Songs of the Day: Friendly Fires / Future Islands

All right, folks, it looks like I officially have a case of the "F's", both musically and otherwise.

F is for...

• Fan-freaking-tastic! to see a Husky win this past Saturday against Utah (boo, Mormons!), 31-14. We checked out the game at a sports bar in The Marina District, and it was like I had never left the Greek System. The Marina's general doucheyness aside, there is simply no better way to watch a football game than hammered with your UW friends. We are even thinking of going down to Stanford to represent the Huskies in their game there in 3 weeks.
• Fuck you, landlord! $2250 for a mice-infested shithole??? You gotta be kidding me. I'm counting my lucky stars it's only a six-month lease. 
• Free at last, free at last, by God almighty we are free at last! The Occupy Wall Street protests continue unabated in NYC. I'm glad to see people are finally stepping up en masse to protest the serious economic inequality in this country that makes any talk of a financial "recovery" from the recession little more than a cruel joke to the 99% of people out there. Here are some pictures from the San Francisco version of the Occupy Wall Street protests, which took place on our Montgomery Street, a.k.a. "Wall Street of the West." I stumbled upon the protests randomly on my way back from a bike ride in North Beach. Although I don't think the SF protests had anywhere near the same impact as those in NYC due to their relatively small size, it is great to see the protest ethic is still alive and well in this city. There may only be 800,000 San Franciscans (compared to 8 million New Yorkers), but damnit we aren't going down without a fight!

Now for your songs of the day:

I like Friendly Fires' "Skeleton Boy" because of its unique medley of indie lead singer and disco beat. Usually that combination will leave you sounding like a rip-off of MGMT, but these guys rock it!

Future Islands are the closest that any band I've heard of has come to sounding like The Talking Heads, my number one favorite band of all time. I think only !!! (chk chk chk) would be able to give them a run for their money on this type of sound, but Future Islands has that whacked-out David Byrne-like wail and perfect beats down just right.

Song of the Day: Foster the People

Hey guys, I've been swamped at work lately so I apologize for not blogging as often as I should. I came across a terrific three-peat of perfect songs during my morning commute:

Foster the People - Helena Beat
Ladyhawke - Magic
The Kills - Nail in My Coffin

Thank you, John Richards of KEXP for making my morning just a little bit brighter before an otherwise shitty day at work. Oh and by the way, if you haven't supported your local independent radio station lately, DO IT NOW!!! What are you waiting for? I gave $20 to C89.5, our local dance station, and it felt amazing to be able to give back. A real high school student volunteer answered when I called the -800 number with "may I take your pledge." Umm, yes you may! Brings me back to the good old days of working at OAG :)

Seattle is very lucky to have independent radio stations that are well-respected, play wonderful groundbreaking music, and give back to their community in tangible ways. KEXP hosts Capitol Hill Block Party and promotes local unsigned bands. C89.5 is run almost entirely by students at Nathan Hale High School. As in the students get academic credit for working at a kick-ass radio station with 57 minutes of music per hour. So jealous! While sometimes I don't really like their music choices - C89.5 tends to over-play the Top40 during rush hour and KEXP is notoriously overrun with hipster flavors - I gotta say it's so much better than the alternative. KISS 106.1, anyone? haha I'd rather shave off my nipples with a cheese grater :)

Alright I'll get off my soapbox! Here is your song of the day:

Song of the Day - Legiao Urbana - "Ha Tempos"

I came across this song today on Pandora and it just completely hooked me! It sounds like a Brazilian version of The Cure. 80s-style post-punk sung in the most beautiful language on planet earth, Portuguese. I like :) Doesn't it just make you wanna kick back on a tropical beach somewhere with a few margaritas or, ahem, caipirinhas. Enjoy!

The New Seattle Manifesto

In earlier posts I've talked about the infamous "Seattle freeze" that every transplant to the area seems to experience and then starts bitching about to anyone who'll listen. You've heard the mantra before: Seattleites are tirelessly "polite" and "nice" to new people on the surface level, but instantly shut down and reject social advances the second you try to actually "befriend" one of us. We're a collection of people who move here to escape wherever it is that we're from, so we isolate ourselves from genuine social interaction as much as possible. Seattle is a place full of awkward only-children, who don't quite get how to branch out and meet new people in non-ironic ways. We're a city of the mind, a city of nerdy blogger-types who sit in Starbucks silently plugging away because we're just...that....edgy, man :) 


Well, in celebration of our city's reputation for bitchy cold-shoulderness, I dedicate this post to a very funny, very spot-on op-ed from Crosscut. I think this manifesto just about covers it!

