Aside from taking photos of my cat sleeping on various objects, I've been hard at work on my assignments for classes. Here's a Flash Animation and Slideshow I made about water:
I've also been busy writing reviews for the Scenestar (one of which was actually posted!) and listing Paul Frank shirts on ebay for my brother's friend. Check out photos of the shirts on Flickr and bid on them on ebay...
All shirts are priced at a low 99 cent starting bid with auctions ending in just 5 days!
Tomorrow morning, I start up with guitar classes again and it should be interesting. The teacher told me we would be playing an Eagles and a Cars song, so I'm curious as to which songs those are. Also, tomorrow I'm going to a Craft festival in Cypress and the Detour Festival in Downtown LA! Should be a fun busy weekend.
This weekend in Long Beach was a lot of fun, I actually went to Long Beach twice. On Friday, I went to the Ink n' Iron Festival with Suzanne and Jodi and on Sunday, I went to the Southern California Lamp Exchange with my mom. The tattoo convention was cool even though I didn't get one (since it was too expensive and I didn't know what to get). The lamp exchange was nice because we got a lot of free energy saving lamps for our old crappy lamps, a lot of them were floor lamps too!
The bands at Ink n' Iron that I wasn't planning to see ranged from interesting novelty acts (Chapel of Thieves, who sounded like Halloween music) to sort of good douchie music (Jail Weddings, whose spastic singer Jodi likened to Morrissey). There was also a sort of hillbilly band with a banjo, autoharp, washboard, fiddle, etc. They were interesting, but I don't remember if they were any good.
The bands I'd planned on seeing at Ink N' Iron did not disappoint, even the Black Angels who I've seen more than I would actually expect to in the past year. I noticed when the Warlocks came on that a few of their songs sound kind of similar, for example "Zombie Like Lovers" sounds a lot like "Come Save Us" and they did play both songs. Also, I recorded video of a song that I thought would be "The Dope Feels Good," but ended up a different song.
The Black Angels played for about an hour, and managed to keep things interesting with different band members switching between bass, guitar, drums, and keyboards. I read in an OC Weekly review that they even had an electric sitar, but I didn't see it myself. I haven't heard the new Black Angels album Directions to See A Ghost, so I couldn't necessarily distinguish the new material from the old aside from the fact that I was more familiar with the older songs.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club closed the show and they were excellent, as usual. Robert was dancing around more than usual and Peter was being extra breathy during "666 Conducer," which they opened their set with. Nick wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary for him, though he wasn't wearing sunglasses. The strobe lights weren't that bad for this show, they actually seemed more noticeable during the Black Angels' set.
Some highlights of the show included older favorites like "Red Eyes and Tears" and "Love Burns" and near the start/middle of "Six Barrel Shotgun," Robert put his bass down and jumped off the stage. Then he moved towards the middle of the barrier for the photo pit and pulled it from about 6 feet away to right up against the stage. It was one of the coolest things I've seen Robert do in concert (and he does a lot of cool things).
The acoustic portion of the set featured Peter's version of "Cool Water" and his newer song "A Fine Way To Lose," which were both warmly received. Then Robert came out and played "Sympathetic Noose," which is always nice to hear. They continued their set up until "American X," when Peter announced the fire marshall was shutting them down early. Still, they managed to squeeze in a couple more songs, including "Steal A Ride" which was bittersweet as it was Wic's last official song with them.
After the show, the security was being extra mean by kicking everyone out before they could even look at merch to buy. It was a little bit after 1 AM, since BRMC had gone on at around 11:30 PM and played for about an hour and a half. A short show by BRMC standards, but fairly long for most other bands. We waited around near the truck that was waiting to load up BRMC's stuff so we could say goodbye to Wic and everyone else.
We proceeded to the parking lot after saying our goodbyes and watching Rob do a funny dance for us. Peter was right behind us going to the parking lot so he could show us how he puts his guitar on his motorcycle. Suzanne volunteered to show Michael and Peter how to get to the 710 freeway from the parking lot, but didn't realize that she wasn't sure how to even get out of the parking lot. Michael's response after following her in circles for a bit: "Smooooth." It was hilarious! Peter didn't seem too happy about it either.
Eventually, she did figure out how to get out of the parking lot and onto the freeway after feeling the embarrassment of leading them in circles. Part of the 710 was shut down, so we had to take a detour to the 91 and ended up back in Buena Park at 3 AM. We were still hungry, so we went to Denny's near my house. That pretty much sums up the Long Beach adventure, minus all the gory details about Suzanne and Jodi's tattoos. If you're curious about that, I'm sure they'd be willing to share all about it.
