's droppin', droppin', droppin' science, droppin history. with a whole leap of style and intelligency"...

10 points for the song reference.

::beans::

making things with your hands...

2006-02-21T09:40:00.000-05:00

arts & crafts records seems to be much more than just a record label. they subscribe wholeheartedly to the D.I.Y ethic, but not in a "we can record in my basement and print our own flyers" type of way, but in a "we can host your website, design your album artwork, manage your band, and produce your album" kind of way. sort of a one-stop shop for all indie artist needs. and it appears to be working very well for them.
the canadian indie scene, especially in montreal, has exploded recently and has become the place to seek out "the next big thing", and arts & crafts is at the forefront of this movement. of course, not every band on the label is canadian (i.e. american analog set), but it is home to some of the best (in my opinion) canadian indie acts around at the moment. the label hosts each band's website and fan forums, as well as the usual tour date listings and merch shop. here is a description of themselves from their site:

Arts & Crafts is a record label, artist management, design house, distribution and production company... dedicated to the development and proliferation of beauty and greatness in all disciplines of the arts.
Our musical roster currently consists of Broken Social Scene, Jason Collett, Apostle Of Hustle, Stars, Feist, Valley Of The Giants, The Most Serene Republic, New Buffalo and The American Analog Set .

the label also has a very familial atmosphere as members from several of the bands play in several of the other bands, with broken social scene being the sort of an all-star band. my new favorite, and recent e-music download, is the album set yourself on fire by stars. i highly recommend listening to this and then downloading the album for yourself (along with anything else that is on my list). the album is sort of a folky space-pop, ranging from swirling guitars to horns and acoustic guitar and then manufactured beats. alternating male and female vocals give for a diverse feeling on every track.

::songs::

the best way to listen to the music is to click on any of the band links above and let it stream. flash players are making downloadable mp3's more and more difficult to find, so i apologize. it might just be that technology has finally defeated me.

the curse is over...

2006-02-16T11:29:00.000-05:00

no money for me at the weekly poker game, i finished on the bubble. however, there were some very positive things to take out of the game: i played better, finished better, and i went up against pocket jacks and WON!!! it was a horribly loose call with my K-10 offsuit but i just had a feeling. when i saw the pocket jacks i started packing up my stuff and cursing the stars under which i was born....but then a king hit and the rest is just folklore. on the negative side, i'm still spending more on poker than i'm making at the moment.... although i'm pretty sure i'm still ahead on all time winnings.

i need to update my most recent e-music download list, which i will do soon. within the next few days will be a label review for some really good music that exists in canada...

some ::songs:: for your perusal:

enon - shave
the new year - chinese handcuffs
!!! - hello? is this thing on?
tv on the radio - dreams
two gallants - las cruces jail
hot hot heat - bandages
saint etienne - lose that girl
boysetsfire - requiem (NEW!!!)
jonah matranga - lukewarm (formerly of onelinedrawing)

i don't even know what to say...

2006-02-09T21:38:00.000-05:00

taken down by a suckout jack on the river again in the weekly poker game. it really is getting ridiculous and a little scary how much one card in the deck is completely working me over. i've been trying to remain philosophical about it but i'm gonna have to start looking up spells or something that will ward off hexes and the like...

another post on WCP is coming up so go check it out...

you should take a listen to sharks keep moving it's good music, i like it a lot. very mellow with the occasional vocals. there are members of a lot of really good bands in the line up, kind of like an indie all-star jam band without any of the "neo-hippie" connotations that might come along with that. i don't even know what i'm saying... just listen to it. it will make you feel better.

here is the description from their website:

Sharks Keep Moving are a hard band to describe. They are one of the few bands that the whole "ex-members of.." title doesn't do them any good. With past and current members of State Route 522, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Minus The Bear, On Alaska, The Blood Brothers & Kill Sadie they put a lot of diverse sounds into the music, but lack the hardcore genre they left behind. The Sharks sound is different. With the best aspects of a modern indie rock band. They capture the artistic lyrics Jake Snider sings while playing the off beat and complex signatures they write as a whole unit. I often say they are what would happen if Don Cabalerro and Karate were mixed into one batch of goodness. What it all comes down to is you need to experience them for yourself. After a short break up, the band is back playing together, so expect nothing but great things for the future.

::songs::

sharks keep moving
- jet's jets
- logger
- try to sleep

anybody have any post suggestions or musical finds that they would like to share?

spreading the love....

2006-02-08T14:34:00.000-05:00

go check out Wicked Chops Poker where i will be contributing the odd poker story now and then, including this gem about....gems.

stay tuned here for more music stuff...

wholly inappropriate, but i couldn't stop laughing...

2006-02-08T13:13:00.000-05:00

unless you have a german sense of humor, do not watch this....

commercial for german eyesight stuff, or optics, or something:

a quick set of reviews...

2006-02-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

i have downloaded a bunch, but haven't listened a bunch, which seems backwards...

inkwell chaos reveals rhyme - picking up where he left off with my hotel year, travis (lead singer) is vocally much stronger and his pop sensibilities reside comfortably on his sleeve with his heart. this is poppy deliciousness with some guts. the glass is half awesome is my favorite song, so check it out. also visit them at their myspace page.

goblin cock bagged and boarded - what a brilliant name, and the album cover is great as well. this project features rob crowe of pinback fame and has a very unique sound. sort of a dirgy musical feel with his piercing tenor cutting through, makes for an interesting dichotomy.

portugal. the man waiter: "you vultures!" - formed from the remnants of anatomy of a ghost, portugal. the man borrows heavily from that sound and produces a very technical musical underlay with melodic, harmonious, and at times dueling, vocals. very good listen and highly recommended by this writer. myspace page.

in kind of an awkward position...

2006-02-06T11:25:00.000-05:00

my office was struck by a version of the kamasutra virus because we use non-profit virus software .... and i'm the de-facto IT guy in the office based on the premise that i know what a virus is at all, and that's not good.

quote of the week:
"i got an e-mail attachment that looks like it could be pictures from a contact of mine in russia and it is zipped. i've tried to open it a bunch of times but nothing happens. can you help me?"

2 hours later our whole system was f'ed...

all that to say that i haven't already bailed on my "frequent posting" commitment, i've just been wholly preoccupied with trying not to lose all of my files, which failed.... i lost all of the files on my c: drive.

the network drives did survive so i'm back at work, yay (sarcastically).

more of our regular content to follow.

::beans::

just when you though there was nothing good on television...

2006-01-31T14:34:00.000-05:00

the travel channel, home of the current WPT season, has agreed to air the new Professional Poker Tour (PPT). looks like both sides finally got over themselves and their pending litigation and agreed that they would both make an obscene amount of money if they set their minds to it.
i'm actually not opposed to another poker show. i can only watch reruns of the same WSOP and WPT tourneys so many times before i start quoting the players along with the telecast... which kind of takes most, if not all, of the fun out of watching poker on tv. maybe i should play more live games instead of living vicariously through the players on tv... hmmm.

here are some excerpts from the press release:

After finalizing the deal, both organizations issued the following statement: “WPT Enterprises
and The Travel Channel are pleased to announce that they have resolved their differences
amicably and terminated the litigation between them. Both parties look forward to continuing their mutually prosperous relationship.”

“This deal allows Travel Channel to feature 44 weeks of premiere episodes of WPT and PPT
programming each year, which is great for poker fans who have asked for additional premieres, and really bolsters our ‘Wednesday Night is Poker Night on the Travel Channel’ platform,” said Pat Younge, an executive vice president and general manager of Travel Channel.

“The WORLD POKER TOUR created the televised poker boom, and the PPT is the perfect extension of that franchise to bolster our position in the marketplace,” said Steve Lipscomb, President, CEO and founder of WPT Enterprises, Inc. “The WPT is the first legitimate televised sports league in history that lets the viewer at home come play with sports greats. And now, when you play in WORLD POKER TOUR events you don’t just have a shot at life changing money and instant television stardom. Win a WORLD POKER TOUR event and you immediately get a three year ‘tour card,’ allowing you to compete in PROFESSIONAL POKER TOUR events. With the PPT, you get a shot at living the professional poker player lifestyle.”

