Category: tunes

Music. Bands. Songs. Concerts.

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mizouse in the hizouse

dave is tiiiirrrred....
Man, that weekend seemed looooong… which is awesome. The party on Friday night went off without a hitch, and I think it was a rousing success. At least, everyone I talked to seemed to have had a good time. If you were there, thanks for coming – if you missed it, you are one sorry sucka. Anyway, Ben and Anthony had a great idea and suggested I code up a belated costume contest page with pictures from the party. I thought it sounded awesome, so I started coding on it right away. I’ve got it working to the point where you can make comments on each costume, and almost have the voting taken care of (involves some cookie-work to stop cheaters from voting more than once). Anyway, I hope to have that up by tonight – because the longer I take to get it done, the less fun it will be.

As for the party itself, it was rad to the bone. Nearly everyone showed up, and there were only a few non-costumed bums. Sometime during the night my neighbors even dropped by to enjoy themselves. We played Pac Man, danced in the fog and strobe light, drank copious amounts of beer and other… it was a good time. One reason I wanted to do the costume page is because so many people were good sports and dressed up for the occasion, and there were some great costumes too! A lot of effort went into them, which made the party even more fun. I got a lot of pictures, and there’ll be a proper page about the whole fête as soon as I can cobble something together.

The remainder of the weekend was cool too. Saturday was cleanup. The carpet got pretty trashed from the night’s activities, so we busted out the steam cleaner that my folks had given us as a housewarming gift. We hadn’t used it yet, but we were both really happy with the results. All the party-stains were erased, and the carpet was nice and shiny new. After some more sweeping, mopping, and general tidying – the place was brand new again. Saturday night was a recoup night, since this cold is still dogging me.

Last night was the Modest Mouse / Shins show in SF. Ben and I had originally got tickets a while ago, and it was set to be just the two of us for the outing. The show last night was the 1st night of a three-night stint at the Fillmore for that lineup, and all three nights had completely sold out. Just knowing that made me a more excited than normal about the show. At the last minute, Sharaun and Anthony decided they wanted to come along and try to pick up some tickets outside the Fillmore. The chances were slim, since the show had sold out three nights, but they both figured they could hang out and have fun somewhere even if they didn’t make it in the door.

Once again, traffic was terrible on the way out there. We parked and walked through the cold drizzle to the Fillmore, where millions of people had the same idea as Anthony and Sharaun. Ben and I said our goodbyes and goodlucks, and headed indoors. Unbeknownst to us, there was a 2nd opening act – the Helio Sequence. Now, I’d never heard of them, but Benz seemed to know who they were.

Helio Sequence took the stage at about 8pm. It’s just two dudes, lead guitar and drums – with the remaining music being served off a PC loop. Man did they rock, they made a lot of noise and sounded really good. I was super impressed with their stuff, and they were really entertaining to watch. I’m sure it helps that the sound in Fillmore is always amazing, the acoustics in that place make live music sound great.

We called Sharaun and Anthony after the first act, and let them know there was still time. They had wandered into some dive-looking place called the “Boom Boom Room” and were staying warm and dry in there – but said they’d poke around for tickets again soon. They mentioned the outlook was grim, since everyone seemed to be wanting tickets and not trying to offload any. They found a couple people taking some $75/ticket noise… and promptly shut that down – it was a $20 show! They never did make it to the Fillmore, and ended up hanging out in the Boom Boom Room for the whole time.

The Shins came on around 9pm and played for about an hour. They also sounded in top form. The singer’s voice was a dead ringer for the album, and the only thing missing were some of the fancy harmonies and overdubs from the studio. The set was a pretty good mix of old and new, with one track that neither Ben nor I could spot. It was a nice long set, with a couple slow songs to give the stoners their chance to spark the tweeds. Man, I think Benz and I were the only two dudes in there not puffin’ chronic… it was more evident than normal it seemed.

After their set, people started pushing up front in anticipation of the headliners. As the Shins’ keyboardist said… it was about to be “… Mizouse in the hizouse.” Yeah, he was funny. Ben and I managed to stand firm and push up pretty close. We had a nice spot, right next to some girl who I had halfway fallen in love with by the end of the evening.

