I hope Vampire Weekend is okay

Harvey Girls - Don't Go Stop

I had never heard of The Harvey Girls until seeing this music video posted on Local Cut today. Sometimes lo-fi is the best:


Don't Go Stop from the harvey girls on Vimeo.

Man, I'm So Hyped Right Now

I wanted to wait a while and see if KG's RIDICULOUS post-championship game interview took off on its own, as I figured it would.  Yet somehow this gem has gone astonishingly under-appreciated since the Celtics clinched the title.  

No one in my mind was more deserving of a ring than Garnett, and I love the guy; but watch how he roller coasters from exhausted and joyous shock, to an Adidas-commercial outburst, to crying like a school girl, to spitting game--all under the span of a minute.  

My personal highlights:

"Man, I'm so, I'm so hyped right now"

"Michelle, you look good tonight, girl. You look good"

"I made it, Ma! Top of the world! Top of the world!"

"Im so happy right now, I'm not finin' ta sleep all week"

"I can't take all this, man. But I'm certified now.  Certified"

Great stuff.

If Dick Cheney was your mom...

Robert Thurman on Buddhism:

What do you think about when you meditate?

Usually, some form of trying to excavate any kind of negative thing cycling in the mind and turn it toward the positive. For example, when I am annoyed with Dick Cheney, I meditate on how Dick Cheney was my mother in a previous life and nursed me at his breast.

You mean you fantasize about being breast-fed by Dick Cheney?

It’s a fantasy of releasing fear and developing affection. It’s a way of coming back to feeling grateful toward him and seeing his positive side, finding the mother in Dick Cheney.

What would Freud say about that?

Freud would freak out. He would say, “Well, you are seeking the oceanic feeling of the baby in the womb.” Infantile regression — that’s what he thought the quest for enlightenment was.

"The Quiet Corners of Paris" - The New York Times

Claude Bureau at the Jardin des Plantes, where he was chief gardener for more than two decades. At this vast garden, he took his first baby steps and met his wife. "Women always love gardeners," said Bureau. "We speak of roses and perfume. We can easily get their attention."

The more parks in cities the better. Especially if you find creative ways to intertwine them within a steel and concrete landscape. Read On! Wayne!

Lay low for the letdown,
johnson!

The Dodos & The Oh Sees

The Dodos just released their great album Visiter and swung through town Tuesday evening to play a set at The Doug Fir (best sound in the city). It's evident these guys love music because you wont see many other band play harder and with more enthusiasm and skill. They were preceded by another bay area band The Oh Sees who play (I'm not good using adjectives to describe music) awesome music! Below is a funny video of the lead singer of the Oh Sees bashing some guy in the head with a guitar at a show. I recommend seeing both if you've got the time and the money.

Chief Justice Roberts

A thoughtful analysis of the Roberts court by The New Republics Jeffrey Rosen. It appears that Chief Justice Roberts is determined to promote unified Supreme Court decisions, but as Rosen points out this years presidential election will determine whether this will continue. If McCain is elected a liberal judge (Ginsberg or Stevens) will most likely be replaced with a conservative judge and Roberts will no longer be compelled to work for consensus. One would hope that he would continue. However, if Obama is elected the balance of power will most likely remain the same. Finally, an Obama presidency focused on Health Care and renewed environmental regulations on businesses will raise a number of questions about federal powers that might come into conflict with a more Conservative interpretation of the Constitution. The real test will come when the Court will either defend Roe v. Wade or re-interpret the meaning of abortion and the Constitution.

The Saturday Knights - Tonight

Seattle's own rap-rock party crew The Saturday Knights are playing a CD release show tonight at Nectar Lounge .  Doors open at nine o'clock.  The very, very, funky Budos Band opens.  

A great article in this week's Stranger aptly reveres The Saturday Knights' infectious, poly-genre, house party vibe.   With more wit and charisma than the Blue Scholars, and no intensely-Marxist agenda, tonight's show promises to be one of best straight-up dance parties in a long while.

The Saturday Knights' new album Mingle is out now on Light In The Attic records.

  

Waterfalls - New York City - Por que no?

New York City with the direction of Public Art Fund and 15 million dollars constructed four waterfalls of heights ranging from 90 to 120 feet along the East River.

