Sunday, August 31, 2008

Sunday Sunday Sunday!!!



On my random bike ride this morning with Sammy we passed by the Congess and marqueed-up was the declaration of free-fighting (which turns out to be actually free) this Saturday (6th). Find your belt with the massive buckle and the rest of your ropas de caballeros and let's go!

Buddy Akai - Cut me up (Villains Remix)

Teenager - Alone Again feat: Ladyhawke
(note the lack of the 'the' and 's')

Rich's Throwback

So a buddy of mine Richardson had a birthday on Fri. Nothing fanciful, just folks hanging out. The highlight of it, for me and a few others, was when this came on:



and then this came on:



There were more, but I'll spare you the details. Day off tomorrow!

Friday, August 29, 2008

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Futurecop! is cute!

Off of Monday's Oh Crapp... which I saw this morning...



Apparently the song (Futurecop! - Transformers) is unreleased and this is an unofficial fan video. I don't know too much about Futurecop! other than this video and this song:

Crystal Castles - Alice Practice (Futurecop! Remix)

I'll let you be the judge. However, the video is ubercute.

Oh, and this morning I was getting 1200kbps off of Comcast. I wish I was awake this early more often. No I don't.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Safehouse

My general experiences with Milwaukee dictate that there is absolutely nothing to do there. I remember being there one saturday when I was about 12 years old and remembering that the streets were devoid of cars and all the business were closed at about 2pm save a burger king. I never went there for the summerfest and I never went to the Rave. During my most recent trip to learn about rubber design and molding at UWM (which was highly informative), that opinion was dramatically changed.

In wandering around with my co-worker buddy Steve, we were looking for an interesting-looking bar for some whistle-whetting. I went down this alley next to this place called the News Room looking for the door to enter. Instead I found this plaque


and I also saw a sign next to it with 'Welcome' in a dozen different language. I thought it was odd, however I figured that this is not the door to the bar, so I proceeded to turn around and go back through the front. I was legitimately drawn to explore this bar. There was karaoke on the other side of the bar, but there was also a room past that that looked like a 007 memorabilia museum. Interesting. I kept going to find that there was another smaller bar room with just a bartender but no one else. I asked the guy what this place was and he said "This is the Magic Bar." His name was Ivanovich. "What happens at the 'magic bar'?" "Give me a $1 bill and I'll show you." Right. The smallest I had was a 10.

"Now", Ivanovich said "I promise to give you your money back..." and he proceeds to fold it up into a very small rectangle. All the time I am looking at him folding this bill of mine and then he unfurls it into a $100! "Oh, but I said that I would give you back your money..." and he folds up the 100 bucks and turns it back into my $10. At this point since I've been gone a while, I got Steve to move from the other bar to this one.


What this place was, was the Safehouse, located near Water and Wells street behind the News Room and its entrance was in the alley just past all the Wilkommen's and Witamy's. Now I don't want to reveal any more because I HIGHLY recommend you go experience this place yourself. Safe to say, this place has totally turned around my opinion of this town.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The Scene

Damn.

Dancing at danny's last night was excellent. I need more more more of that. Where is our chicago equivalent of this show?


The song is: Kano - I'm Ready (off of FabricLive.33.)

Look up The Scene on youtube; it's a detroit version of Soul Train but with better music/show-offmanship.

Yeah!

Song: A Number of Names - Sharevari

This stumbleupon came due to Strut Records' Disco-Not-Disco compilation from the last post. Some more videos are on there. Check it!

Dancing with Rome



I got this email from Strut Records the other day with them touting a new compilation of Italo that they have, called Disco Italia. Two of the songs they have videos for are:

Kano - Queen of Witches (Youtube)
La Bionda - i Want to be your Lover:

The video reminds me of the animation style of Mstrkrft - Work on You

Stumbling off the Italo stuff, they always tend to point to Front 242 or Nitzer Ebb or similar folk.

