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i don’t care what anyone says about dangermouse, i am really feeling the new Beck album,
especially this song “Walls”

i don’t know how or why i have this, but this cuban cover of a franz ferdinand song came on my itunes by a side project of BV Social Club Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo and i kinda really like it:

coco freeman - “the dark of the matinee”here is the original version:

the ramones, cheap champagne and digital pictures of my friends and fam is what is standing between me and super sulker mode this neglected bingo night. folks who criticize the ramones for being idiot savants (who only talked about hamburgers and male prostitution) end up underestimating their power to make anyone, even Debbie Downer, stupid pumped for retarded behavior. Stupid pumped like you were a toddler who just ate a box of donuts. I love The Clash but they couldn’t make me escape quite like the Ramones. Ay Romeo! I don’t wanna go down to the basement

today your love, tomorrow the world

havana affair

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to break out Zen Arcade again

husker du 1987, “Pink Turns to Blue”

so i got this portable karaoke adapter for my video ipod. i don’t know why, because it would require me getting really drunk to use it. thought it would be good to have for house parties or as an alternative to paying Do Re Mi in japantown for a private karaoke room.

anyway, you plug it into your tv from your ipod and it comes with a microphone and a reverb knob to disguise your horrible vocals. i was kinda sad when i realized that it didn’t come with a full library and i had to pay for each song like the itunes store, but then i found out that there are a mess of karaoke ready song files out there on the interweb for enjoying (read: stealing). and i mean surprising ones, not that typical benatarsherylcountingcrows crud. exhibit a & b:

on monday nite i ate at COCO500, the restaurant that the lesbian with the lame faux-hawk on Top Chef is the executive chef of. it was really good, but i ordered the flank steak so i didn’t feel compelled to take a picture of it. i cannot not order steak if it is on the menu, i don’t know what is wrong with me. i actually just had ordered a rib-eye a few days earlier at lunch with co-workers.

anyway, after dinner we all went to the Great American Music Hall to see the Long Blondes play. i took some video footage during one of their songs, something i have never done and felt kind of weird about because i always get irritated at all the undesirable live footage of bands i like on youtube clogging up my search results. i made an exception here because they are one of my few favorite modern bands and i really like this song. plus i thought it would be nice to have something more vivid for thee ol’ memory vault/private mind garden.

i watched this Sabbath dvd last nite and this part had me in stitches

Geezer for President

here’s a mix i made for another upcoming camping trip and general summer escaping. i think it’s much better than last summer’s summer mix. yeah there’s a doors song, shut up i remembered i liked 2 songs off the first album. ive been wrong before

Episode #4: Yay Summer

file under: run, hop fences jump over benches; when u see me coming get the fuck out the entrance

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The Guess Who “Shakin All Over”
Gloria Jones “Tainted Love”
The Sonics “Money”
13th Floor Elevators “You’re Gonna Miss Me”
The Doors “Take it as it Comes”
Martha and the Vandellas “Show me the Way”
The Who “Heat Wave”
Les Fleur de Lys “Hold On”
Rolling Stones “Bitch”
Iggy Pop & James Williamson “No Sense of Crime”
Led Zeppelin “Misty Mountain Hop”
The Creation “Making Time”
The Kinks “Rosie”
THEM f. Van Morrison “St James Infirmary”
The Metros “Since I found my Baby”
The Supremes “Love is Like an Itchin in my Heart”
Bobbie Smith “Walk Into My Heart”
The Move “Stefanie Says”
The Yardbirds “Heart Full of Soul”
The Kinks “Big Black Smoke”

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sometimes when i am suffering at the gym i ask myself why i am doing this. i think most people want to get in shape or drop a few pounds so they can wear swimwear in public without shame or look good in a cocktail dress or something. me, i realized i am exercising so i can fit into my robot blouse again which i put together 4 years ago.

i think sometimes sentimentality is my only motivation for making a concerted effort. sometimes. i know i can just pull the buttons off and put em on a new shirt, but i am too lazy to thread a needle. not too lazy i guess to feel the burn. no secret really, i’m a fickle one.