Mr. Bloomberg called the project “a triumph of human imagination and mechanical engineering,” and a reminder that “New York City is a place where big ideas can be realized.” Such projects, he said, apologizing in advance for a bad pun, “whet the artistic appetite.”

Whether provocative, complimentary, or seemingly out of place I appreciate public art projects on all scales. However, I don't know what to think about this. Maybe I shouldn't have to think about it.

The Chevrolet Volt

Will the first primarily electric car be ready for the market in 2010? Stay tuned. Until then - this interesting article in this month's Atlantic Monthly overviews the development of the Chevrolet Volt. What's the big deal?

If it meets specifications, it will charge up overnight from any standard electrical socket. It will go 40 miles on a charge. Then a small gasoline engine will ignite. The engine’s sole job will be to drive a generator, whose sole job will be to maintain the battery’s charge—not to drive the wheels, which will never see anything but electricity. In generator mode, the car will drive hundreds of miles on a tank of gas, at about 50 miles per gallon. But about three-fourths of Americans commute less than 40 miles a day, so on most days most Volt drivers would use no gas at all.

Brightblack Morning Light - Hologram Buffalo

New video from the duo's forthcoming second LP, Motion To Rejoice, on Matador.

The Portland Trailblazers & The N.B.A. Draft

NBA draft day has become one of the most exciting days for sports fans in Portland (they are also our only major professional sports team) because of the cash Paul Allen is willing to spend and the creativity Kevin Pritchard exudes. The draft isn't happening until tomorrow, but the Blazers have already given New Orleans cash for the 27th pick. This leaves the Blazers with two first round (13 & 27) and three second round picks (33, 36 & 55). We have three players in Europe (Rudy Fernandez (Esp), Peter Koppenen (Fin) & Joel Freeland (AZ)) and Greg Oden also waiting in the wings. Additionally, Oden and Fernandez would both be considered top ten picks in this years draft.

Something has got to give and the cash for the 27th pick was probably the first move. The Blazers are most likely going to target a point guard or small forward in the lottery or via trading. This appears to be the last year the Blazers will be as active in the draft because the overhaul of the roster is almost complete and we don't need any more prospective talent. However, the 2009 free agency class is full of a lot of potential and the trades happening right now along with our picks will ensure that we have a lot of room under the cap space next year to get a free agent if we need one. All the while Kevin Pritchard will be stockpiling talent in Europe for a "Euro-Farm" team to supplement our roster in case current and future players don't work out.

The final moments of the last years home finale:



R.I.P. City!,

johnson!

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (A Review)

Essentially, Greg Gillis a.k.a. Girl Talk is the greatest wedding d.j. ever:

Fluxblog.org's Matthew Perpetua is our guide.

Broken Social Scene - Fire Eye'd Boy (Music Video)

Beijing & Urban Planning/Design

There is an interesting article in this weeks New Yorker about the rapid urban transformation occurring in Beijing. Many consider the construction of more avante style buildings to be unique to China because of their desire to develop at such a break neck pace. Even though most of the buildings are designed by Western firms this article and the people of China argue that the West is too restrained to accept the construction of such odd buildings.

"This clever prototype for a city without streets is also an admission that the traditional street-based city doesn’t have much of a future here. As an attempt to bring avant-garde ideas to high-rise housing, the development is impressive, but at another level it’s not unlike the gated apartment compounds that now fill much of Beijing’s rapidly developing outskirts. The twenty-first-century equivalent of the ancient hutongs is a kind of skyscraper suburbia. You drive there, and then you get back in your car every time you go outside—exactly the model that planners in the United States have been trying to get away from in recent decades."
It is unique that the focus of these structures is more geared towards a suburbia living style. Recently, in the "West" there has been a greater focus on how to "green" buildings and how to design them to compliment their urban surroundings, but not to isolate the inhabitants from the urban environment in which they want to live. (For more thoughts on how cities are going to adapt to the new problems faced by population growth and the scarcity of resources: James side of things). It appears that the residents and planners of Beijing have given up on urban livability. Why? This article argues that the city of Beijing was not designed for the modern era, mainly traffic congestion, and so there is a significant conflict between the structural modernization occurring on top of a pre-modern city. It's a conventional urban planners nightmare, but at the same time a unique opportunity for creative and groundbreaking urban planning concepts. There is no question that China has the money. Who is going to come up with the plans?