Modest Mouse came on around 10:30pm, and played until 11:30 on the dot. Right off the bat the singer apologized, saying he’d lost his voice at a previous gig – and would do his best to “Lou Reed through this.” Well, it was hit or miss… this is the 2nd time I’ve seen them live, and neither time was particularly stunning. Musically, they rocked – crunching guitars and heavy drums, but the vocals were seriously marred by the whole laryngitis thing. In fact, they couldn’t even do an encore it was so bad at the end, they sent some roadie up to apologize as the house lights came up and people started booing.

We rounded up our other two from the Boom Boom Room, and headed home. After our requisite getting lost in SF, we eventually found the Bay Bridge and were off. We made the traditional stop at Krispy Kreme for donuts and coffee – and were back home in bed by 2:30am or so. ‘Twas a good night.

Well, as I promised – more about the Halloween party to come. I wanted to do a special blog about it, and I just haven’t had time to craft it up yet. I’m going to try and throw it together tonight, so keep an eye out. Sorry for the long boring entry.

Dave out.

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trick or treat


Ahhh… the day of the party is at hand. Happy Halloween all! As you can see, blog got all up in the festive mood also. Go blog.

Heard a band on 3wk yesterday that piqued my interest, so I looked ’em up with the trusty Google. They are called The Potomac Accord. I have no idea if the name refers to an actual event in history (forgive my ignorance). The music is what Sharaun calls “the stuff you listen to that makes me wanna kill myself.” Yeah well, I do kinda dig that dragging, minimalist, hushed/sad sound sometimes; plus they play the quiet-loud-quiet card really well, and I am a big fan of that. I’d maybe put them on a comp with Kepler, Early Day Miners, Low, Mogwai, Godspeed, A Silver Mt. Zion, etc. Hmm… describing that imaginary comp makes me wanna actually put it together. They have some mp3s on their site, which I downloaded and have been listening to a lot. Who knows, I may break down and order the disc. Check ’em out for an idea of the post-rock (whatever) “sound” I’m talking about.

I don’t think it’s strange that I put whatever I want on the blog. I’m not worried about who sees what or what impact it might have on whomever. I’m not concerned about people reading the blog and thinking I’m crazy. Yeah I write it for an audience, but I also write it for the hell of it. I would write it if people didn’t read it, I’ve been doing it for years – just not online. I’ve got 500 pages of shit that’s not online, and this is jolly #60 of the stuff that is online. So all you blog haters, take note of my cool and aloof rebel attitude – and don’t step to me… we clear?

Wouldn’t it be cool if people dressed up as you for Halloween? I guess when you see a you costume in the Halloween shops, it’s just another sign that you’ve “made it.” I think a Dave costume would be fly.

Dave out. Party on.

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first times

i don't know why i write these
Still sick it would seem. I feel now like it’s not as debilitating, but tiring; and I’m tired of it. I really don’t want to feel sub-par for the shindig tomorrow night, but it looks like I just can’t shake this bug. Bummer.

Sometime mid-week, Ben reminded me that we have the Modest Mouse / Shins show this Sunday night. Shortly after, he found out that all three shows are completely sold out. I dunno, but finding out that three consecutive nights at the Fillmore were sold out immediately increases the value of that concert’s stock to me. Where before I was excited to go, now I’m really geared up. I’m hoping for a great show – I’m always impressed with the sound in the Fillmore, it’s a great place to hear live music.

The temperature is dropping and that makes my brain go all “Fall.” The grey-skied, cold and windy days that I love so much. I guess they remind me of being a kid in Lompoc, learning songs about pilgrims and stuff. The end of the year was always my favorite. The holiday trifecta, my birthday, the weather, everything.

Mom, close your eyes.

In 1992 I was dating this girl who lived about 40min from me. I was a brand new driver, so I would go visit her a lot. I had worked for a summer at Sea World, making turkey sandwiches for tourists – and was rewarded with two free passes to Disney World. One Saturday we used the free passes, went to Disney, and then came home to her place. Her parents weren’t home. I remember we started watching Radio Flyer on HBO. Making out in the living room, we decided to retire to her bedroom to seal the deal. The first time for each of us, it of course sucked. The year-old condom I had kept in my wallet broke after about 5min, I woulda been safer sheathing Excalibur in cling-wrap. I remember she was wearing black underwear. We “did it” a couple more times over the next month, and then broke up. Ahhh… young love… so meaningful.

I’m Dave. I played the best rat of ’em all in the Clarence Ruth Elementary School stage production of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” I’m out.