my drum lessons lately have been really constructive. i look forward to them every week, although there has been a few hiatuses recently with my teacher going to SXSW and just gigging a lot in general. lately our lessons have just been both of us on drum sets at the same time playing the same rhythm with him doing some fancy variation or drum fill intermittently and giving me a measure of time to mimic the exact thing. it’s very loose, i’m not always perfect but i am appreciating this kind of method because most of the drummers i admire show dexterity and can improvise off the pulse. i think it helps me learn creatively and intuitively instead of focusing too much on numbers and technical details. anyway, this weekend i upgraded to a better paiste high-hat and went into guitar center and got a used sabian crash and that made a world of difference. i love the way my drum kit sounds now and i spent most of sunday afternoon playing to the first sabbath album which probably made the neighboring restaurant hate me. i don’t care, i’ve heard them blast trance music really loud when i was trying to get some sleep one time. oh going into guitar center bummed me out a little though because there were 10 year olds being badasses on the drums and not only was it intimidating, but i felt at my age i was past the learning curve. i need more variety in my arsenal to son these brats. just kidding, i love kids that rock and that one jack black movie with the kids and the rock. dude my nephew shreds on Proud Mary, makes me a proud auntie. (Queue Whitney Houston) I believe the children are the future…

i know i have mentioned flip flop flyin’ here before but i can’t remember why. these illustrations of famous artists/musicians craig robinson made remind me of playmobil figures. kinda fun trying to guess who they are

OMG, I discovered an excellent northern soul podcast. Finally! Check it out . If you want to subscribe in iTunes click this and if you want to subscribe in google reader click this.

sorry i haven’t been posting as often. i have a lil bit of insomnia now, so here is a megaupdate. going through a seasonal lo-key period where i’m enjoying a meandering pace a little too much and indulging in simple pleasures. watching a ton of movies on netflix, having dinners with friends, practicing drums and learning french thanks to rosetta stone and my weekends are spent with family in the sj burbs or the sonoma cuts instead of partying and getting wasted.

student loans are scheduled to get paid off this year and i am weirded out at how excited i am about that because i once thought there was no end in sight. somewhat unrelated, i deleted my myspace account. and as stupid as that sounds, it feels really good to not depend on that to keep in touch with people.

some random things i’ve enjoyed/enjoy during this hermity respite:

I rewatched the film adaptation of All The Pretty Horses- haven’t seen it since it came out and it was so beautiful & satisfying to me this time around. I saw it in the theater nearly 8 years ago with my pops and couldn’t get into it. probably cause i was into heavily stylized movies like Reservoir Dogs with clever editing and felt like an elite insider when i recognized pop culture references that were only a few inches outside the mainstream field of vision. it embarrasses me out how much i love books but am so disconnected and impatient when it comes to finishing them. no matter how much i love great fiction, i never can find a break in my daily routine to tell them how much i appreciate them. seems like i’ve spent more time with it in celluloid form than in print form because i am such a slow ass and have a short attn span.

anyway, i still read although it takes me forever. after reading The Road and watching and loving the Coen’s adaptation of No Country for Old Men, I realized I was already familiar with Cormac McCarthy stories unknowingly because i just realized that All The Pretty Horses was one of his books; i was surprised because i thought his range was limited and didn’t think he was more than being a really good dark townie grit & bloodbath author. rewatching this movie made me believe the hype cause it was so different than what i knew of C. McCarthy. i loved this romantic suffering plot as well as the reversal of stereotypes. two struggling white texans leave the US though the border to find work and a better life in Mexico. what?! and end up working on the estate of an affluent mexican blue blood taming wild horses. how awesome is that?

Spring cleaning in February has unearthed more strange things in my house,

I didn’t think that finding wtf relics after those proofs, archaic russian cameras, and news clippings was possible.