Say Hello To The Bad Guy

"this is that ignorant shit you love"

Shock-jock extraordinaire and world-class dipshit Don Imus is once again under scrutiny for some, well, more than slightly bigoted remarks on the air. Read about it here.

What blows my mind is how Imus simply thinks that his "misunderstood" intentions--that he was trying to highlight through sarcasm how black males are "picked on"--somehow vindicate his actions.  

If every intelligent (see: not brain-dead) person out there is interpreting his comments as racially insulting, then who cares about the desired effect? The failure of Imus' sarcasm coming across is his own, not the audience's.  

And another thing: who the hell hired him again, anyway? The man is a sensationalist. He's consistently offensive, and never in a beneficially provocative way. What a joke. 

Turn up the Jay-Z.  

Re-Introduction - Glass Candy - Geto Boys (cover)

In 2008 all that was 2007 is 2009.

In 2007 Glass Candy released a song that uses the instrumentals from Geto Boys "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" with Cyndi Laupers lyrics from "Iko Iko." This should be a track one default for any party play list.

Geto Boys (Demo)

Raise The Bar?

Yesterday's LA Times featured an article about the ongoing trend of "maturation" amongst some of the net's most infamous blogs.  The story refers specifically to the phenomenon as it exists within the sports criticism and opinion blogosphere--but it raises the kind of tough questions not only pertinent to sports.

Basically, as sites like Kissing Suzy Kolber and Deadspin have grown in readership and buzz-clout, they've often faced harsh opposition to their brand of spoof and gossip-fueled reporting.  While the more obstinate sites have responded either with indifference or a hostile I-do-what-I-want, others have ostensibly acquiesced to these "post-Buzz Bissinger" expectations by shifting (or at least taming) their site's approach, as well as by assuming greater responsibility for what's posted.  

The result has been a style of blogging that's less vitriolic and reactionary in tone, and instead more weighed and reserved in conviction.  Of course, as always, there's plenty of split opinion regarding such changes.  Read on here.

North American Organic Brewers Festival

Live from the city with the second most brew pubs in the world: The North American Organic Brewers Festival. Unlike the Waterfront festival, which includes all ranges of beer from Coors Light to Keystone this one is strictly relegated to those beers us elitist, barak obama voting, arugala eating ex-patriots enjoy. Some beers I would try just because of their names:

Backhand Of God Stout - Crannog Ales - Sorrento, British Columbia
Triple Exultation Strong Ale - Eel River - Fortuna, CA
Old Burien 600 Malt Liquor - Elliott Bay Brewing - Burien, WA
Yerba Mate Ale - MateVeza - San Francisco, CA
Black Raspberry Nectar Mead - Redstone Meadery - Boulder, CO
Sasquatch Legacy Project - Walking Man Brewing - Stevenson, WA

Sasquatch Legacy Project? Sounds like something more than just beer. I guess I will just have to find out for myself. Forecasts are predicting it to be 85 degrees and clear. Sunburns and hang-overs. Cheers!

Now more than ever,
johnson!

Starfucker - The Future

This is going to be the the album artwork for Starfucker's upcoming release on Badman Records. At first glance it reminds me of the artwork for The Beatles album Revolver. It has a psychadelic and glam rock feel to it as well. A few new songs were posted on their myspace page today; "Pop Song" and "Aahz."

Here is a video of them performing "Dance Face" at Willamette Week's Best New Bands showcase on May 24th at Berbati's Pan.


"Dance Face" from Brad Ster on Vimeo.

Enjoy,

-johnson!

Fleet Foxes - Crayon Angels (Judee Sill cover)

From Black Cab Sessions

Port O'Brien - I Woke Up Today

Port O'Brien - I Woke Up Today from Christian Stavros on Vimeo.

Local Music - Nick Jaina

Portland musician Nick Jaina has been writing a tour diary over at Local Cut. It's extremely well written and thoughtful:

"I recently had a dream where I was asked to play second base for the New York Yankees. Just me, in my street clothes, with no particular baseball skill, suddenly asked to jump into the middle of a game and start playing. And instead of saying no I just stalled for a bit, looked for a uniform and a glove, made some weak excuses about what was taking so long, but otherwise prepared myself to go into the game. To play second base. For the New York Yankees.