The PPT pits the top 200 poker players in the world against each other week after week. Like the PGA, you have to qualify for a tour card on the PPT – through success on the WORLD POKER TOUR, the World Series of Poker main event or other distinctions including membership in the Poker Hall of Fame. With $2.5 million dollars on the line each season and the pride of every poker great on the line, this show will help define the future of the sport. The new series features high production values, detailed story-telling and expert analysis from two-time World Series bracelet winner Mark Seif, and actor/poker enthusiast Matt Corboy. And, the all-new PPT format transports the viewer into the seat for every step of each PPT tournament. The format provides an unprecedented look into the art of tournament poker – played by the best in the business with nothing between them but chips and felt.

The five tournaments for Season One of the PPT were filmed at some of America’s true palaces of poker, including: Foxwoods Resort Casino (Mashantucket, CT); Commerce Casino (Los Angeles); Bay 101 ( San Jose, CA); Bellagio (Las Vegas); and The Mirage (Las Vegas).

text of the official press release from the WPT: PDF version

::beans::

when at last the animals need feeding...

2006-01-30T14:40:00.000-05:00

so if you have been reading this for the last year or so (that might apply only to my wife and mother...), then you might remember the "emo geek revelation" that i kept building up to and never revealed.... kind of like musical blue balls (sorry mom).
well, now is that time...especially with my newly found dedication to frequent and often updates.

chris simpson is not a name that will immediately jump out at you as someone you have heard of in connection with the best lyrics ever written or some of the best music ever recorded. i could probably even mention his newest effort, zookeepers world, and there would still be no more of a flame of recognition than before. but if you like the kind of music that i do, then you have heard and probably adored some of his earlier work. when i start to mention names like mineral and the gloria record, that glimmer of understanding begins to get stronger and stronger as you remember songs like parking lot and grain towers and telephone poles...
zookeepers world is a continuation of this legacy of thoughtful, provoking, and beautiful songwriting. following his ever deconstructing sound (from mineral's churning guitars to tgr's layered atmospheric orchestrations), the songs that can be found so far are of the stripped down singer/songwriter style with the occasional accompaniment by piano and drums. the one constant throughout all of his work has been his distinctive, emotive vocals and they are ever present in these songs and still carry every ounce of emotion that they always have...
i never got to see mineral live, but i did see tgr in athens, ga (caledonia) and in atlanta (the earl)....and i will wait patiently for him to come to atlanta again, or just catch a ride with someone to austin, tx where he plays almost weekly....(anyone going?)

the "about me" section on the myspace page reads:

Zookeeper is the name Chris Simpson has chosen for whatever new musical endeavors he is undertaking. Chris Simpson used to be that guy in Mineral and The Gloria Record. Chris Simpson might have considered using his own name for his new music, but there is already a pretty amazing Christian R&B guy using the moniker. Chris Simpson, the Christian R&B guy's records can be found at pretty much any internet music site. Zookeeper currently doesn't have any records, but please enjoy these works in progress. Thank you for your time.

::songs::

like i said there are only a few songs to be found, and they exist in stream only versions on the zookeepers world myspace page.
if you live in austin, tx then go and see him play at any of these upcoming show dates.

::beans::

between jacks and a hard place...

2006-01-27T09:43:00.000-05:00

"that's poker" was the mantra that accompanied my catastrophic demise at the weekly poker game and the phrase that every player, be it amateur or professional, has uttered or heard countless times when faced with the improbable "suck out". however, i feel that my battle with this particular card in the deck is more than just some fatalistic occurrence, but something more along the lines of a cosmically ordained punishment, my own personal level of hell occupied by the scourge of playing card royalty, the jacks. what to do with jacks? this is my quandary. yes, they are considered "paint", but the weakest version. if i find two of them in my hand pre-flop, i try to bet high and push out anyone who might be able to catch a better hand on the flop. if they turn up in my opponents hand, i lose all of my money... all of it, and this is the truth, no exaggerations here.
last week, after a run of bad cards, i ended up with all of my chips in with Ah-9h against, wait for it...pocket jacks, and i lost all of my money, all of it, see?
fast forward to this week and my cards, my playing, and my chip stack were much better. i had a dominant stack 5 handed and was patiently biding my time and getting into and out of hands with no great expenditures on my part. the blinds were at 150-300 and i'm sitting in the big blind. i look down at 8h-9d and watch as UTG folds, second to act calls, then a fold, small blind calls, and with a relatively weak hand, i check. the flop comes rainbow Q-10-J.... yahtzee, i've flopped a made straight. at this point, i'm pretty sure there are no A-K hands out there as i would normally expect a pre-flop raise with that kind of hand, so i decide to slow play and check my straight after the small blind checks. fourth to act then raises, small blind folds, and i take a look at my opponents stack and raise enough to put him all in, $1550 in total. he thinks about this for a while, during which i put him on maybe top or middle pair, he hit the Q or J. eventually, he calls...i turn over my straight and he holds onto his cards which is fine with me because i can see the despair in his eyes. the turn comes J which does not cause me any great concern because a set does not touch me. then the river, another J hits.... at this point i need to see my opponents cards, especially with a full house possibility out there. he turn over Ks-Js (a little bit of a slow roll but i'm too stunned to notice at the time)....you have got to be kidding me, quad jacks? that is when the room started spinning.... from that point on, i was beyond tilt, i was upside down and even though i still had a decent stack , it felt like i was the small stack at the table after that beat. i ended up about 5 hands later with all of my chips in the middle with A-J offsuit. i ran into an A-Q held by a bigger stack. could i catch a jack to stop my tilt? of course not... and so i ran screaming from the room tearing at my eyes trying to rid them of the image of runner-runner jacks (ok, i made that part up).
i feel like i might have been more philosophical had he caught an ace to make a higher straight, but quad jacks? it still burns me after a couple of nights of sleeping it off, can you tell? i was a 2 to 1 favorite...
but as everyone to whom i have related this story says, "that's poker".

hey lady, there's a big fat whale in your boat...

2006-01-26T15:05:00.000-05:00

let's go sailing hails from LA and produces a wonderfully dreamy, piano driven, space pop sound that soon finds you gazing wistfully out of the window of your downtown highrise wishing for a field to lie in and warm sunshine... sorry, carried away...

anyway, i guess the best way to describe them is to let them do it themselves:

"Let's go sailing is full of rainbows and fairies. But it also has a darker side...It is full of lost and neglected stuffed animals found at the side of the road."
In November of 2002, Shana Levy left Irving to pursue Let's Go Sailing. She asked friends Tanya Haden, Nikki Monninger, Brent Turner and Byron Reynolds to work on an album's worth of material and soon enough they began recording on a demo with Chris Chandler (Flaming Lips/Modest Mouse/Elliott Smith) and Rod Cervera (The Rentals/Weezer). The recording process quickly gained momentum and, with the help of Chris, Jim Putnam (Radar Bros.), and Ben Mumphrey (The Pixies/Frank Black), they decided to make a hi-fi record independently. The result is the 11 song LP "The Chaos in Order." A limited self release of 3 songs from the cd is available on the website and at independent record stores in Los Angeles including Amoeba and Sea Level Records.

according to their site, there is an lp due out in spring '06. let's hope that this will propel them outside of california and possibly to the east coast.... might i suggest atlanta?

::songs:: (all stream only)

- all i want from you is love
- heart condition
- better off

(ed: i would post the files, but i think that you should go here and pay $5 for their ep and support local music....so, nah)

you can also visit their myspace page.

many thanks to my good friend michael "the nubs" for discovering the song and to "the wife" for finding out who sings it...

::beans::

i heard "chinese democracy" is coming out this year...

2006-01-24T15:14:00.000-05:00

and who knows, this time it might be true:

Axl breaks his silence (Rolling Stone)

right, and i'll get famous from writing this blog...

my apologies...