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that show was loud

say what?
Last night was the Strokes show at the Bill Graham in SF. Anthony, Ben, Melissa, Sharaun and I piled in the Ford and headed over. This show was kind of a last-minute decision… I was of the mind that $35 was too much for the Strokes, when I was underwhelmed with their last performance – but Sharaun was persistent and we ended up going. Well, I was wrong. The show was great. The show started at 7:30pm but there were two opening acts we didn’t care to see – so we took our time getting there, stopping for some good Chinese food in Davis. It was in Davis that I realized I didn’t remember how to get to the Bill Graham, and I hadn’t printed out any directions. Undaunted, we headed toward the city.

After getting off near where I thought the venue was, I took us on the scenic tour of SF trying to “home in” on the place. Sharaun eventually broke down and called Pat, who internetted us up some directions from the cross-streets. We showed up at the venue, found some free parking, and picked up the tix at will-call. After clearing the security pat-down, we took a short bathroom break and then hit the general admission floor. The 2nd opening act, The Kings of Leon, were just closing their set. We heard their last two numbers (which sounded pretty OK to me, even tho I didn’t like the album when I downloaded it recently). After a 45min break, the Strokes took the stage. By that time we had managed to push up pretty close and secure some pretty awesome spots. You know, the kind that don’t require head-cranking and toe-bobbing to see well.

The band sounded better than last time (possibly due to a better setup or equipment, which is a direct result of success), Julian (the lead singer) seemed more personable and “into” the show than last year too. He only ended up dropping the F-bomb about 12-13 times (we lost count), which is also a considerable reduction over last year. Plus, I think he was only about half as wasted as he was last year (which, don’t get me wrong, is still way wasted). They played a mix of songs from the new and old albums, favoring the new stuff. It’s a bummer that the new album isn’t out yet, because the crowd excitement lessened on the songs that were unknown (to them). Of course, we’ve had the album for nearly a month now, thanks to the wonders of the internet – so we were rocking right along to every song. The set was a good length, and even though they don’t typically do encores (they are soo rock-‘n’-roll), they fumbled half-heartedly through “Is This It” for us; announcing beforehand that it was “the last F’ing encore we do on this F’ing tour, and you get to hear it.”

The show was LOUD. I mean, so loud at points that the sounds blended into some kind of indistinct warble sound in my right ear (we were to the right of the stage, right in front of the stacks on that side). Man, today my hearing is about 50% on the right side, and I’ve still got that fuzz-hum noise obscuring stuff. It was one of the louder shows I’ve been to lately. However, that said – it was a rockin’ show! The energy was good, and I found my self singing (screaming) along to nearly every track. The band was good, and Julian was in a good mood – making jokes about the band and at one point even announcing the next song as “Diarrhea in Your Mouth” before following up with “… no, not really. Who said that? Did I just say that out loud?” I got a kick out of that.

I think last night was my first night really noticing what I predict to be an upcoming huge concert trend. Looking over the crowd to the stage, there were so many people hoisting their cell phones in the air. They were taking pictures, video, and even grabbing sound clips. I swear one guy got a video clip from each song they performed. What a great idea… how easy it would be to grab some stills or video, and then use that stuff to punctuate a blog entry on the show the next day. Too bad I’m still a cell phone technology holdout, having just upgraded to a color screen myself. I’ll take internet and multimedia on my cell phone when you can assure me that I can make a phone call 100% the time without getting dropped or breaking up.

Oh, and for those who were curious – yesterday’s entry was a true account of an incident that I lived through in 9th grade. It was my first experience with any mind-altering substance, including alcohol. What an introduction, huh?

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my brother the squad leader

i'm gonna sit right down and write me a letter
Got my first letter from Frank at bootcamp. Reading it made me quite emotional, and not because it was an emotional letter, but for some other reason. Maybe hearing from him that things are hard, that he’s having a hard time and he sometimes gets lonely. Maybe reading that he was appointed squad leader of his barracks, or that he and Angela plan to get married soon after he’s out. Maybe just the simple fact that he wrote me a letter, and talked to me like a friend. It’s not like we ever hated each other, or ever weren’t on speaking terms – but we’ve been far from that “brotherly” vibe for quite some time. Anyway, I’m proud of him.

