Bringin it back!

B cubed (Brooklyn Bladers Brigade) also known as R.A.D (Rollerblading Association of Dreams)are bringing rollerblading back and bringin it back strong.

RAD B3 is now accepting applications to join. 1 article of neon clothing required.

CD Release Tomorrow!

My favorite indie pop rockers out of Houston are having their CD release show tomorrow night! If you just happen to be in the Houston area, check them out! Odds are you aren't anywhere near Texas, so check out their Myspace and give them a listen.
Click Here!

Hello. I am your cousin.

Last night I attended a very peculiar concert. My friend, who grew up on the Upper west side, had a cousin who was performing at a venue in the village. Her very very Jewish and slightly crazy family required that she attend. The music was upbeat Argentinian, Columbian, and Venezuelan type stuff that one might witness drunken tourists dancing to hotel poolside. Instead of hotel poolside they were playing on the stage at a basement bar of a diner type establishment. And instead of drunken dancers there were middle aged to elderly Jewish folk sitting politely at tables facing the stage, sipping their one cocktail or glass of wine that would probably be a bit too much for one evening. Between sets, I was sitting next to my friend when a small man of about 70 approached us. He grabbed her hand with both of his and did not let go for the entire length of conversation to follow. He said in a Russian/New Jersey Jewish accent. "Hello. I am your cousin. You have never met me." She responds slightly apprehensively but cheerful, "Hi, really you're my cousin? how come we havent met before?" He says "well, I came from Europe. While in Europe I wore your cousin Phil's Barmitzva suit." At this point I started laughing pretty hard, but tried as best as I could to restrain myself. The conversation continued and he further explained his connection to her and her family. I had a smile on my face for the rest of the evening and repeated aloud multiple times in my very best pseudo Russian New Jersey little Jewish old man accent, "Hello. I am your cousin. While in Europe, I wore your cousin Phil's Barmitzva suit."

Hoola Hoop Camouflage

Thought Bubble - "They'll never find me in this bowl of Cheerios"
Arrow - "ANGRY MOB OF HOOLA HOOPS"

Inspiration: A friend who is coming in town for the weekend said that she was going to hunt me down. I responded with "you can try but you may not succeed as I will be dressed in camouflage to blend in seamlessly with my surroundings like a tiny tan hoola hoop in a bowl of cheerios." I don't know where it came from... just popped into my head randomly. I found it so hilarious that I decided to translate it to cartoon after I got home last night from a few beers and pizza at Capone's.

Good Company & Turtles

ATTN BLOG READERS:

You are amongst good company. It has just come to my knowledge that NYC based producer/songwriter, Sam Hollander has been perusing this very blog on a regular basis. I know I say I'm blowin up, but this guys actually blowin up with a discog that includes tracks on the Snakes on a Plane Soundtrack, Gym Class Heroes, Boys Like Girls, Arrested Development, Earth Wind & Fire, AND the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles movie that comes out this Friday! Keep an eye out for Sam on the rise and check out this trailer. Im siked, this movie is going to be dope!

TMNT Trailer

SXSW photos

St. Vincent

Tilly and the Wall

Via Audio

The Little Ones

Apollo Sunshine

Tacks, the Boy Disaster

Austin Sunset

more photos...

Midtown Midday on a Monday

It's Monday again and I'm back to the daily grind. It was an incredible long weekend with a much needed change of pace, but it's nice to get back into the swing of things.

Here are a couple notes for the day from my Monday Midtown excursion:

- The guys of UMGD are good people. Don't let anyone tell ya otherwise.

- Snapping in the air rapidly using both hands does wonders for emphasizing a point but beware for too much could wear you out.

Home from SXSW

Im back in Brooklyn! Just flew back this morning at 6am. It's really great to be back. Haven't really slept in days but I had an awesome time in Austin. I saw sooooo many bands... A few new to me that blew me away, some old favs, some good friends, and of course some really horrible shit.

Here's some of what I ended up seeing. Pics, videos, and more detailed descriptions of the noteworthy shows to come soon.