I do miss going to live shows, but i haven’t been as proactive about finding out when bands i like are performing in my neck of the woods and am too disconnected from the flavor of the month albums to get really excited. i’m really loving the new Beach House album though.

so out of touch with new music mainly because i’m judgmental and picky when it comes to music, but this album is getting lots of wear as my “fall asleep to” album and i didn’t think anything could replace my droney heaven that is Windy & Carl’s Introspective. That last Cass McCombs album came close but there were some upbeat tracks that woke me up. i really need to throw together another sleep mix. speaking of sleep, i just typed a bunch of stuff and uploaded pics, and christy brinkley is squinching her ass for some exercise informercial on my tv and now i’m tired. at least staring at a bunch of text on a monitor is still sure bet for making me sleepy. good night

i started drum lessons in january because i fell off trying to teach myself and also because i thought spending money would motivate me to practice more and give me some much needed direction. so i’ve been practicing here and there on my drum kit and on the practice pad and whatnot, but today i figured how to play the drums on slint’s “good morning, captain” and i am so happy. i know it’s not really complicated, but it marks the first time i’ve been able to hear patterns and accents in a song and mimic them. now i have hope and am probably hated by neighbors. hooray!!

i’ve had a hard time describing to my instructor how i want to play. i made him a cd but it was rushed and the drums weren’t all that diverse. i kept explaining that i was in love with understated hi-hat work, 16th note patterns and intuitive polyrhythmic drumming that seems effortless and full of finesse like how you hear in some jazz or from robert wyatt in the soft machine. that’s the dream. i want to be nimble and bright sounding, not necessarily thunderous and in your face. then i was over at young’s house and guitar heroed to “message in the bottle.” i can’t believe i never noticed how creative the drumming was on that song even though it’s been played ad nauseum throughout my lifetime. maybe because i have a love hate relationship with the police. anyway, i told my instructor that i liked the drums on that song and he knew exactly what i meant. baby steps i guess.

here are a bunch of LPs with pink records covers compiled by a bunch of record nerds and me. i think quilted they would make a nice poster. somebody do that please.

well i posted classic rap album covers done in ms paint and then i saw these rock ones on flickr. the trout mask replica one cracks me up.

and here’s one i forgot to add to the other post

Holy cow, it’s been a long time since i put one up. dude…HOLY COW. I have to call this episode that. I also decided that I’m not going to type up lame music adjectives describing what kind of music is on here because i always feel really stupid with all the music hyphenation i.e. post-punk, psych-rock, psych-folk, blah blahcetera. from now on i’m gonna be as cryptic as possible because if you heard past episodes and like em then you will trust me. no post-punk, psych-rock, garage-folk eyerolling music crit descriptors. if you must, this mix is strictly cow-rock. lordy, i swear sometimes the only motivation i have for these mixes is the fun i have when i put together the artwork. enjoy my primecuts cowcuts.

Episode #3: Holy Cow

file under: cow-rock, unrequited beef, sonic meat, religion
as per usual, you can subscribe on the left there and yes it is in the fancy m4a format which has track markers for your ipod for skipping and repeating and puts said track markers on cd when you burn in itunes. if that is too confusing, complain in the comments and i will upload a mp3 version. and yes i have posted that Clean song before, i just love it so.

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A Band of Bees “These are the Ghosts”
Talking Heads “Air”
The Flowers “Confessions”
Girls At Our Best! “This Train”
The Long Blondes “Madame Ray”
Snowden “Kill the Power”
The Wipers “Scared Stiff”
Joy Division “Means to an End”
Josef K “The Angle”
Felt “Something Sends me to Sleep”
The Clean “Billy Two”
Guided By Voices “Little Lines”
Thurston Moore “Wonderful Witches”
The Sonics “He’s Waiting”
The Gris-Gris “Necessary Seperation”
Misfits “London Dungeon”
2,3 “All Time Low”
The Trashies “Let it be Trashed”
Devo “Uncontrollable Urge”
Michael Yonkers Band “The Thunder Speaks”
Simply Saucer “Bullet Proof Nothing”

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man oh man, i’m so sad

SIKE! i’m happy.

curtis makes me a dreamer

speaking of ms paint, i found these a long time ago on the internet and i guess i never posted them here. they are bad but really good. i appreciate them. i think my favorite is the slick rick and the LONS one. the Mobb Deep one looks so laughably bad to me because Prodigy looks catatonic and Premier’s wonky eye in the “Moment of Truth” one cracks me up.

sorry to my friends who have seen these a million times

hi, i’m taking a break in the desert. here’s a belated birthday gift i made for my favorite mexican

today i saw the video for Sensual Seduction and i laughed and i laughed.

what’s wrong about that? that’s right. nothing.

you take it in faith, you take it to the heart, the waiiiiting is the hardest paaart.

i think i could kill that song at karaoke