2006-01-21T12:24:00.000-05:00

as was pointed out, the white octave song links in my previous post are only samples... sorry about that i didn't realize that they were. deep elm has started doing that lately, which is disappointing (not that they don't have every right to do that, just a personal disappointment).
but you can now stream the entire album on their website:

white octave on mywire.org

turn off your pop-up blocker... if you want to do that.

with the best intentions...

2006-01-20T10:08:00.000-05:00

since i plan to be updating more often, i now have an RSS feed that any of you crazy aggregator types can subsribe to....

http://sotherewewere.blogspot.com/atom.xml

it will also now be on my sidebar for future reference.

any thoughts on whether or not i should drag myself kicking and screaming into the 21st century and join myspace?

oh the cards, damn the cards...

2006-01-19T13:49:00.000-05:00

i couldn't catch a decent hand to save my life last night, and if i did i couldn't get any action on it...just terrible. i made it to the final table but that was just barely by the skin of my teeth. the hand that did me in was the best i had seen all night. blinds were at 150/300 and my stack was right at 1750. i was sitting in the big blind and look down to find Ah-9h. we were 7 handed and first to act folds, second to act (big stack) raises to 650, then everyone folds through the small blind to me. i raise to 1200 and 4th position (now my arch-nemesis) quickly goes all in so i had "no choice" but to call. he flips over pocket jacks, i catch nothing and then start sobbing into my supplicating hands. needless to say, a frustrating end to a frustrating night....yarrrrrr.

after last night, i'm thinking about changing games and playing a lot more california hold 'em.... what, you haven't heard of this? then just wait 'til my twelves bust out your elevens!! ....seriously, wait, it will happen, soon.

::beaner::

i have been gone for oh so long...

2006-01-18T09:34:00.000-05:00

but i have listened to a lot of music and played some poker. i didn't get rich while i was gone because you have to spend money to make money, blah, blah, etc... however, i did fairly well...placing second behind a good friend in the weekly poker game hosted by WCP . i will also now be playing in this game a little more regularly and hopefully getting into the points system that determines winners for each "season" of play throughout 2006. i will keep you updated on how that goes... winning is everything though, i need a bankroll to keep playing.

as far as music goes, the best thing that i can tell you to do right now is to go and sign up for e-music (seriously, not just for my benefit...for your own wallet's) and download all of the music that is listed on my sidebar under "most recent downloads".... seriously, i can't help you if you don't help yourself....like god, only with music and not anything else.... oh, and i also own your soul.

most importantly, get the latest album by criteria, when we break.

rising from the ashes of one of my personal faves, the white octave (which itself finds its roots in another stalwart of my collection, cursive), criteria takes the white octave sound and smooths it out a little and then plows forward. their first release, en garde, as their website puts it, was "criminally overlooked", but what they did get was attention from indie powerhouse saddle creek records. their follow-up LP, when we break, was realeased in august to critical acclaim and saddle creek has re-released en garde as a result. listen to it, its good, i promise.

"i'm stuck in a basement world..."

::songs::

from en garde
- it happens
- me on your front porch

from when we break
- prevent the world
- run together

::other related tracks::

the white octave - style no. 6312
- appeals for insertion
- call the kiss
- style no. 6312

cursive - such blinding stars for starving eyes
- retirement

(ed: cursive has gone on to bigger and more brilliant things, but this album was the only LP put out with Steve Pedersen on guitar, who later went on to form the white octave and criteria)

support independent music...

2005-12-16T18:49:00.000-05:00

as you might have gathered, i am now a huge fan of the online mp3 site, emusic.
the genesis of this infatuation came from a conversation with a friend who told me that he had just signed up for a site that gave him 50 free downloads to keep during a trial period and then 40/month for $9.99/month. i kind of took this as a "if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is" kind of thing. but my curosity was piqued so i checked it out. at first i was convinced that it was some kind of subscription service like napster or rhapsody. i looked and looked through the "terms and conditions" but found no such strings, and it looked like there were no usage limits or proprietary encoding. (at this point i probably sound like a paid endorser, but i'm not). so, i started looking for music to see what kind of choice i had. i found a lot of stuff, in fact, most of the music that (if you read my sidebar) was stolen previously. all of the music is from independent labels, so pretty much right up my alley...and i found a lot of stuff in that alleyway. so i signed up for my 50 free downloads, 5 minutes later i had 1 left. so then i activated my first month's subscription and i now have 2 total downloads left and 30 days to wait until my account reloads OR i can buy a 50 download "booster pack" for $14.99....which will probably happen here pretty soon... 88 downloads in about 15 minutes, that's some sort of record.
so, needless to say i am now up to my elbows in music and will need to buy a bigger ipod soon....i do accept donations for this worthy cause.
also, on my sidebar under the "recently purchased" section will now be a list of emusic albums that i have downloaded.
if you decide to try this out, even the free trial, click on the banner on my sidebar...i get more downloads if you do that.... yay for me!

peace.

happy holidays....

2005-12-16T12:17:00.000-05:00

i saw this picture and i liked it..... so happy holidays.

wwfsmd...

2005-11-29T14:17:00.000-05:00

i don't know why it took me so long to share the good news...

for more truths and the complete story, visit:

www.venganza.org

and to all of those who believe that pirates really can save us from ourselves, i say:

yarrr

check it out...

2005-11-28T11:51:00.000-05:00

i stumbled across these guys today and thought i might share them with all of you. hailing from Echo Park, CA, they have a couple of ep's out and just signed with The Militia Group. sort of a garage-esque jangly sound with good harmonic guitar parts overlaid and vocals very reminiscent of one of my personal faves, red animal war. look for their first full length out on said label in mid-2006.
here are some songs:
- detox
- the easy life
- same as it was

and mainly because i started thinking about them, not for comparison sake:

the first full length, breaking in an angel, was put out on Deep Elm and i have since been smitten. taking their name from a line in the book red badge of courage, these guys play smart, angular rock with heart-on-the-sleeve post-hardcore breakdowns that punctuate the songs lending intensity to already emotionally-charged compositions. the intelligent and insightful lyrics are conveyed with distinctive and urgent vocals. i would recommend any album by these guys, but especially Breaking in an Angel, their first and most raw effort.

from Breaking in an Angel
- weak bones may break
- hope

from Black Phantom Crusades
- still
- right now, today, i don't believe in hell

from Polizida
- satellites
- mexico

if everyone jumped off a cliff...

2005-11-11T15:10:00.000-05:00

the boys at wicked chops wrote about this first, but i would also like to put in my 2 cents....or 2 pence in this case.
according to the BBC, the UK is looking at banning all internet poker ads that induce people to gamble, as in offering free entry into tourneys and free grand prizes like cars, trips, and other assorted awards. "why?", you ask, because they do not want to encourage people to start down the road toward a gambling problem.
now, i understand that gambling can become an addictive habit, like alcohol, smoking, or narcotics...all of which have their respective "anonymous" clubs, gambling included. this is a touching concern for the UK govt. to have for its citizens, and commendable, too ... if it weren't so hypocritical.
the national lottery in the UK is much like the lotteries you know and love in the US, you buy a ticket (there's a bunch of ways to play) and there are drawings or scratch-offs....and it has its own tv show...on tv, where ads run (or adverts), in between the parts of the lottery show. people watch this show, where the amount of the prizes are shown and inducements given for playing the lottery, and then spend their hard-earned money on a chance, nay, a gamble, that their ticket will come up a winner. tv > inducement > gamble > gambling problem ... does this not follow the same formula that the govt. accuses the poker industry of following?
it would appear that the state is allowed to induce you to gamble, but no one else is ... especially if the gambling requires skill. one assumes that you just cross your fingers as the logo suggests, instead of using your brain.

question: if the state is trying to protect you from yourself, who is protecting you from the state?

my feet literally haven't touched the ground....