He mentioned how much he likes to get letters, as they’re his only contact with the outside world. So I started the “write Frank a letter a day” campaign, I’ve been doing it so far – although it doubles my required writing per day – so the blog entries may suffer a little bit in terms of length (just to give my typing fingers a rest).

Sharaun’s really been into the latest Strokes album, and she successfully lobbied the crew this weekend and got us to commit to the show tomorrow night. She bought the tickets last night, and we’ll be rolling over to the bay after work to catch the show. We saw them last year (nearly a year to the day, as we caught them on Halloween), and the show wasn’t that impressive to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love their music – but the show was kinda uninspired, and they only had one 40min album at the time, so it was a short set. And, Julian cussed so much it was comical. You know, he’s one of those “‘fuck’ isn’t good enough as a stand-alone word, so I’ll insert it befuckintween the syllables in my words” kinda guys… for some reason I didn’t like that. It was like New-York-rock-star-to-the-extreme.

<begin tanget>
Julian Casablancas is possibly the best rock-‘n’-roll lead singer name ever. Even if he wasn’t in the Strokes, he would surely have to be a rock star. With a name like that, you’re destined to be. Casablancas… with an ‘S’ at the end… smoooove!! I’m so jealous.
</end tangent>

But, hopefully with this new album (which is great, by the way) they’ll have some more material – and the show wasn’t bad… it just wasn’t one of the brighter spots in my concertgoing career. So, we’re going – and I’m listening to the album now to get pumped. I’ll a review of the evening posted in Wednesday’s blog.

Two projects came very near completion this weekend. The retaining wall is about 3/4 backfilled, with the slope graded and all. Eric came and helped me on Saturday morning, which I thought was totally awesome of him. Now I owe him work. Then later on Saturday, Anthony and Ben came over and we finished assembling the FCG, and got it running. We did our first test at night with the blacklight, fog machine, and music. The results were far better than I could have imagined. Neighbors were coming out to check it out, and we got several compliments on her. We must have stood in the street for like an hour and half, just watching the ghost and drinking beer. It really is that cool. I also nearly finished the cemetery fencing, so things are definitely on track for all decorations being up and operational by this coming weekend.

I’ve made my backyard schedule a little more aggressive, after seeing how much work I was able to get done this weekend. I think I can have the entire wall backfilled by this coming weekend. Then, I plan to call the dirt movers and have them cart away our excess dirt during the week before Halloween. I know it’s gonna be close, but I think it’s doable. That way, at least my yard won’t look quite as “under construction” for the big Halloween party. Ahh… there’s a chance it’ll happen… maybe…

Dave out.

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talk to you tomorrow, when i’m rich

Gort! Klaatu barada nikto.
Strap in, I’m gonna jump around from subject to subject here…

Kristi was nice enough to do an Evite for our upcoming Halloween Bash. That way we can track who’s coming and whatnot. It’s a pretty cool service, I wonder what they get from it? Obviously they harvest street addresses and phone numbers for junk mail/calls – so I guess that’s how they make their money. Anyway, I thought it was super cool of her to hook that up.

Holy crap this cracks me up. Some of my favorite lines would have to be Remember, you will sleep with the hat on. and Some abductees report success with helmets using only 5 sheets of Velostat but 8 sheets are recommended as the aliens transmit a tremendous amount of energy. Good thing the only major skills you need to make the “screen” were learned by most in kindergarten: Dexterity, use of scissors, adept at cutting and shaping paper… because the aliens may have taken away your mathematical faculties. Something else I find funny is that the “inventor” of this “hat” has chosen to use tape to secure the telepathic-thought-blocking Velostat liner to the hat. Dude, could you at least do the abduction-paranoid a small favor and make their insanity a little less obvious by maybe suggesting they sew the junk into the hat liner or something? The guy who owns/runs this site also maintains another site which hosts tons of creepy images drawn by children who have supposedly been abducted by aliens. To me, it’s a sad site. (Sorry for the B-List Benz)

My God, I’m listening to 3wk’s classic feed right now, and “Friday on My Mind” by the Easybeats is on. Talk about a serious flashback. I can remember listening to this song in 7th grade, when Kyle had moved to Cocoa. It was the first day he met Amber, she was babysiting near there – and we walked the couple miles to go visit her. Hearing the song, I can almost feel the sun on my back as we walked… almost hear the road crunching under our feet. So insane how music can bring memories back like that. Music and smells really work for me.