Since I believe one good manifesto deserves another, I hereby offer my own:
David Guterson and other figures on Bainbridge Island like to talk about the countryside as being the only real place to live. We know better. These are our values:

• We value diverse workplaces and gatherings. Upscale white men alongside upscale white women — and even upscale white gays.

• Yet we also admire African-Americans, preferably if they are both musical and dead.

• We champion the institution of public education, as long as our own kids can get into a private school.

• We celebrate people's expressions of sexuality, provided they're not too, you know, sexual.

• We strive toward progressive, inclusive laws and policies except when they would inconvenience business.

• We take pride in our urban identity, as we build more huge edifices and monuments to desperately prove how world class we are.

• We support the arts, particularly when that support doesn't stick us in the same room with unkempt artists.

• We value regional planning and cooperation, even with those mouth-breathing hicks out there.

• We protect and enhance the environment, particularly those environments we drive 40 miles or more to hike in.

• We love a strong, vital music scene that's in someone else's neighborhood.

• We appreciate our heritage. We moan about how everything in this town sucks; then, years later, we claim it was great back then but all sucks now.

• We value a strong, independent news media, regularly alerting us to the city's 103 Best Podiatrists.

• We admire innovation and original ideas, especially if they're just like something from New York or San Francisco.

• We support locally based businesses, until they get too big.

President Barack Obama has advocated "the fierce urgency of now." Mr. President, the people of Seattle will get around to it once they've finished playing "Halo: Reach."

Via: Crosscut

VEGAS PLAYLIST! Oh yeah, baby, it's finally happening :)

So it's finally happening, after months and months of anticipation. I will FINALLY be taking my first vacation from work and heading to sunny, beautiful, debaucherous LAS VEGAS with Matt, Franny, Rachael, Prep, and Jamie.

I'll finally get to bust out my swim suit and get a weekend tan, possibly even get drunk in a swimming pool :) Now when's the last time that happened in Seattle? We will be staying at the MGM Grand Hotel right on the strip. Besides being one of the more popular hotels, their main attraction is a mile-long "Lazy River" which I'm planning on taking full advantage of.

I was talking to my grandparents a few weeks ago, because they are die-hard Vegas aficionados, albeit of the Elvis generation. There is a difference! For instance, when I told them where I was staying, the kvetching started up immediately about how far a walk it would be on the Strip. And Oh, honey, you're gonna suffocate in that heat. They wouldn't be my Jewish grandparents from St. Louis without a healthy dose of well-intended kvetching. Their recommendation for where I should stay? The Flamingo, which last time I checked hasn't been touched since the '50s. Not exactly welcoming for my friends who are Vegas vets and in their 20s. They also recommended going to see the show Jubilee, which might actually be a good idea if the tix didn't start at $90 a pop. Great, grandma. Maybe when I'm 78 I, too, will stay at the Flamingo and go see Celine Dion. Just not this time :)

This got me thinking to how I would like to see the weekend pan out. Normally when I travel anywhere (and Matt, you can attest to this), I don't like to make too many plans. This keeps you flexible and, I feel, allows you to experience wherever you are in a more authentic and less structured way. Free-wheeling travel falls within certain guidelines, of course. No sense "wandering" into sketchy after-parties or anything too illegal. But seriously, I'm pretty open to where the weekend takes us. My one restriction: no gambling - I hate the feeling of literally throwing money away. Maybe a few slots, but that's it, OK. Now that we're clear on that, the one thing I do like planning a lot is the music for the journey.

So without further adieu I give you the Las Vegas playlist for 2011. Hope you enjoy!

Kris Menace ft. Emil - Walking on the Moon:



Yelle - A Cause des Garcons (TEPR remix)



Tiesto ft. Tegan and Sara - Escape Me



Eric Prydz - Niton (The Reason)



Chromeo - Hot Mess



Maximum Balloon - Groove Me



!!! - Steady as the Sidewalk Cracks



Talking Heads - Burning Down the House

Phoenix - Fences



Miike Snow - Black and Blue



Spank Rock - Bump



Simian Mobile Disco - Hustler



Lady Gaga - Starstrcuk



Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone



Yeasayer - ONE



Gui Boratto - No Turning Back



Modjo - Lady



Timo Maas - Shifter (a.k.a. the stripper anthem)



Felix Da Housecat - Silver Screen Shower Scene (hot)



Starkillerz - Scream



BT - Never Gonna Come Back Down



Fischerspooner - Never Win



Warren G - Regulate



Kanye West - Flashing Lights



Young MC - Bust a Move



Michael Jackson - Thriller



Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Somethin



Crystal Method ft. Matisyahu - Drown in the Now

Gorillaz - Stylo

Def Jam meets Ibiza...