Thursday: Tacks, the Boy Disaster, Blonde Redhead, The Hush Sound, Apollo Sunshine, The Little Ones, Mute Math, Melee, These Arms Are Snakes

Friday: Kidnapkin, Madi Diaz, Cold War Kids, Tilly and the Wall, St. Vincent, Margot & the Nuclear So & Sos, Via Audio, Gruf Rys,

Saturday: Pipettes, Apollo Sunshine, Buzzcocks, Via Audio, The Office, The Watson Twins, Tacks, the Boy Disaster, Tilly and the Wall


CELEB SITINGS - Tom Morello(Rage,Audioslave), Slash, Midlake, Wayne(Flaming Lips), Hanson drummer, Jamie Kennedy

SXSW 1st report

SXSW. WOW! I'm at a Best Western Hotel now. It's the last day of sxsw and the first moment I've had access to the internet. I plan to give a full report when I get back to NYC tomorrow but I thought I'd share just a few highlights.

Austin is really an amazing city. I can not believe how many bars and venues they have in one small area. It truly is the live music capitol of America. It really sucks that it happens to be in TEXAS! It's actually very surreal for me that I'm in Texas. I never thought I would have any reason to visit the epitome of red state suburbia. Nevertheless it's been a great time so far.

One band I saw last night absolutely blew me away. They were the best thing I've seen yet at SXSW and were an incredible pleasant surprise. They're called:

St. Vincent

I'll give a full description of them later. Im headed back to the craziness.

SXSW tomorrow!

I fly out to Austin tomorrow at 6:45am for my first trip to SXSW. I'm incredibly siked and should get to sleep soon. It's going to be one crazy weekend filled with lots and lots of free booze and 100s of bands. Hopefully I'll remember it all to blog about.
Here are some of the bands I'm going to try to catch:

Thursday-
st. Vincent, Say Hi to Your Mom, Apollo Sunshine, The Early Tapes, Stars ofTrack and Field, Cold War Kids, Mute Math, The Little Ones, The Hush Sound,Amy Wine House, Voxtro, The Fratellis

Friday-
the Western Civilization, the polyphonic spree, annuals, margot & the nuclear so&sos, peter, bjohn & john, via audio, spill canvas, the faint, the walkmen, arielpink, sound team

Saturday-
field music, tilly and the wall, the pipettes, midlake, turbonegro, girltalk,cursive

W E T P E T S

I greatly enjoy this commercial and it's inspired me to consider a career in writing rap jingles for pet store commercials. I think this could be a terrific new career direction...it would certainly be immensely lucrative but most of all rewarding.

Willy Burg Characters

New York City, particularly Williamsburg, truly has its share of characters. In the midst of a rather uneventful weekend aside from getting way too trashed Friday night at Bembe and the East River Bar, and picking up some old school red Nikes at a thrift store for $15, I found myself encountering quite a few of these characters. I'd say probably about 5 in total, but here are three...

1. THE LONELY DIVE BAR DUMMY - a staggering unattractive fellow, drunk on 32oz beers served in styrofoam cups, approached my friends an I. In an attempt to initiate conversation he asked in complete sincerity without trying to be funny or ironic, "So... you come here often?" He entertained us so we kept going back and forth with him. He tried desperately to keep the wheels turning in his big intoxicated head to keep up the conversation. I asked him "So... what else you got??" He thought long and hard I assume, even though his stare seemed pretty vapid. He finally said that he knew three jokes. Of course I wanted to hear. He told 2 which I've forgotten now and then told the third.. "Would a warewolf always be a warewolf if it lived on the moon?" That, he said, was his best joke.

2. CRAZED GAS STATION ATTENDENT FROM STRANGE UNDISCERNABLE FOREIGN COUNTRY - I pulled up to a gas station to fill up my moped tank. i slid my card, prepaid $1.50 (small tank) and proceeded to fill up. $1.20 ended up being enough and I didn't care to get my change so I got ready to leave when the gas station attendant came out of his little gas office and asked me in a very heavy accent if I got a receipt. I figured he wanted to give me my change. I said I'd just hit the no receipt button because I didnt want one. He said "I need. I need receipt. you not alowed to touch!" So i said "excuse me im not alowed to touch what? I paid and Im leaving." He yelled, "where's proof? you no leave!? me - "sir. I dont know what you're talking about. I paid. Im leaving." Him - "NO!" It went back and forth like this for a a bit. He said stirnly "You NO go! I check computer. you stay!" I waited a moment to humor the very strange and now very heated man. He walked back into the little gas office, apparently checked the computer and waved me on to go. I went.