Perhaps the Dream Messenger was telling me that I need to learn to say no to more things. And perhaps, Dream Messenger, you are right. Perhaps I take on too many things and get overwhelmed and try to keep all plates spinning at all times. Yes, perhaps fifty shows was too much to handle. Invariably some plates would fall to the ground and break. It’s been over a month now since the end of the tour and I can finally think again, so I couldn’t just let the tour diary end at West Texas, getting kicked out of an splintered row boat by a mean old man."

Mas?

Jaina has a number of upcoming concerts throughout the summer and fall along with another album release later in the year. All the songs were recorded live in the studio and will not be "hemmed and hawed." He also played some music over at Daytrotter back on the 6th of June.

Keep your eyes ahead,

johnson!

Boston...Celtics...

Not that I wanted to see the Lakers win, but this blog post is hilarious:

"FINALLY! We won! WE fackin’ won! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK! YANKEES SACK!

(keys nearby car)

I don’t know how WE did it, but somehow WE fackin’ pulled together as a Nation and fackin’ gawt it done! Even with fackin’ Dahkie Rivahs in chaaaahge! Even with the fackin’ refs havin’ in it far us, like they always do! We thah fans took this team on ow-uh backs and WON IT ALL! ANOTHER FACKIN’ TRIUMPH FAR THAH CELTICS NATION! You fackin’ hatahs out they-ah just gawt sarved up anathah fackin’ dose of fackin’ BEANTOWN GREATNESS!

(smokes thirty Parliaments at the same time)

Gawd, when I think of how fackin’ lawg we’ve been waiting far this title. I had to spend ovah twenty fackin’ yee-ahs nawt giving a fack about the Celtics. Then that one dahkie died. Then that othah fackin’ dahkie died. Then that fackin’ greasy dago Pitino came through the fackin’ do-ah. NO OTHAH FAN BASE COULD PAWSSIBLY UNDAHSTAND WHAT THE FACK WE WENT THROUGH!"

Read On.

-johnson!

Another PDX Pop Now! Benefit Show

What more can I say?

Fire in the hole! Reviews of Wolf Parade's At Mt. Zoomer

"Criticizing the Critics!" How circular. Meta.
Fire in the Hole!
Fire in the Hole!
Fire in the Hole!

"Whereas Apologies to the Queen Mary closed with an unimpeachable tract of songs, from "Shine a Light" on, At Mount Zoomer fizzles and sags after its sixth track-- the record's grueling backend culminates with the contentious, 11-minute "Kissing the Beehive", a stubbornly unmelodic finale marked by a mush of throbbing guitars and histrionic vocals (ironically, it's the only track that Krug and Boeckner co-wrote). At Mount Zoomer is fractured and spastic, and at times, the band's ambition eclipses its strengths. Still, there's something about Wolf Parade's fragility that's profoundly relatable, and the sense that the entire operation could fall apart at any second-- that we're all tottering on the brink of total dissolution-- is as thrilling as it terrifying."
-Amanda Petrusich, Pitchforkmedia.com - 7.7/10

Firstly, I wonder how Ms. Petrusich can give this album such a safe and mediocre rating of 7.7 out of 10.0 yet describe the "entire operation" of the album as both "thrilling and terrifying." It sounds like she is easily excited. Secondly, her review of the latter half of the album demonstrates a gross amount of laziness on her part. I wonder if she listened even more than once if not at all? I would also argue that 11-minute epic "Kissing the Beehive" is not contentious nor "histrionic." What does that word even mean? It is not honorable to replace the use of simple prose with complex vocabulary to make a point. This review re-hashes a bunch of rhetoric about Apologies to Queen Mary and then quickly cherry-picks various words in the lyrics to paint gross-generalizations about the thematic tone of the album. What a load of rubbish.