2005-11-10T14:57:00.000-05:00

...for the last few weeks. i can't even begin to explain how instupituously busy i have been. needless to say that we are now homeowners (in debt up to our eyeballs) and more well-travelled than we were before.
the weekend to start the madness was like the movie four weddings and a funeral, only with just 3 weddings and no funeral, so it would be more like a sequel: more weddings and a wedding then a conference. minneapolis followed by denver and then big canoe.
then a day later i went to sao paulo, brazil for a week to a non-profit conference that we organized. i would like to tell you about the city and its urban sprawl and overwhelming poverty, but all i saw was the hotel, the conference center, and the inside of my eyelids.
...or was it...
there are some of you who might appreciate this - it was about 12.15am one morning and i had just returned to my room where i turned on the tv in the hopes of having it lull me to sleep. as i was flipping through the channels, i saw a familiar face....i thought and looked more closely and sure enough it was a very young looking Mark from the upcoming season of the Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Gauntlet II and several previous challenges. the premise appeared to be that a hitchhiker had stolen his truck and wallet and so he himself was hitchhiking, some guy picked him up and picked him up and after 30 seconds of conversation offered him a job as a lifeguard at the santa monica beach club. he arrived, blah, blah, blah, bad plot, stupid movie...falling a..sl..eep...him and woman walking to jacuzzi.... then all of a sudden its all asses and elbows, and i'm wide awake. some of you might point out that i should have seen this coming, but i was tired so leave me alone. anyway, that prompted a quick channel change (lest it somehow show up on the hotel bill even though i never pressed any buttons, i swear, i think Cine Action becomes Cine Erotica after midnight) and a note to self to tell the wife....because she likes Mark and its fun to crush people's perceptions of other people.
i really am truly sorry that this is the best story that i have to tell after so much time off, but other stories would be work-related or inside jokes, and that's just not cool.
anyway, i just got done with the madness and am moving this weekend into the new ITP (for ATL people) residence, where i shall be able to again live a normal life and have extra time to write and look for music.
unfortunately, i have had no time to look for or buy new music although the list is getting longer of bands to check out and music to buy, beg, borrow, or steal.
i'm open to suggestions for music and anything else you might like to suggest to me....please keep in mind i'm not very flexible.

some tracks that have nothing to do with anything:

last days of april - i'm calm now
antarctica
- absence
- full crescent crusade
dntel - life is full of possibilities
starflyer 59 - wake up early
bear vs. shark
- 5,6 kids
- the great dinosaurs with fifties section
- seven stop hold restart
joan of arc - white out

::beaner::

cause and effect....

2005-10-18T11:37:00.000-04:00

so i first remember hearing about Reggie and the Full Effect when their album promotional copy came out, mainly because it was so good and so weird in so many ways. it came out when emo was burgeoning right around 2000 and some of the songs were awesome post-punk power pop masterpieces with tguk and anniversary-ish keyboards, some were more like an emo Adam Sandler. my memory is not always what i would like it to be, but i don't remember not thinking that "Reggie" was the keyboardist from tguk. however, apparently there was this whole "thing" over his real identity that i just found out about, whatever. the band consists of James Dewees (the keyboardist and one-time drummer for seminal hardcore band Coalesce) and that is it, just him and his weird sense of humor.
the song that caught my attention back then was called "dwarf invasion", it was written about, well, a dwarf invasion. the lyrics went something like this:

" (hoch hoch.....[repeated many times in background])
hallo americans
this is claus from common denominators
that's the band you are listening to right now
we are from finland
this is our debut album here in america, das grund
this is the dwarf invasion blah
one two three four
you are not my friend
you are my foe
you are two feet tall
you have got to go
this is dwarf invasion (dwarf invasion)
dwarf invasion (dwarf invasion) (dwarf invasion) (dwarf invasion)

shut up dirk
this is not a friend
you are very small
you can barely stand up to me
you can't play basketball
this is dwarf invasion (dwarf invasion)

thank you very much for having us in your country
we'll see you next year
goodnight
go back to the room
go back

so not the most serious thing i have ever heard, but it was funny and the rest of the album was good.
reggie fell off my radar for a little while during the time that screamo and other harder versions of this music occupied my music listening hours, and, to be honest, stuff that was less of a joke and more serious.
pick back up in the present day and i just heard i song from their new album Songs Not to Get Married To on Vagrant that i really like. apparently he just got a divorce, hence the name of the album, and the new stuff is a little different than it used to be, here is a quote from the man himself:

"This is my new record. It is a little less silly than the last three, but I recently got divorced and lost everything so I don't have much to celebrate these days. However, I am still a happy camper, just single camping now. I hope you enjoy the new record and if my ex-wife is one of those unknown people who gets one of these bios…wow, you scored hella good huh?"

so, yeah... there's no bitterness there. a little more of the Coalesce side of him comes through in some metal-ish songs, but there are also some pop gems included.
anyway, all of that to say that i liked the song and thought that you might also enjoy it, so here you go:
- get well soon

and some other songs from the new album:
- what the hell is contempt?
- what the hell is stipulation?

and an old song just for the hell of it from promotional copy, mainly becuase i can't find the dwarf invasion mp3 anywhere on the whole wide worldwide web:
- from me 2 u

::bye bye::

i just couldn't stop laughing....

2005-10-13T09:46:00.000-04:00

i found out this morning that one of my good friends (who i love dearly) is thinking of getting a new puppy. when asked by my wife what breed, she replied "a golden doodle".... dead silence on my end while this was being relayed to me. i finally broke down and asked what a "golden doodle" is and was directed to www.atlantagoldendoodles.com . apparently, this is a mix between a golden retriever and a poodle. i did some research and found a link to www.goldendoodles.com, where i also found a breed called a "labradoodle".
let the hilarity ensue....
in light of my recent discovery of these cross-breeds, i have some suggestions for other crosses that might involve the ubiquitous poodle:

weinoodle
rottwoodle
shitzoodle
st. bernoodle
great doodle (the mechanics of this breeding session would be mind boggling)
australian shepoodle
chihuawoodle

i also found this quote on www.goldendoodles.com:

"The size of the Dood depends on its parentage."

it just seems so obvious that the parentage having something to do with the size of the ... oh wait, they didn't, did they? they did...

what happens if you get a golden shower from a golden doodle?

out of necessity...

2005-10-12T21:31:00.000-04:00

so now that my favorite poker blog/news site has my blog linked on their page, i feel compelled to update and post more...also i just wanted to.

Brunch for the Bayou - this was a great event and in its entirety (auction, poker tourney, donations, etc) i overheard someone say that they were going to clear about $50k for Operation: Home Delivery and Habitat for Humanity. the tourney itself went well (mostly because i was the tourney director, ahem) and was won by Sammy "killer" Reid, go here for a complete update.

i was watching steven's untitled rock show on fuse while doing something else that needed decent background music and as i was about to turn off the tv and head to bed and i hear the opening notes of one of the best songs ever written... "seven" by Sunny Day Real Estate. in high school (when the album diary came out) my parents didn't pay for MTV so i never got a chance to see this video on alternative nation or 120 minutes, and believe it or not this was the first time i had ever seen it. it was low tech brilliance at a time before internet and digital editing on home pc's... i salivated over every second of it, and marveled at how young Jeremy looks, especially with the nose ring. ahhh, the good old days. i listened to the whole album on my hi-tech ipod today and loved it again. i could almost close my eyes and be back in high school.

i just followed a bunch of links while looking for links and spent a lot of time reading old forums and message boards from when SDRE broke up what seems like a milion years ago and then got back together....all of that to say that i have used up all of my blog time this evening.

there is more to write about, but that will come at a later date...i promise.

let's make this short and sweet...

2005-09-23T13:50:00.000-04:00

when it comes to reviewing albums, i'm not very good at the superfluous flowing descriptions of the sound contained within a record. the stuff that usually ends up not telling you anything at all about whether or not you will like the album, just leaves you with an adjective overdose.
so my new addition to this blog will be short/sweet album reviews that will tell you if i like the record or not, and that is it. of course, you then would have to trust my judgement which is your own decision anyway. i like what i like and can't be held liable for an album that you buy and don't like....although i'm sure that i will end being sued by a disgruntled reader for misleading album reviews...
also keep in mind that i don't have unlimited funds or labels sending me stuff to review, so i have to buy albums that i think i will like to start with, so a lot of my reviews will be positive.... unless someone, or a label, wants to provide me with material for reviewing ..... (anyone, hello?) in which case, there would be negative reviews to balance out the glowing reviews, presumably.
on with the show:

minus the bear, menos el oso, suicide squeeze (2005)

"brilliant. buy it if you like the old stuff, buy it if you've never heard it....just listen to it."

statistics, often lie, jade tree (2005)

"awesome. the whole album. start to finish. emo-tronic."
(i already talked about this band, see below, and i might copyright the name of my new sub-sub-genre so back off)

death cab for cutie, plans, atlantic/barsuk (2005)

"spectacular, just absolutely spectacular. no major label letdown, just more of the same beautiful songcrafting."

that is all for now, or at least until i can buy more music.
later...

the numbers don't lie...