Check out all my photos from the festival on my Flickr account. Also, I took a few BRMC videos and put them up on YouTube. Here's my favorite video from the night, with the moving of the barrier:
Aside from the BRMC show, I also had a nice time hanging out with friends and family and learning to use oil pastels. On Saturday, my friend Joyce showed me how to use oil pastels. It was interesting layering and mixing colors. My drawing didn't come out to great (Annie, the Norwegian pop princess, from URB magazine), but it turned out better than it started out. On Sunday, I practiced driving on freeways with my mom. I still want to stick to local roads while I have the time and leisure to do so, but I'm sure I'll get back to freeway driving soon enough. We also had lunch with my grandma for her birthday at a Chinese restaurant in Irvine. I wasn't too hungry, so I didn't eat much then.
I met up with Suzanne and Jodi at my house at around 3:30 PM, they had been shopping in the area. We left for the Wiltern soon after changing for the show (we all went casual). When we got to the Wiltern, there was already a line which made Jodi sad. We still managed to get our usual front row spots. We also were highly amused by Robert's Hispanic doppelganger (who claimed to dress that way because of the Jesus and Mary Chain). Jodi and Suzanne were standing next to him for most of the show, and he was apparently also amusing to Robert and Peter. The bands were all really good, I liked the first band Lower Heaven mostly for the autoharp played by the lead singer. Their music was pretty cool too.
The Black Angels were actually really good too, not that it's a surprise. I liked their new songs as well as the old ones. It's not a huge departure from the last album, but it's very listenable. They occasionally switched off on instruments and the bassist would play a stand up drum while one of the guitarists would switch to the bass. They made pretty seamless transitions to their different spots on stage. I can see why BRMC likes the band so much, they make some very good music. BRMC came on not too long after, with their old banner and lots of extra amps piled up in front of the drum kit. Later, we would find out that the extra amps were for the Black Angels to jam with BRMC for a good 10+ minutes.
BRMC played an amazingly good setlist, which included everything from "The Likes of You," "20 Hours," and "Vision" to "Steal A Ride," "Killing the Light," and "Cold Wind." Lots of great less played songs, plus they played the new song "River Styx," which was starts out a lot like Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus," but it goes into a more swampy bluegrass kind of sound. I will go into more detail about the show later, but during "Whatever Happened To My Rock 'n Roll?" Peter was taking people's cameras and grabbed at mine twice! It was actually more funny then mean, he was having a good time taking them and giving them back right after. After the show, he said he knew he wouldn't get my camera because I had it wrapped around my wrist.
Anyways, I got a lot of photos and videos from the show, still working on uploading a lot of video. Here are my photos from the show:
The benefit for Downs Syndrome known as Supersmall proved to be an entertaining and educational night. I enjoyed learning about the Nudibranchs a.k.a. Sea Slugs, who are both hermaphroditic and usually very poisonous and beautiful. It was amusing to see all the pictures of their group sex and the narration that went along with the photos. We also learned about the $300 million dollar rovers that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory are sending to Mars. It was pretty interesting to use the 3-D glasses they provided to see different pictures of the surface of Mars.
The comedy routines were pretty entertaining too, one had a couple guys running around on stage doing amusing mind tricks. There was a guy called Mr. Extraordinary in a funny diamond pattern suit, who gave out $10 to the first person who claimed it and then went on to explain what that person had that no one else in the audience had. He also had a small hole in his pants, but that was only slightly distracting because it looked like he had orange underwear underneath.
Even the musical acts were amusing. Carina Round is a female British singer who was wearing a polka dot dress and red high heels. She pointed out that she does funny things with her legs while she performs and her songs were pretty good too. Acoustic and folky, but also very distinctive and different. She ended her set with a song that used a pedal to record and loop her vocals, it sounded pretty cool.
The Lampshades were just hilarious from the moment they came on stage. The female singer looked a lot like Meredith from the Office in a red bellbottom jumpsuit and the guy looked like a sleazy lounge singer with a fake skinny mustache drawn over his upper lip. He was also sipping a drink and smoking a cigarette through the whole performance. They started off with their version of "The Facts of Life," then went on to play "Light My Fire" while the female singer continuously emphasized that they're not a couple. They did a bit on celebrity obituaries and in between one song, the male singer pretended to fall asleep then woke up. They ended the set with their version of "Mandy," during which the male singer wandered off stage to refill his drink.
Peter Hayes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club played a short, but sweet set of 7 songs which included a couple covers (Cool Water and Long Black Veil) and a new song (which he later told us was called "A Fine Way to Lose"). He also played "Shuffle Your Feet," "Complicated Situation," "Fault Line," and closed with "Am I Only." I only took pictures during "Complicated Situation" and I was recording video of everything else. It was such a nice intimate acoustic set. The new song was kind of country sounding, and had some sad lyrics about losing someone.