(A brief history of Pitchfork in 2008 - First lauding undue praise on Vampire Weekend & Crystal Castles then canning Wolf Parade through mediocrity. Three strikes your out. Arrest 'em! And enough with the child predator glasses)

"Even “Kissing the Beehive,” a gasping outro that sort of takes the idea of a Boeckner/Krug duet to its illogical extreme, works perfectly with its Spector-drum riff, spiralling guitar squalls, and kind-of-funny backing vocals. And that vaguely cinematic riff that rolls over the middle cinches the whole melodrama of the piece together in a way that screams “seriously” and “don’t take it so seriously” in the same breath. Either/or, right? Except “Kissing the Beehive” makes it hard to know where one starts and the other begins, and Wolf Parade in general are making it increasingly hard to talk about this band like it’s urban/rural, modern/anti-modern, or Boeckner/Krug."

"In retrospect the album title almost makes sense: Wolf Parade express a longing for a fantasy world that maybe only they still dream of, one they can only grasp through the release of making music, and so in name At Mount Zoomer declares, “Here we are, standing on our peak, happy in this moment, at the studio that our drummer made with his own two hands.” Whether you like it more or less than their debut, this album means that in 2008 this band lives on despite their hype and despite the way they’ve been constructed in indie fandom. They’re just Wolf Parade, fucking shit up for breakfast."
-Mark Abraham, Cokemachineglow.com - 84% out 100%

Mr. Abraham's review of the album is too cluttered and long-winded to even bother reading (even though I did....). I understand that "editing" can sometimes tarnish the unique voice of a writer, but Cokemachineglow is overwhelmed with reviews that read like first drafts of essays written by second year college students in a class titled "Contemporary Musical Pop Culture as a Lens into the Collective Psyche of the North American Ethno-Social Diaspora." A bunch of academic wankery. It would be more appropriate to consider a track review of "Fine Young Cannibals" on Cokemachineglow:

"The changes are subtle but decided: keyboards higher in the mix, a limber, confident pace, less eager to set your heart aflame and more eager to release a strong record. Which they do pretty handily, as it turns out, because this is Wolf Parade. It feels like them. It sounds like them. Two years ago they may’ve opened with the caterwauling climax, but here they wait four minutes to turn resolutely anthemic, Boeckner bellowing “There’s nothing here,” before letting the song drift away like a ribbon down a highway. It’s a model of restraint, easily one of 2008’s finest indie rock songs, and probably the least impressive track on At Mount Zoomer."
-Clayton Purdum

"Restraint" - yet this album does not have any less impact on this listener. That is all. That is all?

Fire in the Hole!
Fire in the Hole!
Fire in the Hole!

-johnson!

Strength - Wilderness (2008)

Strength have released a new song "Wilderness." It was released while they were on a brief west coast tour recently, but it can also be found on this years PDX Pop Now! 2008 compilation. Listen here.

MVRDV - Innovation, Utility, Play, Future

Perpetually a week behind, I just finished a fascinating article from last week's New York Times Magazine about MVRDV, a collective of architects who are innovatively pushing the conventional aesthetic and theoretical boundaries of building design.  This sounds fairly un-revolutionary I know, but what's so intriguing about this Dutch firm is that their doing so not in the sense of some linear, post-post-modernism, 'artistic' movement or style, but from the perspective of practical function and solution in the face of new and growing challenges (such as the looming tipping point of urban dwellers outnumbering rural ones, especially in developing countries) and through approaching the concept of constructed space and human habitation in radically and fundamentally novel ways.  Yet visual appeal and amenities aren't simply thrown out either; these new lines that MVRDV architects are drawing merely re-conceptualize the way that spacial limits and lifestyle traditionally interact.

"When MVRDV begins a project, it starts by assembling information on all the conceivable factors that could play a role in the site’s design and construction — everything from zoning laws, building regulations and technical requirements to client wishes, climatic conditions and the political and legal history of the site. Architects often view these rules and regulations as bureaucratic foils to their creativity. MVRDV sees them as the wellspring of invention. In fact, believing that subjective analysis and “artistic” intuition can no longer resolve the complex design problems posed by the ever-metastisizing global city, the architects sometimes use a home-built software program called Functionmixer. When loaded with all the parameters of a particular construction project, Functionmixer crunches the numbers to show optimal building shapes for any given set of priorities (maximizing sunlight, say, or views, or privacy) and pushes limits to the extreme, where they can be seen, debated and, often, thoroughly undone. It creates a datascape that is the basis of the design. 