2005-09-20T10:21:00.000-04:00

statistics ::

hailing from Omaha and the scene that has produced so much incredible music recently, Denver Dalley is one hell of a one man band. the guitarist and co-songwriter of the much-lauded band Desaparecidos, and oft-overshadowed by the wine drinking, Wynona Rider dating frontman, Conor Oberst, Denver has begun to cast his own shadows as the impoetus behind statistics. he plays all instruments (with a little help from some friends on a few tracks) and writes all songs, and does both of these very well. the music is straight-foward rock with some electro-pop influences and nostalgic guitar work that starts as a one would think a singer-songwriter would start an album, soft strumming and picked guitar with soft vocals ... then in comes the drums and the bass and the rock. dynamically varied and musically delicious, i love this stuff. this is what i have come to expect from middle america, from the early-90's through to today, solid and refreshing music that consistently helps to define the genre. get these songs and then turn up the volume and bask in the glow of all that is good in music:

- final broadcast
- reminisce
- another day

(*buy* the new album often lie from Jade Tree Records)

check out some other tunes from Jade Tree Records:

the loved ones - the loved ones
strike anywhere - chorus of one
despitado - burning house
breather resist - a social worker's nightmare
onelinedrawing - we had a deal
jets to brazil - resistance is futile
the promise ring - why did we ever meet

these are crazy, crazy nights... oh yeah...

2005-09-16T10:56:00.000-04:00

so sorry to have been gone so long .... there has been a major family emergency, a brother with bruises on his brain, and house contracts falling through, work, commute, no laptop, etc....
i don't like excuses but those are my reasons for being absent.
i have my laptop back, and i almost have it back to where it was before it decided to go on vacation. this will make it much easier for me to post.
i have music to talk about, and poker, and college football (the Dawgs are 2-0, although i don't feel as good about that as i should) and other things, which will also make it easier to write.
however, this will all be started next week as it is my 1 year wedding anniversay this weekend and i will be otherwise occupied.
so please keep coming back as i get back on track/into the swing of things/on top of things, and other assorted cliches about getting knocked down and fighting back up (can i escape this post without using another cliche...)...., ....; ....: .... . .

double points if you can name the artist and song referenced in the title of this post
(negative double points if you have to use a search engine to get the answer).
answer to follow...

hurricane relief gambling...

2005-09-09T15:45:00.000-04:00

the guys over at wicked chops poker are hosting a NLH tourney with raised funds to go toward the Katrina relief efforts. this is a great opportunity to play some un-free poker (my favorite)and contribute to a good cause.

here are the details:
When: Sunday, September 25th at 12pm.
Where: Copeland's of New Orleans Restaurant at Tower Place in Buckhead
What: No Limit Texas Hold'em tournament
Entry: $100 - Proceeds go to Habitat for Humanity’s "Operation Home Delivery"
Prizes: Will be announced early next week.
Register: Email your name and phone number to contact@wickedchopspoker.com

there are only 60 spots available, so sign up now!!

plus .... i will be a dealer at this shindig, so feel free to come and hurl insults at me while i desperately try to do math in my head figuring out split pots (you only get to insult me if you have paid the fee and are playing, no showing up just for heckling purposes).

changing gears? entire mindsets and strategy...

2005-09-02T10:18:00.000-04:00

forget about just changing gears during a sit'n'go or a tournament, i have discovered that changing mindsets and strategies for each separate game that i play is even more crucial and possibly more difficult and costly.
if you read this blog, then you know i work for a non-profit and if you know what that means then you also know that i don't make a lot of money. i also live in atlanta where there are no casinos and buying into games is technically illegal.
put all of this together and it means that i play a lot of free poker, only cash games if and when i can afford them( i know, if i were good enough i would be able to continually stake myself with cash game winnings, but the cards just don't fall like that sometimes).
however, even free poker is not just free poker, there is internet play and live tournament play....here i will discuss the 3 mindsets and the trouble that exists when i am living in all 3 of them at the same time.

internet free poker: i have started playing on espn.com at their single table tournament site which is infinitely preferrable to the come and go melee of the other free sites. even in this format though, one encounters the neverending line of "all-in" players who usually go out by the second or third hand. once this has run its course and you have folded even the pocket rockets you were dealt because someone will chase a flush or straight to the river no matter what you bet, my real single-table tourney internet strategy begins: i will limp in and call almost anything before the flop and will chase almost anything else. of course there are exceptions to this rule as there are every other, obvious folds and even more obvious bets can be seen for what they are when a flop comes off. there is still some "reading" of other players involved but when it comes down to it free is free and you can only really start playing real cash-game style poker when you get to heads-up action. following my earlier statement, there are caveats to this also, but fewer. i have had some success with this "style" but am hesitant to improve my game because ... what is the point of becoming a really good free poker player? except maybe trying to win a satellite to get into another satellite to get into an .... ad nauseam, at which point i would probably suck it up and pay $60 to get myself a few rungs up the ladder.
look for me: i play under the name chazbeaner.

live free poker: to the untrained eye and the guys who scoff at the thought of lowering theselves to this point, the style of game play at these events is not the same as it is on the internet. you cannot call everything before the flop and you most definitely cannot chase everything to the river. i'm not sure why the mindset is different, especially since most of the same people that play online play at the local watering holes, but it is. here you have to play super-tight from the get go and when you do come into a hand you have to come in strong and come in with the nuts, or else. there are chasers out there and they will suck out on you sometimes, but when most people playing are there just trying to outlast their buddy at the next table for bragging rights, they will fold and give you the pot. this is not to say that this is surefire and at live games, there is a lot more reading happening, but if you can pull those people out of the sea of strangers you can take their free poker money. unfortunately for me, i usually get sucked out on by someone who has no friends in the room....or is just a better free poker player than i am. this will segue into the same question i asked in the previous section .... what is the point of becoming a really good free poker player? apart from winning the $50 bar tab at the end of the night, which i guess is some incentive.

live not-free poker: this is what i would play every day if i could. the rush, the adrenaline, the anticipation of pitting yourself against someone else for actual monetary stakes....that's what it is all about. style, reading opponents, everything i put in quotation marks earlier actually counts in this game. i'm still learning to apply and use odds, but i don't have a left brain so math and probability are not my fortes while a hand is running its course. however, i crave the psychological aspect of these live cash games....watching, reading, noting moves, movement, raise strategy, calling strategy, folding strategy... knowing just what it takes and how much of a raise or bet it will take to get someone to lay down their hand. the money winning plays a small part, but the competition and mindset is just addictive for me. i've been told that i have a "tight-aggressive" style, but i'm not sure what that means... i just tend to go a lot on feeling and what my gut instinct is telling me about a hand. sometimes my gut lets me down, but like i said i'm working on tempering that instinct with math. i just love it, every second of it ... unless it is 2am and my alarm is set to go off 5 minutes later, in which case i will forego the 4-way battle to the death and just divvy up the money ... i'm also a realist.

so anyway, i've said all of that to say this: changing mindset and strategy is extremely important to me and has actually helped me prepare for changing gears within a tournament style cash game. however, it can be costly if i don't do it.
take this 4 day stretch for example:
Saturday night: played a single table cash game and won $50 (i know small potatoes, but whatever...it's $50 more than i had when i started). felt good, played relatively well, not any embarassing suck outs on my part to keep myself in the game.
Monday night: sat down at my friend's computer to play a single table espn tourney. started playing immediately like it was a cash game, took me too long to remember to adjust and i went out 4th....i was raising with a decent hand trying to push people out and getting called and sucked out on, also bluffing and then getting called and just straight up beat. started a new table, adjusted my mindset and strategy, and won the table.
Tuesday night: went to play a live free game at a local bar, sat down and started playing free internet poker.... i was calling and chasing and getting my ass beat like a delinquent child. i tightened up and started coming correct, but by that time my stack had dwindled and i ended up all in a little while later with Kh8h and going down hard to pocket Q's. frustrated i paid for my bar tab with my own money and went home.

i play free poker because it is what i can afford, but give me a cash game and one mindset to live with anyday.

espn.com has part I of a Phil Gordon column about mastering the fundamentals of poker: position and dominated hands. good read and a great reminder that poker is not always trickeration and check-raises.
and since i started writing this post they have put up a Steve Rosenbloom article about cracking aces, changing table strategy, and tournaments with quick blind levels.
you see, the changing table strategy part is in there, i should definitely be writing for ESPN.

don't even wonder....there is still no word on the laptop i may or may not have once owned....yarr.

it's times like these...