You can see and hear 4 of the songs from the set on my YouTube account. Speaking of which, I was excited to learn that my cell phone can watch YouTube videos on it. If you have a Motorola RAZR V3m, you should see if you can watch YouTube videos on your phone! I have a job interview in Brea today, and I'm more nervous about driving there by myself than the interview itself. Wish me luck!
The crowded Costa Mesa Detroit Bar was treated to the sweetly surf-guitar tinged sounds of The Raveonettes, one of Denmark's finest exports. Opening their set with the new song "Hallucinations," dual guitarist/vocalist Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo harmonized perfectly on the sun-soaked ode to new romance. The duo was backed by a standing female drummer with only two drums and a drum machine, but the sounds they produced were impressively full and layered.
The next song they played was the current single "Dead Sound," which is a faster track that is equally bright and sunny. The Raveonettes played a set largely taken from the new LP "Lust Lust Lust," but also threw in some favorites from the previous albums "Chain Gang of Love" and "Pretty In Black." "That Great Love Sound" was an exciting addition to the set with its upbeat tempo and hummable lyrics. They slowed things down with the song "Here Comes Mary," which sounds faintly like the Everly Brothers.
Another "Pretty In Black" song "Red Tan" highlighted the set with its nice relaxed beat. They went even farther back to play a couple tracks from their debut EP "Whip It On." Hearing "Attack of the Ghost Riders" and "My Tornado" in all their B flat minor glory showed the darker side of the Raveonettes. The newer material stood out quite well among these older songs. "The Beat Dies" features Sharin Foo's dreamy vocals on this lushly beautiful song.
"Black Satin" is another one of those songs that makes you think the latest album was written on a sunny beach. The Raveonettes picked up the pace on "You Want the Candy," a fast fun song that you might not expect to be about drug use. Another live staple was the rockabilly twang of "Love In A Trashcan," always a fun addition to their set. A cover of Stereolab's "French Disko" was a very cool way to show off the band's wide range of influences.
The Raveonettes closed the set with the darkly toned "Aly, Walk With Me," a song which demonstrates their ability to produce feedback and noise using the palms of their hands over their guitar strings. Though they left us wanting more, there was no encore. Be Your Own Pet opened the show with their racous punk rock music. The young band from Tennessee managed to excite the crowd with their off-kilter vocals and punky guitar riffs. They provided a stark contrast from the more controlled and melodic sound of the Raveonettes, but it was an interesting choice for an opener.
This has been a great week of shows for me thanks to Dana, the Beggars Group/Matador Records street team, and some members of BRMC. This first show this week was Dead Meadow at the Echoplex with Midnight Movies and the Great Northwest opening. I've seen Midnight Movies a lot in the past year and mostly for free, so watching their set was nice and familiar. I recognize a lot of their songs and found most of them pretty good. The Great Northwest were also a pretty good band, I would like to hear more from them. I am honestly a little bored by Dead Meadow, so I was happy to sit during their set after standing for the first two bands. It was nice sitting also because we saw Spike and Dana and him get along like old friends. Not surprising since they're both so talkative and friendly. After the show, we handed out Dead Meadow stickers and flyers with another street team member named William, who was from Denver.
The next show was The Lilys at the Echo with Magic Mirror and Richard Ross opening. Richard Ross was, I think, this tall guy in weird red genie pants who kept playing different saxophones. At first, I thought they were okay, but their set just went on and on. I was relieved when they finally finished. Dana noticed Spike enter the Echo first and then pointed out that Nick was sitting down near by. I noticed Robert coming in, so it was like being at a BRMC show. They were probably there for Magic Mirror, who opened for a few of their shows last year. Spike and Robert were lost in the crowd near the bar, but Nick was standing all around the side of the stage we were sitting at. It was kind of funny seeing him move every few minutes to stand in a different spot.
Magic Mirror's set was very good, especially after that first band. Their music is really getting familiar to me to, though I'd only seen them open for BRMC a couple times. I'm starting to recognize a few of their slower songs, the more political and gospel tinged ones. Anyways, they're a good band and I wouldn't mind hearing more from them. Before the Lilys's set, we moved from our table to the bar area, where we moved from the front of the club to the back where Nick and Spike were standing. Dana ran into Spike earlier and said hello. Nick came over near the start of the Lilys set and said hi. He mentioned he was getting over the flu and that the guitarist with the Lilys (who Dana told me was from a band called Holy Shit) was going to tour with A Place to Bury Strangers, a band I would like to see live some day. Then, he disappeared into the crowd.