In 1994, for instance, MVRDV was asked to build housing for the elderly — an apartment block with 100 units — in an already densely developed suburb of Amsterdam. Because of height regulations and the need to provide adequate sunlight for residents, only 87 of the called-for units could fit within the site’s restricted footprint. Rather than expand horizontally and consume more of the neighborhood’s green space, MVRDV borrowed a page from its “vertical suburbia” and hung the remaining 13 apartments off the side. Their wonderfully odd WoZoCos housing complex takes the conventional vertical housing block and reorganizes it midair with these bulging extensions that seem to be levitating right up off the ground."

The article's first few pages are a bit slow, but the remainder of the piece is worth the perseverance.  Click here to view the article.  There's also a great and related slideshow available here.   

R. Kelly Not Guilty, Now What?

Well, it only took SIX YEARS, but Robert Sylvester Kelly was acquitted of all fourteen charges of child pornography yesterday. There's an article describing the trial here and here.

Happy Summertime indeed.

But what's next for your boy Kells, now that he's got his good name back? Will he release Trapped In The Closet installment number twenty three? Drop the hook on a Ja Rule comeback single, maybe? Or team up with Usher, the Dream, T-Pain, and Ne-Yo for a DJ Khaled style who's who of R&B posse cut about giving it to the ladies (but in a nice way)? Think about it.

The 41 year old Chi-town player does have a new album and follow up to last year's Double Up in the works. 12 Play: Fourth Quarter is scheduled to come out sometime this summer. Kudos to those who can explain the numeric logic behind the upcoming record's title. Also, peep the new Sisqo/Rodman-esque 'do:

Holla!

Tim Russert

1950 - 2008

"Florida, Florida, Florida"

Jimm Webb for VP?

An article in The New Republic makes a good case for why Jim Webb would not be a good Vice Presidential candidate for the Democratic ticket. Despite some issues which he takes a liberal stance on, if you examine his actions and words it does not appear that he harbors a liberal world view. He has also said many things which many Democrats would find upsetting. The Democratic party has been in dire need of a little more backbone, but there are different ways to be "tough." Webb's tough attitude appears to be based more on resentment than a strong liberal conviction. One illuminating insight from the article:

"There are also his resentments that focus on gender and ethnicity. Why is this troubling? Because worldviews built on resentment are almost always bad news. They are often bad news even when those resentments are deployed on behalf of a minority group with justifiable historical grievances. (See Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakhan.) But they are really bad news when deployed by a historically dominant group (men, southern whites) that feels its traditional dominance slipping away. Indeed, it is just this sort of resentment that has spawned some of the least liberal developments in American history--from Jim Crow laws to periodic outbursts of anti-immigration sentiment."

New AU album Verbs streaming for free. It will be released on June 26th and there will be a c.d. release party at the Holocene on June 24th.

Someone once said:

"Au's captivating, blissful self-titled debut of gently torn and crumbled pop songs has my ears humming like nothing else Portland's put out this year. Just now, in between this sentence and the one prior, I forgot for a moment I was even writing about this and fell into it like the wonderful dream that Au is. Melodies shake from within ambient fog, folk songs play with their own shape (think a chamber-informed Animal Collective), voices drift and drone--it all happens together, magnificently. I'm smitten. You will be, too."
Willamette Weekly - Michael Byrne.

Happy Summertime & PDX Pop Now!

PDX Pop Now! 2008 CD Release Party & Benefit

Tonight
Holocene (1001 SE Morrison)
ALL AGES
8pm
$10 gets you admission + a free copy of the double-disc compilation before it hits stores

The show:

YACHT
Fist Fite
Southern Belle
White Fang
DJ Manny Lennox

+ Raffle

The Crystal Antlers

Pitchforkmedia has unveiled their out of left field 2008 Best New Music/Band: Long Beach, California's own Crystal Antlers! 8.5 rating! Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!

A quick rundown:

• Les Savy Fav comparison: check
• Lo-fi: check
• Psych-Rock: check
  
• Latin Influenced: double check
• Comets on Fire comparison: check
• Mars Volta keyboardist as producer: check
• My Morning Jacket comparison: check
  
• 80's era white rimmed sunglasses: check
• Politically Incorrect "Native American" clothing: check
• Neon colors: check
• "Summer album:" check
  
• Hawaiian shirt = California Hipster: check
  
• Drummer named "Sexual Chocolate:" check
  

Is Long Beach the new Baltimore or Brooklyn? Discuss.