2005-09-01T12:04:00.000-04:00

i just sat and watched the images of the hurricane aftermath last night in shock.... what can you even say. the pleading phone calls from nurses in dire need of help all the way down to the pictures of dogs sitting on rooftops waiting for someone to come and get them. the lawlessness and desperation were something out of an apocalyptic movie, gangs have raided gun shops and are terrorizing those that survived with ak-47's, even hampering search and rescue and evacuation missions. what in the hell is happening...?
it also seems that the majority of the newscasts have focused on the major city of New Orleans. however, in my humble opinion, based on the little information available and the images that i have seen, Mississippi might have suffered the most devastating loss. more than the majority of the state's income is generated by the casinos lining the coast that antiquated laws dictated be built on floating barges. of course, if they are floating and the water that they are floating on raises, so do the buildings... and when the water moves inland, so also do the structures. this is why the casinos that were forced to float are now located where they should have originally been, on land....actually across the coastal road and on top of apartment complexes and other assorted unfortunate buildings.
i have never been to Biloxi, Tunica, or even New Orleans but i know someone who has...
snake over at Wicked Chops Poker has written an excellent post about the hurricane and its effect on the gaming industry along the gulf coast....and the memories he has of the trips made and, if i know him, the money made in those poker rooms. go there and read and then take his advice and see if there is something you can do.
i guess you just couldn't ever imagine that the memories you have of a place might actually outlast the place itself.

i will be at the 2006 Whiskey Fest on sunday at park tavern in atlanta, watching some cover bands (which for some odd reason i have a soft spot for, especially 80's cover bands...in fact, i saw a band called member's only in Athens about 4 years ago, anybody know if they still exist?) and drinking some delicious nectar.
more importantly, the event has now become a relief fund raising effort for the hurricane victims. there are many events like this that will be going on this weekend and for the next several weeks, and i encourage you to get out or pick up a phone or click on a link and help out in any way that you can.

by the way, still no laptop....awesome.

still no laptop and it's been 2 weeks...

2005-08-29T11:26:00.000-04:00

needless to say, i'm frustrated.

so my brother told me to check out Hail Social after he caught them opening up for Rainer Maria and i'm glad that he did. i really like what i have heard from these guys so far. it is very much along the lines of a lot of indie rock that is coming out nowadays sort of an updated garage sound, but this is done well and has a little more emphasis on the rock part of that description... and its a little less choppy and more smoothed out than most stuff than you will hear in this genre. vocals can be key to me for a band, and these vocals are dynamic and strong, the sound is carried by sustained and melodic underlying guitar lines. i also like to hear the bass and drums working together as they should as the percussive segment of the band, instead of the bass mimicing the harmony line or the vocals. this is just and all-around great sound and very attractive to my ear. also the graphics are sweet (said like Kip)...i mean, come on, it's a skull with an old-school skater-wave haircut....that's just cool. anyway, as always i will let you make up your own mind...here are some songs:
- start/stop
- get in the car
- and as always you can *stream* music at their myspace page.

and just in case you don't know who Rainer Maria is, here are some of their tracks:
- the double life
- ears ring
- artificial light

i know that my posting frequency has to be higher to keep people interested but without a computer it is just a pain in the ass to get it done, so if you are still reading i appreciate it greatly.
i have a lot to write about and i am storing posts in my head for when the laptop comes back...
you see, college football starts this weekend and i haven't even written one word about the upcoming season... and apparently the popular pick amongst sports writers is a first week upset of Boise State over Georgia .... what!! are you kidding me, they might be good on their smurf turf but between the hedges? no way... there will be more to come on this, but possibly not before this game actually takes place so i may be eating my words before they have even come out of my mouth.... but i highly doubt it, very highly, higher than highly, "Hi, Lee!", "are you high, Leigh?".

god i hope the geek squad gives me back my laptop soon...

a quick fix...

2005-08-23T13:47:00.000-04:00

here are some new/old mp3s for your perusal, as you'll remember the original format of this blog...

new::
Breather (shoegazer-ish, noise pop...again a discovery courtesy of mystery&misery)
- all fall away
- stay in love
- cleopatras dream
- drawn
- stars (live)
- all fall away (migraine mix)

John Vanderslice (new album pixel revolt available for pre-ordering thru Barsuk)
- exodus damage
- trance manual

old::

The Get Up Kids (R.I.P... god rest their souls) tguk just broke up and played their last show on 7/2/05 in KC...although i wasn't a huge fan of their newest efforts, i lived, ate , and breathed their first few releases... and the news of the end of their 10-year run gave me a little bit of a lump in my throat, kind of like one of the final nails in the coffin of the mid to late-90s emo/indie scene that gave birth to me. they have realeased a live album which is now available in stores and, if it does truly capture their live performance energy and features some old stuff, it should be one hell of a sing-along treat...here is a taste of them live and some older studio greats:
- ten minutes (live)
- woodson
- red letter day

the gloria record ... also now defunct but another band whose members, in one form or another, helped to shape my musical development (this is also a clue pointing toward the revelation, which may also be built up now beyond all expectation).
- tired and uninspired
- ascension dream (ram)
- the immovable motorist (ram)
- cinema air (ram)

word verification...

2005-08-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

so i've been getting "comment spam" on my innocent little blog and apparently the only way to combat this is to use word verification in the comment's section. all this means is that you have to type in the letters that you see before you can comment, something that a spam program cannot do. please don't let this discourage you from commenting as i would love to hear from each and every one of you... although i'm not sure that the level of commenting could get much lower... so keep up the good work and thanks for all of the feedback! ahhh, sarcasm...

what have we become...

2005-08-21T20:18:00.000-04:00

...i just saw the m&m's commercial featuring the Iron and Wine cover of such great heights followed by a jaguar commerical with hardcore days and softcore nights by Aqueduct...
apparently i wasn't the only one paying attention to TV Licensing 101.
i'm not sure what to do, can i have a musical crush that essentially has a commercial jingle... in all reality, am i going to stop listening to either of the afore-mentioned artists...? probably not. if anything, this situation just goes to show the increasing parity and a leveling of the playing field between indie and major labels when it comes to exposing their bands to mainstream audiences.

abort, abort, abort...

2005-08-18T22:07:00.000-04:00

so the laptop crashed... and it will be out of commission for about 2 weeks and they will probably have to replace the hard drive, brilliant... re-installing all software programs, reorganizing all the music... just damn.
all of that to say that i will post as often as i can from the varied and sundry places that i can get to a computer, so please be patient and if you read this regularly know that you might be the only one...

here is my latest music crush:

hailing from oklahoma these guys put out an EP and full length (this year) on Barsuk Records, former home of the ever popular and increasingly influential Death Cab for Cutie. this is the kind of electro/synth-pop that i love, some guitars and/or piano but mostly synthesisers with underlying boom-bip beats and immediately catchy melodies. i have had some mp3s on my ipod for a few months but i only just finally bought the full album. my measure of a good album is one that you really want to start again when it is finished so that you can experience it again, it's been a while for me on that count....so i sing this album's praises. have a listen for yourself, especially the g'n'r song....perfect:

- assignment #1: heart design
- growing up with g'n'r
- dinner mints demo
- post rock & slightly seasoned

please be patient and keep reading.
btw... this was not the "revelation" that i mentioned before. that will be my cliffhanger to keep you coming back...

a little help from my friends...