What do you get when you cross the sound of "urban" artists - God, don't you hate that term - with Ibiza trance?

I had never heard of such a thing until this new song by Kris Menace. It's a fantastic remix of The Dream's "Walking on the Moon." Thank you, C895!



Here are the original tracks - can you hear the synthesis in the final video? The power of electronic music - takes two otherwise bland genres and meld them into something great!

And...This is What Happens to Your Art When You're On Drugs!

The influence of drugs, especially psychedelic drugs, on art has always fascinated me.

Drugs have been the catalyst, if not the inspiration, for countless works of art over the centuries that have captured the masses. Without the element of this specific type of debauchery, so much of our artistic canon could never have come into being.

How else, for instance, do you think of this album cover for Santana's Supernatural?

Or this music video by the French band Justice, a chaotic ode to the city of Paris?

It's easy to see the influence that drugs in all their permutations have influenced art, but which drugs? What doses? What circumstances? My inner geek justs begs for a control group to test out the drug spectrum and see what parts of the brain each ingredient sticks to. A single artist, painting an identical self-portrait dozens of times to illustrate the effects of each....What's that, Good magazine? You read my mind perfectly.

Since March 30, 1995, multimedia artist Bryan Lewis Saunders has done one self-portrait per day, every day. When that started to get boring, Saunders began taking drugs of all types to liven up the work, a process he says has left him with brain damage. 

Saunders is still doing his self-portraits today, though he'll now only take drugs if they are administered by medical professionals for valid health issues. Regardless, the results of his endeavor are a fascinating glimpse into how different chemicals shape our perceptions of self.

The artist's idea was to test the environment's effects on the subconscious and use his brain like a canvas. You can only be soberific so long when you're painting nearly 8,000 (!!!) self-portraits over the course of a decade. Here are some of my favorite of his artistic ahem..."experiments":

Ambien - looks like it's not working...

Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, and Xanax - this is what art looks like when you can't feel your face...

Absinthe - monochrome (and cubist?)

Adderall - The artist is both literal and distracted :)

Cocaine is a helluva drug...

Two bottles of cough syrup later - wow, this guy had a bit of a death wish!

Sweet Jesus crystal meth...

Dilaudid and morphine - industrial grade gangsta...

Morphine meets Easter Island?

Huffed gasoline - this is probably what his brain cells feel like!

Mushrooms - wow, what do those bubbles mean? Cosmic...

Nitrous oxide - you know those little whip cream canisters that make you black out? I mean...

PCP - the one you should never, ever do

Pot brownies! Duhhhh

Pot resin hits - jeez, I wonder what he cleaned his bowl piece with...

Salvia - arguably his best work!

Ritalin is just unpleasant...

Good old mary jane!

Via: Good

XBox Kinect's Dance Central is My New Crack...

I have to apologize for not posting as much as I should be lately. I do have a good excuse though!

For Christmas, I took home the new XBox Kinect and got the Dance Central game the next day. One word: HOOKED!

The game is beyond addictive. True, you could say the same thing about many video games. Somehow I had avoided the craze of video games for my entire life before this moment - never owned a console of any kind, never succumbed to this addiction. Ok, you got me, I was kind of a freak in junior high :)

It was a combination of factors that caused me to never catch the video game stupor like everyone fucking else on the planet. 1) the controllers - They are awkward to hold, I don't like using them. End of story. 2) Time committment - don't have it. I never understood how my friends could have "Halo parties" for 8 hours plus when we were 14, 15, 21??? Too much screen time, too much weed, too many crushed Cheeto stains on my carpet. No thanks. 3) Arcade games are more fun, and because you're dropping quarters on them each round, you get more of the thrill of gambling to get to the next level. It's like slot machines for kids. As a young whipper-snapper in downtown Kirkland, I loved going to Quarters every chance I could and blowing all my allowance there on Tekken 2 and Jones Soda. Like I said - freakkkkk :)

Kinect has totally changed my take on video games. For the first time, I don't feel guilty at all for playing them. I actually feel like I'm getting a workout (of sorts) just by playing them. If you really work at it, you can legitimately break a sweat. The Dance Central game has a great line up of dance, hip hop, and funk music that can keep you going for hours doing actual choregraphed routines. I have to admit that so far I suck at it for most songs - I can only get to "Easy" 3 or 4 stars most of the time, but I'm working on it.

So in case you were wondering, I've been plugging away trying my best to not look like these dorks:

I'm a Sucker for Beats Like This...

Check out this new album called Maximum Balloon, the new funk-oriented project from TV On the Radio's producer Dave Sitek. Heard them first several weeks ago on KEXP, and now I'm hooked!