-johnson!

Naked People! Sigur Ros! Arrest 'em!

Sigur Ros are streaming the entirety of their June 23rd release Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust for free here. The audio player shows how many people have listened to each song. 12,385 listen to the first song, but only 135 have listened to the second.

I wonder if this has anything to do with it. Is Google making us stupid? Does this article have the same effect as yawning in front of a group of people? Should you equate "stupidity" with a short attention span? These are just a few questions. When trying to answer questions I think it is important to remember that the Buddha teaches us that questions we cannot answer from experience have no answers at all. Therefore do not occupy the mind trying to answer them. Answers, Answers, Answers. So much attachment to "Answers." What a funny word anyways. An swww errrrssss.

Enjoy the lovely music. Great album cover. Reminds me of college. Call me.

-johnson!

Evil Urges

This week continues a June chock-full of big releases, including My Morning Jacket's Evil Urges, the Louisville band's 5th studio album, out today on ATO records.  

Here's a pretty worthwhile clip documenting live and behind-the-scenes footage of new material, as well as the band's take on the new album and its recording process.  

My Morning Jacket are taking their legendary live act on the road this summer, starting this Thursday with a string of shows in the UK and Europe.   The band heads back to continent in late July to begin a lengthy and pretty comprehensive North American leg of the tour.  Check the dates here.  

Bang-a-rang!

In this club, In this club.

Check out the Gorilla's cool-guy smooth during the hook.  F**king superlative.

Big ups to LocalCut for such keen eyes.

Radiohead - Scottish Mist

I know in terms of blog-years this Radiohead movie's old as sin, but not everyone's quite as hip to the game as they might wish and could have initially missed it (like I did).  Plus, this uniquely intimate footage is worth a second glance.

Here's a clip of the opening "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"

Check out the rest of the songs from In Rainbows played live and in their entirety over at pitchfork.tv.

The Toyota Prius

"Consider the eco-conscious automobile par excellence, the Toyota Prius. As it turns out, manufacturing the Prius's battery is extraordinarily carbon-intensive. Paying off this carbon debt through fuel savings will take 46,000 miles, according to Wired. Only after 100,000 miles would the Prius catch up with carbon savings offered by a ten-year-old Toyota Tercel. And the Prius would never catch up with a 1994 Geo Metro XFi."

You need to drive a Prius 46,000 miles to offset the amount of energy it took to manufacture its battery? That's really deflating to read. 

For more about "green" living and the new television station Life on Planet Green read this interesting article in The Atlantic Monthly.

...Maybe we could live a greener life if we didn't sit in front of televisions (and computers) as much. A truly "green" television station would be no signal or maybe "snow."

-johnson!

Update:

Reader response for original source:

I'm disappointed that you lent so much credence to Reihan in the Prius-bashing, who lends so much credence to that Wired article without at least noting that soon the Toyota Prius will be switching to a lithium battery, which will change that calculus completely.

It's true that the Prius does have a bit of a green footprint issue vs. a used car, but that's kind of a silly argument to make considering the fact that the used car is clearly a different product than a new car, and a different market. It's a bit unfair in an apples to apples way to pick the most fuel-efficient used-car you can find and put it up against a new car, where it has a built-in advantage immediately in its carbon footprint because it's used! Why not a new Prius vs. a used suburban? I wonder who would win that comparison?

Also, it's silly to assume a used TERCEL or GEO METRO is going to be a plausible product for most people since the reliability of those cars and whatever longevity might be left on a used one is dubious at best. You might as well urge "green living" by using your coffee ground three or four times before you throw them out. Sure it's an awful beverage or has no actual flavor left by the fourth time, but hey, it's greener so that's the choice a green must make! These arguments trying to bring in crazy scenarios about using old cars that Reihan even acknowledges are death traps all just seem like silly contrarianism.

Guerilla Gardening & Trash

A young woman in a green jacket with horses printed all over it stopped to ask what they were doing.