2005-08-16T13:46:00.000-04:00

if i were to try and go legit and get my own site and then posted a select few songs from my own back catalog, would i get slapped with a C&D, or worse, a lawsuit? is it considered illegal if it is just a few songs to showcase an artist or something? does anybody know the correct answer to this?

...or, can anyone recommend a good web hosting service, taking into consideration that i know nothing about building websites?

"you go and save the best for last"...

2005-08-15T11:06:00.000-04:00

so the last day of the conference was by far better than the first 2 days combined....for me anyway. i have so much to write about and so many pithy comments to make that i have actually been trying to put off writing this post because it looms in my mind as this monster that deserves all of my time and goodness, it needs to be funny and poignant and blah.... anyway, yesterday i was recovering from the day that you are about to read about by going to a wedding shower in big canoe, ga, so that gave me excuse #1, then it was the end of the weekend and there was laundry, etc...(excuses #2-7) and then there is this introduction and explaining why i'm not writing about that day that is helping me not write about the last day....

so i'll just get on with it... i'm going to be horribly original and just work my way through chronologically:

12pm (noon) - finally get out of bed after watching nick cannon's "wild 'n out" and laguna beach for like 2 hours... like, oh my god.
1pm - 2:30pm - eat mellow mushroom for lunch, for the second time in as many days....its just really good food...
3pm - 3:45pm - watch more of the same MTV drivel and nap some more...
4pm - 5pm - this was the first AMC+F event of the day that we attended. it was a panel entitled DIY: true confessions of indie artists and entrepreneurs. this was the first industry panel that i have ever been to and i was very underwhelmed and unimpressed. apparently, the people who work behind the rock stars run on the same schedule as their puppets and show up a good 20-30 mins late. however, this wasn't as bad as the constant stream of people that were coming and going while everyone was trying to listen. its very hard to concentrate when people are trying to give you demos and cds in the middle of the panel and then coming back 5 mins later to reclaim their wares when they realize that you really aren't as important as they might have thought (yes, this actually happened to us...humbling to say the least). although, concentrating on the panel might have been easier if i didn't hear a constant stream of self-promotion coming out of most of them. one guy kept talking about this super-influential band that he was in from 1971-1974 that never recorded a retail album and only distributed to rock journalists....hey thanks, now i know what it takes to put out an album....to nobody. this other guy's position was that being on an indie or major is irrelevant because they are all being bought out by each other, brilliant!, just what i like to hear from a panelist talking about indie artists and entrepreneurs. the most helpful and interesting people of the whole lot were John Szuch (owner, Deep Elm) and Shaun Rogers (vp int'l marketing/a&r, SubPop). they described what it's actually like for indie artists to get heard and what the labels can and cannot do to help (tv licensing, promotion, etc....). it was very informative and i would kill for Shaun Roger's job. most painful moment: a panelist referenced how many albums Death Cab had sold on SubPop before going to Atlantic, Shaun looked a little exasperated as he pointed out that Death Cab was on Barsuk and The Postal Service is on SubPop. (i'm a snob...)
oh, i almost forgot ... 2-foot long fingernail girl was there with her entourage, but left 10 minutes into the thing as part of that neverending stream i mentioned.
5:30 - 7:30pm - i didn't think that my second opportunity to see second shift would come so quickly....but it did and at the tiny tapas cafe, fuego. this performance, with my readiness in place, far outstripped the performance at 10high. i thouroughly enjoyed the show in this small space, and i realized that i have always enjoyed shows more in smaller spaces....so i may stick to those from now on. the guitar parts were more distinguishable, the vocals were clearer, and it seemed that the band was really playing off the crowd. here's the thing that struck me the most: i was singing along to some of the hooks....already, after only one live performance....apparently i wasn't as distracted the first time as i thought. this is huge for me because i'm not usually much of a sing-alonger these days and i rarely find songs that stick in my head after one listen....even if they do it's usually from a CD or radio source, not a live show. me and my "asst. editor" have moved from enjoying the live show to wanting to hear something from the studio to clarify their sound even more in our head-ears. good stuff...good times.
8:00 - 10:45pm - we left the small party and went to the big party.... downtown rocks, known as dtr to the cool kids, is a free concert series put on by 99x at underground in which thousands of teenagers pack themselves into the narrowest street in all of atlanta and crowd-surf and mosh to the filler music between sets....needless to say, not my scene. it quickly becomes my scene when the words backstage/vip become involved. i now will go into this completely elitist and self-serving rant about how cool it is to have access: it is really freakin' cool.... i was standing just a few feet from Butch Vig and couldn't say a word to him, what do you say to the guy who produced Nevermind, Gish, and Sonic Youth? exactly, mouth agape wonderment....nothing, speechless, and i'm a total dork. one i recovered, we went up to the vip "loft" that overlooked the street and ate free food and drank free booze and hung out with "the beautiful people"....which was also pretty cool. standing apart from the unwashed masses and observing is definitely an experience, people do really stupid shit in crowds....it was so stupid that shirley manson stopped singing and pointedly asked a few members of the crowd to join the army if they wanted to fight and leave the rest of us to enjoy the music ... i thought that was great.
11:00pm - 11:10pm - we were advised to go and see a band named lennex play at future (while trying to find a link for this club, i found a posting for a vampire meet-up there, but no website, a sign of things to come). there were pictures of naked anime girls on the walls, then a little guy dressed inleather carrying a whip... somthing should have tipped me off as to the sound of the band, i'm not sure what but i feel like i should have noticed something.... the band was "incubus doors down" or "three doors incubus", maybe "incudoors down"...i'm done now. anyway, there was a trumpet and we left....what is it with random brass instruments and bands?
11:15pm - 11:50pm - back to the loft, more drinks, food and hanging out with other people who felt out of place... who feels in place at these things? everybody i met got in through a friend of a friend and couldn't believe they were hanging out there ... is there just one central friend that everybody in atlanta knows?
11:55:30 pm - 11:56:30 pm - i tried to be cool while introducing myself to John Szuch(the deep elm guy) while he was standing in line for a drink at underground and failed miserably... but at least i said "hi"... he told me to joing their e-mail list and check out their new bands, i said ok.... but the new will never be the old (pop unknown, camber, brandston, planes mistaken for stars, the appleseed cast, etc...) , oh well....maybe i'll give it a shot.
12:00 (midnight) - 1:00am - why is it that the 30-year-old guys rocked my face more than any other "new and upcoming" band that i saw all weekend. i haven't seen five eight play in about 4 years and they have/have not changed a bit .... they still write really good pure rock songs in the old-school athens way, but the songs also have a great indie-rock edge that i am in love with again. the self-titled album put out last year is light years better than the good nurse album put out on deep elm, for the love of all that is holy...buy it. oh by the way, you have never seen such a good live show, mike was actually hanging upside down from the framing of the stage, throwing guitar stands, and yelling at the crowd...it was awesome!!
here are some songs from the new album:
- criminal
- i'm still around
- magnetic fields
- the liquor song
- square peg
- bad juices
find some of the old stuff from their site and give it a listen also, you won't be disappointed.
1:00am - ? - hanging out, drinking, sleeping ... weekend done.

i will now return to a regular schedule and normal, regular guy postings.... i already have a huge emo-geek revelation to make, maybe tomorrow, or maybe i'll take a day off.

day two...

2005-08-13T12:20:00.000-04:00

my plans for last night completely went to pieces as far as the list that i put together earlier.... instead i went to the loft to attend the 99x local's only event. i would like to say that i made a good choice, but, apart from hanging out with some really good friends, good friday experiment was the best band that played last night and remains the best that i have seen this weekend...
the whigs put on a high energy show and play some good tunes but did not hold my attention as much as i thought they would. anyway, i can't even find any tracks of theirs so that you can make up your own damn mind...
this is a very short post because i am hungover as well.

holy crap i forgot about the breakdancers...