The Lilys were really cool indie pop style music. They sounded great despite me not really knowing their songs very well. The tall singer was kind of funny at times. I definitely want to check out some of their albums, since I'd only previously heard a few songs I'd downloaded and from their MySpace. Near the end of their set, a guy started hitting on Dana and she shot him down for being too forward. Also, while he was hitting on her, Robert walked by and we both poked at him. Dana said her finger hurt from his rock hard abs! Poking aside, he didn't stop or say hi so we assumed his girlfriend was calling him home. After the Lilys set ended, Dana found Spike and said good bye to him.
Tonight was Super Furry Animals, Holy Fuck, and Abe Vigoda at the Echoplex. It was so packed and hot in there. No rock star sightings tonight, though Dana did spot a relative of her ex. The bands were pretty good, though I was getting really annoyed by this dancing girl during the first band's set. I guess Abe Vigoda was an okay band, but I wasn't too into them. Maybe it was the girl bugging me too much. Holy Fuck were next. They play mostly instrumental electronic music, and I really enjoyed it. It was really good, especially the last song. I have heard the album before, so maybe that's why I liked it more. Dana was too hot in there and sat out in the smoking area for most of their set. Her cousin Mike was trying to get in, but unfortunately, could not because it was so crowded and I think the show sold out.
Super Furry Animals came on after a lot of work from the guitar tech, who was preparing guitars for like half an hour before! There were a few interesting looking acoustic guitars with neat paintings and drawings on them. This was probably my fifth time seeing SFA live, but it was different from the previous shows. The singer came on wearing a big red helmet and singing with a mic to the side of it. All the members of the band hand interesting embroidery on their clothes, though I couldn't really get any good pictures of them. They played a lot of old and new songs from their many albums, so it was a very exciting and diverse set. One song, the guitarist on the side of the stage I was on asked everyone to put their hands to their heads like antlers and said it was the shortest song ever written, though it seemed more like a funny noise than a song. During one song the two guitarists and the bassist put all their guitars/bass up together. It was pretty cool!
Someone actually posted video of the entire show on YouTube, so check it out if you're interested in watching it from the front row. I was in the front behind one of Robert's monitors, which he later moved back for some reason. Me and Theresa got to the Key Club at 5:30 PM, right before it started pouring rain. It was freezing outside the venue, but at least they had rain tents up around the lines for people who'd gotten their early (some people were there at 6 AM!). My toes were frozen by the time we got inside, but were defrosted by the time BRMC went on.
The opening band that night was F. Scott and the Ashbury Band, who I'd never heard of. They went on at 8:30 PM and were pretty good, kind of a bluesy rock that had a bit of a 60's sound. I had seen some of the members outside the venue when I was waiting on the wrong side of the line. Actually, I thought the singer of the band reminded me of Peter, though a little shorter and with a beard.
After more waiting for the opening band to move their gear and the roadies to set up for BRMC, we finally had Peter come on stage with his acoustic songs at around 9:30 PM. He opened with "Grind My Bones," which wasn't on the original setlist. After "Complicated Situation," he was joined by Nick and Robert on "Shuffle Your Feet." Nick was miked up and singing back up vocals on a lot of songs. It was pretty cool to see him singing along too. Here's the setlist for the show:
Grind My Bones Complicated Situation Shuffle Your Feet Love Burns Berlin Weapon of Choice Howl All You Do Is Talk 666 Conducer Six Barrel Shotgun Red Eyes and Tears Aint No Easy Way Promise Sympathetic Noose Visions of Johanna As Sure As The Sun American X - Took Out A Loan Killing The Light Spread Your Love Punk Song
It was kind of standard setlist for a BRMC show, not that that's such a bad thing. Hearing Robert's cover of "Visions of Johanna" was interesting because he sat down on a monitor and played the entire song sitting down. It's a pretty long song, so it's understandable that he might be tired. During "Howl," Peter was on Robert's side playing the keyboard on the piano and Robert moved over to Peter's microphone. Later, they switched sides.
I took a lot of photos at that show, though not all of them came out clearly. Here's a link to my photos from the Key Club. Here are some of my favorite photos from that night:
From the past few blogs, you can tell that I'm obsessed with Tokidoki. And this obsession has cost me hundreds of dollars in just a few months. Imagine if I'd gotten into it back when the bags first came out in 2005? I'd be in debt rather than nearly broke. Anyways, here I posted some of my photos from the signing to MySpace. There are many more on my Flickr account. I shared my photos with the girl who runs Tokidoki-blog.com, but later she said I had too many pictures of counterfeit bags. I guess if people really search through my Flickr account, they'll find the pictures, but even after I removed them from the set she said her readers would point it out in the "What's in my bag set." Anyways, I don't really need that much publicity for my photos. I'll just share some with people here:
