Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Music madness
Last weekend was filled with driving and music. MC Chris on Friday was pretty funny. A more high pitched rapper likely does not exist. At least not one that is an adult. Also the Alvin and the Chipmunks gangsta rap album does not count. Anyway, what could be more fun than a dark bar filled with Star Wars nerds shouting for Hesh lines (Sealab 2021).

Saturday was mostly gardening and television. I rented a truly awful game called Shining Tears and returned it the next day $1 lighter. It took forever to get into the action of the game and wade through bad dialogue. The fighting part was shit too, so I gave up.

Sunday was International Noise Conspiracy with and you will know us by the trial of average songs. International Noise was awesome. I'd seen them before, and was not disappointed. They have more energy in their live show than the last 10 bands I've seen. Plenty of jumping into the crowd and rock star kicks and splits. The singer danced the whole set and occasionally jumped of things and told us about being Swedish and politics. Best show in a long time. Trail of Dead pretty much sucked, their new album is trash and I only stayed for about 4 songs, and thankfully two were older ones I liked. They have two drummers too, which is pretty retarded.

Monday I rented Test Drive: eve of destruction. Its excellent as a rental, you buy beater cars from the junkyard and race them around pulling trailers and on figure eight trracks with ramps. Captures the redneck experience perfectly. When you win events you get treated to real footage of dudes doing these kinds of races too.

Also I finished making my trading CD for Anatema. Off the top of my head it has:

Ted Leo, Our lady peace, cub country, death from above 1979, tugboat annie, rilo kiley, bright eyes, blonde redhead, refused, children of bodom, bloodhound gang, ratatat, jets to brazil, red telephone and a few others I can't remember. Hopefully not too much you haven't heard.
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Friday, May 20, 2005

Talk
Got a big talk in front of my department today at 2:30, wish me luck through the void of the interweb!

I put my title slide up here http://uoregon.edu/~arobak/MIP.tif

Check it out yo!
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Wednesday, May 18, 2005

The Death of friendship
I'll preface this by saying that I'm not feeling down or at all depressed, just thinking by typing.

This is a common situation in high school or college:: You have a close-knit group of friends, one of them gets a girlfriend/boyfriend and you never see them again. I can remember that happening quite a few times within my circle of friends. The last time (of course) was when I got with my eventual wife and went over to her apartment every weekend.

After college I moved away from my college friends (and they moved away as well) and now only see them once a year, tops. Basically I don't really have any everyday hang out with friends anymore. I've made some new friends in Grad School but I don't really go out with them much. As far as I know, they don't know this blog address but I have some things in common with them, but not too much. None of my friends are gamers, which is weird cause all my college roomies were gamers. One guy likes comics, one has semi-similar music taste but theres not really a "best friend". Its ok, but I miss my old college buddy Luke sometimes.

Anyway, its weird how things change, maybe I'm going to have to start calling myself an adult soon.
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Monday, May 16, 2005

More Music
Well, the old standby is touring again, this time as teh headlining act. Yes indeed, Say Anything are apparently touring nonstop for like forever (valley girl voice).

06/02/05 San Francisco, CA The Filmore
06/25/05 Las Vegas, NV Jillian's
06/26/05 Tucson, AZ Club Congress
06/28/05 Austin, TX Emo's
06/29/05 Spring, TX Java Jazz
07/01/05 St Petersburg, FL State Theatre
07/02/05 W. Palm Beach, FL Ray's
07/03/05 Orlando, FL The Social
07/05/05 Atlanta, GA Masquerade
07/06/05 Charlotte, NC Tremont
07/07/05 Baltimore, MD Ottobar
07/08/05 Norfolk, VA NorVa
07/09/05 Philadelphia, PA TLA
07/10/05 New York, NY Knitting Factory
07/12/05 Long Island, NY Downtown
07/13/05 Allston, MA ICC Church
07/14/05 Poughkeepsie, NY The Chance
07/15/05 Buffalo, NY Xtreme Wheels Skatepark
07/16/05 Cleveland, OH Grog Shop
07/17/05 Detroit, MI Alvin's
07/19/05 Cincinnati TBA
07/20/05 Chicago, IL Bottom Lounge
07/21/05 St Louis, MO Creepy Crawl
07/22/05 Kansas City, MO El Torreon
07/23/05 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock
07/24/05 Des Moines, IA House of Bricks
07/26/05 Denver, CO Rock Island
07/27/05 St George, UT Electric Theatre
07/29/05 Wenatchee, WA Flash Disco
07/30/05 Portland, OR Solid State
07/31/05 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
08/02/05 Fresno, CA Big Game Studios
08/03/05 Lancaster, CA Mr Cues
08/04/05 Anaheim, CA Chain Reaction
08/05/05 W Hollywood, CA Troubador
08/06/05 San Diego, CA Epicentre

Once again my puny town gets the snub, but Portland is the place to be, so I guess I'll be heading back to see them again in July. Hopefully Rachael isn't sick of seeing them after the first two times :)

I have a community garden plot in town (I live in an apartment) which is basically 20 X 30 in a big fenced in area for organic gardens. We did this last year, then kinda let it go over fall/winter and came back recently and had two feet of grass and weeds living there. It was a shitload of work, and we rented a rototiller (think snowblower that chops up dirt) this Friday. I was pretty exhausted after using the damn thing, and was finised for most of the weekend after that. The space is pretty much ready for planting now though, so thats a relief. This coming up weekend will be busy, going to see Mc Chris and International Noise Conspiracy Friday and Sunday. I've also got to present my research Friday to the department, but I've done that so many times I'm not worried about it. Of course, when you don't worry is when things go wrong, right?
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Friday, May 13, 2005

Bananananananas
I think that one of the dumbest songs I've ever heard is Gwen Stafani's latest single (HOLLABACK GIRL). Its bad enough that a 30 year old is dressing up like a cheerleader and singing about high school principals and substitute teachers, but I think the lyrics are some of the dumbest ever. I can't fathom how anyone though that was a good song, its just 100% stupid. It is fitting though I guess, I think I saw her on "Cribs" and she sounds like a pretty big dumbass in real life too. I think her brain may never have expanded past 16 years old.

Anyway, I'm excited about the mix CD idea on group sounds. I think I can scrape together some pretty good stuff that will be new to most people. Tony would be a tough one though, I think he may just have heard nearly every band in existance.
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Thursday, May 12, 2005

Poo
Today I pose questions to you, if you're willing.

What is the...

1. Last television show you watched (whole way through)?

2. Last album/song/CD you listened to?

When did you wake up this morning? I woke up pretty late and am embarrassed.

Do you have a non-email related website that you froequent most often?

Thanks.
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Monday, May 9, 2005

Driving driving driving
I feel like I'm spending too much time on the road (always to Portland) but there are just too many good shows coming up. Saturday we went up to see the grand opening of Rachaels brother's Kung Fu Academy (www.academyofkungfu.com). It was really fun, they did a bunch of demonstrations and sparred with each other in between. When it was over I got to play with their baby, which is old enough so I'm no longer terrified of hurting her. She's not talking yet though, so no swear words. Anyway, I'll be heading back twice two weeks from now, to see MC Chris (MC Pee Pants from ATHF) and also International Noise Conspiracy with And you will know us by the trail of dead. Damn those are some long ass band names. Mostly I really like International Noise, they put on a great show last time I saw them play with the now defunct At the Drive in.

reruns of Family Guy are on, I didn't watch the new one today, I guess I lost interest already. Maybe it is the proximity to the Simpsons that makes me care less.

I also watched about 30 minutes of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow...and that was about all I could stand. Everything but the actors was computer animated, and it was really weird. If it got any better after that, i guess I'll never know.
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Friday, May 6, 2005

politics
Although I realize that its sad when you get a lot of your news from a comedy show, the Wednesday daily show had a funny/depressing comarison of the UK and USA's politics. I guess in the UK they don't let the candidates frame their own debates (go figure) because they had clips of some pretty tough questions from teh audience and even the moderator. They basically called Tony Blair out for lying about the Iraq stuff. The even crazier part was his response. He didn't dodge it, he admitted that he made some mistakes in judgement. The only way you can get any American politician to do that is to catch them in something outright, then have a trial conviction (Clinton you scum!). I fucking hate politics.

Although you don't care, since the thing costs an arm and a leg I added PSP game reviews of Metal Gear Acid and Lumines to my own hosted website. I messed up the linking... http://uoregon.edu/~arobak/PSP.htm
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Thursday, May 5, 2005

The power of live music
Tuesday me and Rachael went to Portland and saw Snow Patrol. She really wanted to go more than me, but I like live shows so had no problem going. I like their latest CD, but its not the greatest album I've bought recently. Its slow and pretty mellow. Seeing them live though is a whole different story. They had 30 times more energy in their songs and it was a great show. Their live performance was way better than their album. Their was more and louder guitar, and their songs that seem average on the album really shined.

It kind of got me thinking. There are a lot of bands that sound different in their live show, some better and some worse. I saw the Shins open for Modest Mouse a couple of years ago and thought they were great, but their album was pretty weak. Some other bands like Built to Spill I've seen live and was nearly bored to death. I actually left about 6 songs into the set on that one.

For me if there's a band I really like, they can't really become one of my favorites until I see them play live. Its really the way rock music is meant to be heard. Touring and playing guitar on stage is like a dream, and bands that can live off of that are super lucky. I've gotten to play a lot of live shows with one or two high school and college bands and its a blast.

A sampling of the best live shows/band I've seen recently are; Snow Patrol, Say Anything, Modest Mouse, Muse and Ratatat. I'm still pretty sure I haven't convinced anyone of the wonders of Ratatat yet. But their album last year was the best thing I've heard in a long time.
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Tuesday, May 3, 2005

The State of Music
It seems to me like the state of Rock music right about now is really good. I've been able to find a lot of good music recently and am pretty content right now.

1. The Creed's of the world are silent. When Creed broke up, I think the world let out a sigh of relief. No more bad Jesus-posing videos from that ultra generic band. In general the popular rock bands have died out lately. Crap like Matchbox 20 has gone away, and I haven't heard from Linkin Park in a while.

2. Pop Music is in the shitter too. Its heading for a fall I think. There is so much inbreeding in pop music nowadays, the same couple of producers are making the majority of the music. Pharrel, Lil John and a few others are on almost every pop and rap album. Its getting really watered down. The whole scene is just choreographed dancing and people saying the word "edgy" a lot. Its lost all meaning.

3. Enter indie rock. "Indie" rock bands are starting to crawl out of the woodwork and get some recognition. I saw a Bright Eyes album in Target the other day. Its a great balance though, because the most popular indie bands are still not becoming mega-popular and doing arena shows. A ton of people know about the Shins, but its not like they're all over the radio or anything. Modest Mouse exploded, but have disappeared again since the rest of their singles weren't super-poppy. Its a good time to be in an indie band. Even my former band when I was in High School (Last Conservative) is getting exposure and is going to be on MTV2 advance warning this month.

Its a good scene, tons of live shows and I think I've bought more new CD's from new bands than I have for a long time. Death From Above 1979, Ted Leo, Snow Patrol, Oslo, Say Anything, Inouk, Cub Country, Blood Brothers, black rebel motorcycle club etc.
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