2005-08-12T16:34:00.000-04:00

the only reason that we stayed at the loft so long was to watch these 2 guys freakin' kill it on the dance floor while dj quiz was spinning... it was like poetry, so fluid and captivating. this was the closest i have ever been to people who actually know what they're doing, not the drunk guy at the wedding reception who does the worm and then spins into a little pose at the end....this was body-bending slack-jaw inducing "fo' real" breakdancing... and that's all i have to say about that.

i've been told to go see the whigs at the loft tonight, so i'll probably do that.

"that's how it was on the first day"...

2005-08-12T08:51:00.000-04:00

so day one of Atlantis is over and it was quite an interesting day... i will start with the negative and move onto the positive to finish on a high note going into tomorrow.

lowlights:
1. parking - i feel like i spent most of the evening driving around trying to find a parking spot that wasn't going to cost me anywhere from $10 - $15. i have this inbred desire for the "quest" - the neverending search for the best/free parking, so i spent quite some time driving in circles around venues. i ended the night having visited 4 venues and only paying $5 total....score.

2. drop bombz collective - we went to the loft to try and catch some Arc the Finger Records acts (will be discussed later) and got there too early... we ended up enduring only as much of the "collective" as we possibly could, and being illegally parked was not worth the show. unfortunately we left to try and find better parking and never found any so we drove away for good apparently about 10 mins before all of the good shit dropped. they didn't so much as sample old recordings so much as play the entire songs with a beat underneath them and imcomprehensible rhymes over the top. i'm usually loathe to criticize any individual's artistic efforts, but i feel like they could have been more creative with their musical stylings.

3. unknown band at the star bar - there was a saxophone involved and a funny hat and an empty room, 15 minutes later we were gone.

4. it was my friend's bithday and he ended up as DD - and that just sucks all around.

highlights (starting at the beginning of the night):

1. Minamina Goodsong - i went back out to fuego to catch some of the devil stole the beat showcases that they were holding early in the afternoon. i arrived just in time to catch this hip-hop act and was much more impresssed than i thought i was going to be. These guys are one of the acts on Arc the Finger that I was going to try to catch at a larger venue later in the night. the beats were orignal and catchy the performance was not affected and did not feel overly rehearsed. the flow of the performance was very good and they had some damn catchy songs, here are a couple of them:
- big
- the porch
the album Four Farmer Circus just came out and can be purchased here...

2. Good Friday Experiment - wow, i was really impressed with this band... they followed minamina at fuego (odd mix) and began setting up your basic drum, guitar, bass things then came the myriad of piano and organ things and i began to became very intrigued. the sound is updated psychadelic 70's organ rock.... at times mellow and atmospheric and more like experimental noise pop in others, whatever you want to call it, it all equals good and a band that you should definitely check out:
- full crush
- early ideas about light
- halocline

3. Second Shift - on a night that was marked by almost empty venues where i had been, second shift packed out 10high, an indication of the solid local following that they have garnered through their live shows. admittedly, this was the first time i had seen them live. i have met the lead singer on a couple of prior occasions, and he is a super nice, quiet, almost unassuming kind of guy.... however, put him on stage and he becomes a performer, literally a young Mick Jagger/Scott Weiland-esque performance that fascinated me. honestly, because of my fascination i was thouroughly distracted the entire show, it was like someone had flipped a switch on the guy and all i could do was stare. i've heard of rock stars having on-stage personas, but never having met anyone like that i never really bought it, until now. i don't mean to harp on this, but it really was an interesting revelation. anyway, the more i dwell on the show and try to pick out other parts of the performance, the more i liked it as a whole. the band was good and cohesive, they know how to perform and keep the crowd engaged. if i had to describe the sound i would say that they are a filled-out garage rock band... so take say, the strokes, add fuller, more complex guitars with good solos and then give julian casablancas some speed and backing vocals. they like to stray away from the standard song structure which i appreciate, as it adds some uniqueness to their songs, but the songs maintain a singalong, hooky quality at the same time. i also would really like to see them at a different venue with a better sound system and better acoustics (the system at 10high has always sounded a little "muddy" to me, and that may be because it is such a small space), maybe when they open for Louis XIV at the roxy. to make a long story short, i hated when it was done that i had been distracted....needless to say, i'm really looking forward to seeing second shift perform a second time...
- power in numbers
- *stream*

that was the end of the night, then there was sleep and an early alarm... my sleepface has been stolen for sure now...

what the crap...

2005-08-12T08:50:00.000-04:00

can anybody tell me why i got 2 anonymous comments about lumber futures...?

you never forget your first...

2005-08-11T11:07:00.000-04:00

so i have have had an internal conflict coming up to this weekend as this is my first article ever concerning event coverage. you see, i wasn't sure what tone to take... do i try to write as a jaded, cynical know-it-all music journalist (like most major publications do) which i'm not or do i tell the truth that having a media badge and some VIP access was really cool and, whether or not people thought i was much more important than i really am, almost everyone i met was really friendly and nice.... i ended up deciding to go with what i know at the risk of geeking out and sounding like a dork.

so last night was a night of firsts for me....
my first "industry" party which included my first experience of waiting behind a velvet rope followed by my first experience of "knowing" somebody to get me on the other side before the unwashed masses. thinking about it, if the party was a first for me then i guess that everything that happened once i crossed the threshold would be a "first" (first step, words, drink, food, person i met, etc...at an "industry" party). the party was held at club eleven50 in midtown which is actually a pretty cool little space for an event. i met a lot of really nice folks and the people watching was incredible (i saw this one girl with fingernails that, if i had to guess and they were straightened out, had to be a least 2 feet long...as they were they were all curly and mangled, as a master of the obvious i would say that they are an attention getter... but seriously how do you get anything done? apparently she has 2 assistants). the event was well attended but musically speaking not much to cover, there were a lot of local personalities and "celebrities" but as i mentioned before putting faces with names is not necessarily my forte. the dj for the evening was DJ T’Challa of local ATL hip-hop act Minamina Goodsong and, with my limited knowledge of dj'ing skills, it was good....well, people seemed to be having fun.

now for the good stuff... following the official kick-off party was my first "industry event after-party", the devil stole the beat (again, instead of listing all new things, suffice it to say that once i walked through the door all was new to me, words, steps, people, etc...). this is an event thrown by Caren West and Wicked West PR (the folks who are handling the media for Atlantis) across the street from eleven50 at fuego, and exactly the kind of party that i was looking for and thought i would find earlier in the night but didn't. the folks at WWPR are some of the nicest people i have ever met (no, i'm not sucking up) and they throw a great party. the dj for this event was jay harren host of the radio show sunday school (great show on sunday nights from 8-10pm) on local alternative station 99x, he spun a great mix of indie, classic, and new rock (including the remix of "banquet" by Bloc Party, which is a great remix). i met a lot of local atlanta band members and some other, i'll say it again, really great people. fuego will actually host the rest of the devil stole the beat event over the weekend. they have lined up an impressive collection of bands who will play 45 minute sets from the hours of 3-6pm daily.

tonight will be spent between several clubs and i haven't nailed down exactly where i will be and when i will be there, but i will see second shift play at midnight at 10high in VA Highlands....hopefully i will see you there.

here are some tracks from a couple of bands whose member(s) i met last night....enjoy:

passerby (raw recordings, but good potential. jangly, noise pop)
- symptoms
- majority
- fast one
- t-shirt

morning state (i really like this.... mellow in places then hooky and poppy in others... a great sound)
- stream the music here and here

oh, another first for me .... finding out how widespread the use of myspace.com is. apparently, every band from the largest down to the smallest have a myspace site with which to disseminate music and news. i am woefully behind the curve on this and one might actually be able to download mp3s from the band's sites but i can't figure out how, maybe you have to sign up to get access? i don't know, but i need to get caught up with this...