Front 242 - Headhunter:


Nitzer Ebb - Control I'm Here:


Two things I read over the weekend that are slightly depressing: Adbuster's review of hipster culture and the Reader's (old) review of retro trends. I'll write my own treatise later. In the meantime, get some sleep and do a detox diet. It helps your brain.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Post-Lolla

Apres a storm, my internet was down and I feel slightly guilty doing this at work.
Comparing my desires before going to Lollapalooza versus the shows I actually saw, there was some severe discrepancy (mostly due to laziness and a guy).

Friday
The Kills - I'm sure the comparison can be made to the White Stripes, but beyond the guy-girl hard(er) rock duo similarity, I prefer the WS. I thought these guys were ok, and I think that the lady's hotness makes up a lot of that. I think the fact that they used a drum machine soured the show for me. I could probably stand them being the opener for someone else like...
Mates of State - who were excellent. Perhaps familiarity with these guys got the best of me, but they are talented for sure. The backing strings only helped their cause of aural excitation.
Bloc Party - I don't know why this show wasn't that memorable. Was it my general lack of recollection skills? Was it the audience around me's apathetic attitude? To their credit, the didn't play Banquet (man, I used to love that song!) (Tim says they did) but they did play Helicopter which seems to always be a winner for me. Honestly, I can't get excited about a band if the folks around me aren't going nuts for them. Maybe I should just close my eyes the next time. You know what's terrible? Every time I see Kele Okekere's face
I can't help but remember that he's gay. I wish I was more accepting of the fact or with that I never knew, but I remember a time where I was listening to his music and that's all I would think about. I wish my innate homophobism would just vaporize. The guy is so cool!
Radiohead - From Innerview "...At this point, what more can be said about Radiohead that hasn't already been said? They suck?" That was an excellent show. I only wish that they didn't split up the screens so the folks in the back could see what was going on.

Saturday
Spank Rock - Dirty! I wished he MC'd more. I wish the crowd loved that ghetto shit more. Amanda Blank's hotness was just right, although I always imagined her to be black. I was jumping up and down for sure. I need to go find more of his stuff because I just have YoYoYoYoYo and Amanda on the Diplo Dub mix.
Broken Social Scene - Worth napping to.
Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - Worth dancing to. She is really entertaining. I find it very impressive how tight the band is with her. I don't know how much they practice or what hidden cues they use to do certain things, but it was flawless. After inviting a guy to come on stage after saving him from security, this random dude came up to dance and she said something to the effect of "You can't just walk into my house without being invited!" and the band didn't miss a beat.
DJ Momjeans - You know, something about celebrity DJ's just doesn't work. Maybe it's the fact that they aren't actually DJ's. After a poor transition one time and hitting the volume knob accidentally another (within 3min) I walked away.
Wilco & Rage - I don't like Wilco and I don't like RATM, but here I am saying that I saw them.

Sunday
What Made Milwaukee Famous - I stayed only halfway to see what it was all about. Not very memorable, but maybe I'll hear them some more on the myspace. I really wanted to see Octopus Project but I got there too late.
The Office - I was actually expecting to see the Weakerthans, whom Innerview had some good things to say about, but these guys showed. I think their cd is alright, but their show is lacking.
Tally Hall - Best new band I saw. They are young and have a young following (oh man i'm old). They can wail on guitar, they have sweet hair, they can sing, and they have a gimmick (different colored skinny ties). They reminded me of Weezer but without the 90's feel. I heard a riff they nicked from the Beatles, but the crowd loved every minute of it. I don't know if they have a suburban following, but I could be persuaded to get in line.
Chromeo - Yeah, while seeing them I remembered why I liked their Coachella show so much: I got there at the end when they played their two hits. I think it's safe to say that if I had to choose between seeing chromeo and playing Uno...
(nap)
Franki Chan - This guy knew what he was doing for sure. If you see the founder of iheartcomix ever in town, go see him. He's got a mix cd through Scion right now that is pretty good.
Girl Talk - I think I saw this guy at Coachella. He kills. I noticed that he's a little cheap on the effects (TP and leaf blowers, and glitter) and equipment (a laptop and a midi interface), but he can work the crowd. Someone give this guy some more money! He deserves it! He got like 40-50 people on stage going at it, crowd surfed, danced, glitterized; yup, it was a good show.
(That's it.)