3. THE ARTIST/POET - met at a bar while with some friends. he wore tight dark expensive clothes. while others danced and drank, he sat in a dimly lit corner introspectively contemplating the heavy troubles of the world, his world. He worked hard to keep up a facade of deep mysteriousness but transformed out of his cloak of troubled artist into wide eyed horny obnoxious dude when the potential opportunity arose to see 2 girls kiss.

The Western Civilization CD Release

Good Friday

My last post was sort of on the negative side, so today I will share with you 10 good things in no particular order from my life this week:


1. MUD COFFEE. best coffee I've found in NYC thus far. You can find it in the big orange trucks at Astor Place and Union Sq. www.mudnyc.com

2. CARLEN ALTMAN. very funny comedian I saw perform last night. Her humor is refereshingly real and quirky. jokes are current and relavent. comes off very naturally and has cool shoes.
carlenaltman.blogspot.com

3. THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION - indie pop rock band from Houston. could quite possibly be the love child of Conor Oberst and Jenny Lewis. you cant not love them. you just cant.
myspace.com/thewesterncivilization

4. BEMBE - latin bar/club in williamsburg on S. 6th and Berry. atmosphere, music, drinks, location... all SUPERB! go there. tonight!! www.bembe.us

5. LAUNDRY BOARDING - hadnt done laundry in a little too long and the basket got a bit too heavy and cumbersome to carry 4 blocks to the laundry mat so i set it on the front of my skateboard, held on to the handles like reins, and rode that baby all the way there. only fell on my ass twice.

6. BOTTLE OPENER CARABINER - i lost my keys at a party in redhook, so i was looking to replace my carabiner and found this... the coolest invention ever: a carabiner/bottle opener/corkscrew! but i cant find it in the US. damnit
http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/lifestyle-home/bar-booze/carabiner-corkscrew/index.html

7. NYU MARKET SUSHI BAR - looks like your typical market but they have really fresh sushi for really cheap! it's on University & Waverly. at Washington Sq.

8. TRL - Gym Class Heroes was on trl this week. hearing myself on tv never seems to get old.

9. HOVERBOARD


10. WET CHICKENS

open bar...wack

I seem to get dragged very often these days to various CD release parties with the seemingly enticing persuasive tactic "there's going to be an open bar!" Most of the time the bar is so packed that it takes you forever to get a drink or the booze isn't so good. Nevertheless it's free so you take what you can get.

The other night I went to one of these CD release/open bar events at a club called LIT in the East Village. Maybe it's that I've been to one too many of these but I do believe that it was the WORST open bar ever. For my first blog ever, I will rant about this evening.

I arrived at the venue at about 10pm, said some hellos, shook some hands of new faces, listened to some blah music and waited around for an hour with a dry throat waiting for the promised open bar to commence. At the stroke of 11, I walked upstairs to the bar to quench my thirst. There was one very frustrated and pissed off, long haired, troubled rock and roll dude bartending and lots of petulant scenester drunks trying to get there hands on some free booze. I waited and waited at the bar. The open bar was limited to the most shitty excuse for vodka Ive ever tasted. I'm no vodka connoisseur by any means but i knew this particular brew was funked. To make things easy, since the people I was with wanted to mix their vodka vile with cranberry juice, i chose to do the same. So when the dirty haired tender of bar came near I quickly spurted out "3 vodka and crans please!" Finally after the very long wait to be served standing behind the posse of obnoxious pseudo ghetto naughty by nature/de la soul cross breeds, I held in my hand a kiddie-sized plastic cup filled about 3/4 of the way with glowing red liquid that would surely dye my insides a few shades brighter towards neon. No matter, I'd waited and I was looking forward to the first sip. I put my lips to the teeny stirring straw peeping out of the teeny cup and sucked in a mouthful of the concoction. Now i know i already told u about the barely palatable vodka, but if you could believe it, the cranberry juice, if you could call it that, was actually worse. It was like pure liquid sugar with a dash of cran-esque artificial flavoring that made me shake and shiver all over uncontrollably. If one wanted to train a very very young girl to ween off of an over concentrated Koolaid addiction and onto alcoholism, this particular drink might be a good one to start with. After a few sips i said out loud "awwww its like little Suzie's first mixed drink." This made me smile to think about alcoholic 7 year olds, which made things a bit better but overall in summary....

the open bar was wack!