“We’re gardening,” Reynolds told her.

“Who are you gardening for?”

“For everyone and ourselves,” he said. “We’re guerrilla gardeners.”

Here is an interesting video and article in this weeks New York Times Magazine about a group of people in London who rehabilitate plots of land in urban areas through gardening. They do this without permits so they consider themselves "guerilla gardeners." They believe that by treating these areas with more care and thought a pedestrian will also treat this land better. One could also consider this an act of selflessness because it improves the natural environment that countless people inhabit. This not only has a positive physical effect on the landscape, but potentially an emotional and mental one as well. This website details these guerrilla's feet's in more depth.

Ironically, the Sunday New York Times has an article about trash problems in the city of Naples. Italy has run out of room for all the trash they accumulate and are shipping their trash to Hamburg, Germany to avoid it piling up in the middle of the streets.

Hamburg has actually reduced the amount of trash they accumulate with the use of sophisticated recycling and incinerating. Just another reminder that we can change our ways it just takes concerted effort on the part of our leaders, but also by each individual to make that next step.

---

I thought both of these articles highlighted a tension that exists because of consumption. More consumption by more people equals more trash and poor treatment of one's surroundings once we run out of remote places to hide our waste. However, just as much as we consume and defile we also want to live in clean beautiful surroundings. How can we achieve a balance between disposing of our waste in a thoughtful way so that we are reminded of our need to consume less while at the same time treating our surroundings with more thought?

-johnson!

June Podcast.2

The weather in Seattle has been unspeakably shitty these past few days, cooping the city up inside and generally souring the mood.  Fortunately, there's lots of good music to pass away the hours with, which--in conjunction with my continued status as highly unemployable--brings us to another podcast.  

This time around we've got a string of mellower and earthy folk- and indie-rock tunes capped off with two throbbing dance jams.  The general theme is again new(er) music, with many of the bands playing upcoming shows in the area.

Once again, I urge you to follow up on and support the musicians if you find something you like.

To download this podcast click here.  You can also stream directly from the Gold Soundz player at right or the embedded player below (if you're using an RSS viewer).

The Tracklist:

1. "I Woke Up Today" by Port O'Brien, from their recently self-released album All We Could Do Was Sing (2008) .

A more rowdy stomp-along version of a song featured on their excellent debut album The Wind And The Swell.  

2. "Art Isn't Real (City of Sin)" by Deer Tick, from War Elephant (2007) out now on FEOW! records.

He's from Rhode Island and less than a quarter-century old, but John McCauley pens and belts out a song like a Dylan who died of cigarette-induced throat cancer and immediately came back to life in the image of a scronny and blonde-haired kid.  Deer Elephant is a heck of a debut album.

3. "Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms" by Frightened Rabbit, from The Midnight Organ (2008) available on FatCat records.

The Scottish band is performing June 18th at the Nectar Lounge in Seattle, and June 19th at the Holocene in Portland.

4. "Blue Penguin" by The Ruby Suns, from Sea Lion (2008) released earlier this year on Sub Pop.

One of the most ambitious and wildly successful poly-genre records around.  The two Kiwi lads and gal will be part of Sub Pop's 20th anniversary bash in Seattle on July 13th.

5. "Red And Purple" by The Dodos, from Visiter (2008) on French Kiss records.

Guitar/vocalist Meric Long and his mustachioed experimental-percussionist friend Logan Kroeber are even more earnest and arresting in concert.  Don't miss their shows in Seattle June 25th at Neumo's and July 25th at the Capitol Hill Block Party, or in Portland June 24th at the Doug Fir Lounge.

6. "Great DJ" by The Ting Tings, from We Started Nothing (2008) out now on Columbia.

The latest band to make those iPod dancers shake their moneymakers are coming to (Sea)town Tuesday night at Chop Suey.  

7. "Cause Those People Get Free Airline Tickets" by Velella Velella, from the self-released Fight Club EP (2008). 

One of my favorite (and local) bands that for reasons beyond my conceptual ability have yet to blow up within the currently dance music crazed scene.  Velella Velella's funky, chanting, interstellar, grooving, fusion sound is so much more than trendy dance-punk, however. Their playing a homecoming show as part of the aforementioned Block Party July 25th.