I know none of that makes much sense to anyone who doesn’t know anything about Kyle, Amber, etc. So lemme give y’all a lightspeed primer. My family moved to FL from CA in ’88. The real estate agent who sold us our house had a daughter that was my age, Robin. Robin and I began dating; I met, and formed friendships with, Kyle, Joey, and Andy. Amber was Robin’s best friend. The boys met Amber, Kyle dated her first, then Joey, then Amber and I simultaneously cheated on Joey and Robin with each other. Everyone broke up (well, Andy never dated anyone), and I started dating Amber’s friend Charla. There ya go, the soap opera of my pre-teen romances – from 7th grade through 9th. (Here’s a flowchart for those who were confused by the Friends-esque hookup party we were having.)

The lottery is up to 60-some-odd million tonight, I am so winning. Nevermind that I haven’t bought my ticket yet – I’ll get some on the way home. Talk to you tomorrow, when I’m rich. Dave out.

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a dusty lunch

i love halloween!
Not a bad weekend. Spent a lot of time working on tombstones (I’ll post some pictures eventually). The hot tub arrived at Steve & Ragan’s place, so I pitched in a little to help erect the gazebo that sits around it. No work on the backyard this weekend, as I was occupied by other projects. I did, however, finally find a suitable strobe light for the Halloween display. And I stole some large pieces of cardboard, which Steve’s gazebo roof was shipped in, to make a lifesize knife-wielding man cutout. The cutout gets reinforced with some wood and painted black, and the strobe light goes behind it – the effect should be pretty creepy. Speaking of Halloween, the invite for the Halloween party went out today… watch the blog for full details of the celebration.

In a musical roundup, there’s a sweet article about DCfC over at the Onion’s AV Club (conservatives: beware the Dan Savage column). Also, I found a really interesting Radiohead-related item. Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement fame) and his band, the Jicks, opened for Radiohead on some of their North American gigs recently. Malkmus is known for keeping a tour diary when he’s out on the road, and it’s a really interesting read for a Radiohead fan. I just thought it was totally cool to hear someone who I consider to be super musically talented talk it up about someone they consider to be super musically talented. Also on a musical-slash-Range-Rover note, Ben and Anthony took the Disco out 4x4ing again this Saturday and, true-to-form, Ben has already whipped up a nice video montage of the outing, with one of the best cuts from the new Snow Patrol album as the soundtrack. That about does it for the music roundup. Oh, I forgot to mention my Steve/music story. Steve is often stuck riding in my truck and being subjected to indie-immersion. One of his favorite comments in reference to any singer with that telltale indie-falsetto voice, is: “I bet this guy got beat up a lot in high school.” That cracks me up, and it’s probably true too…

I got a story for ya. Today, I was happily enjoying a thrifty lunch of leftovers at Steve’s house. We were just finishing up with the eats, and watching the Fresh Prince of Bel Air – when my cellphone rang. “What’s up Anthony?” “Dude, we got stuck.” Yeah… so let me debrief y’all. The 4×4 video from that I linked above was taken by Ben on Sunday. He and Ant headed out to the local 4×4 park and put the Disco through the paces. Apparently, they were pretty rough on it (as evidenced by the video), and they actually broke off some of the plastic on the undercarriage. So, today at lunch they headed back out to the 4×4 park to retrieve the broken pieces. After the successful reconnaissance mission, they decided to get a lil’ 4-wheelin’ in before returning to work. Seems that they managed to high-center the truck, and had no hopes of escape. So, they called me. Steve drove me to work, where I got Ben’s keys from his desk and drove his Ranger out to the rescue. We hooked up the Rover’s winch to the Ranger, and you can see the rest below:


Hooking up the rover winch to Ben’s Ranger.
High-centered! Anthony using the winch remote to power free.
It took some wheel spinning, but eventually he got traction.

Climb for the sun Rover! You’re almost free!.
More Ranger-to-Rover resuscitation.
Anthony disconnects the winch, the Rover is free.

1st person view of the drive off the slope.		  
Free at last! Rover thanks Ranger and we head back to work.

Well, it was an exciting lunch at least. I did miss a meeting, and get a little dusty – but I still count it better than sitting in my cube for those 30min. With the Rover, you never know what’s going to happen.

Dave out.