February 2010
31 posts
Live Review: West by West Campus (2/27/2010)
Yesterday, I attended West by West Campus, an all-day music festival during which 25 local bands performed at three houses within a two-block radius west of the University of Texas campus. My main incentive for attending was to watch my friend Cameron’s band Ghormeh Sabzi perform; prior to the event, I had only heard of four of the other bands. However, unfamiliarity merely increased my...
2010 PUBLICITY #3 →
Written by local music ‘blogger Westy, this is the first official review of Sometimes You’ve Gotta Fight to Get a Bit of Peace to appear anywhere. I’m glad that he enjoys the album, and I greatly appreciate both the praise and the criticism in his review.
thatgirlbelle:
Erykah Badu - Out of My Mind Just...
Live Review: Weird Weeds @ Annie Street Arts...
The three main things I demand from music are idiosyncrasy, excellence, and soul. When I listen to music, I want to believe that the musicians are doing something that no one else is doing, better than anyone else could do it, because they are supernaturally compelled to do it. Of course, I hold the music I make to the same standard. Out of all the rock bands in Austin, I believe that the...
freak-flag:
Love Field – “Karen,” from Trill...
I Make Good Music, Love Women, Hate Violence, and...
When I think about the news items my social circle has discussed most over the last week, I notice that white privilege is a common thread among them. Only white privilege can account for why a mediocre white musician who publicly disrespected both white and black female celebrities can apologize for his actions without having to put his career on hold. Only white privilege can account for why...
Adventures in the Venn Diagram of Style Hybridity...
spacegypsy:
It’s amazing how much one can learn by listening to a record they’ve never heard before – especially if said record happens to be as influential as Planet Rock: The Album, a 1986 compilation of singles by Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force. The song for which this release was named is among the most popular hip-hop classics and, like many of its kin, exhibits influence by German...
Missing Link: I want this post to be longer and... →
Why do I know so many unemployed/underemployed people? This is truly an epidemic. Last year, I thought “oh, it’s just an anomaly. It’s sure to get better next year for folks.” It’s next year and things are worse. I’m not talking slouches either, but qualified people with oozing talent. Yeah yeah,…
This is why I wrote “The Overeducated Underclass.”
I'll Get Fat and Bald Before She Does
Siskel and Ebert were both defined, for most of their adult lives, by comparative measures: the fat one, the bald one, the loud one, the skinny one. Siskel was also the careful one. He joked that Ebert’s middle name was “Full Disclosure.” Ebert’s world has never had many secrets in it.
This was another excerpt from Esquire’s recent profile of Roger Ebert that stood out to...
I Want to Be an Essential Man
As written in a previous post, a friend of a friend offered to let me live in his current house rent-free for the rest of the month, on the condition that I help him transport the last of his belongings to his next house on the last weekend of February. He has already started sleeping in his next house, which means that I have his current one almost entirely to myself. On one hand, all the empty...
John Mayer's Stupid Mouth.
spacegypsy:
This now infamous Playboy interview isn’t the first time John Mayer has outed himself as an ignorant, racist, sexist douchebag.
Exhibit A: John Mayer, Miner of Comedy Gold | via Gawker, June 2006
In this failed attempt at stand-up comedy at New York’s Comedy Cellar, John Mayer allegedly called women “sluts,” stated that he lives “up on a hill, away from the black people,” and used...
Pray for Mai's Restaurant on Milam
dirtyknowsnasty:
A 2-3 alarm fire this afternoon at the restaurant. I hope all is well and that it can be recovered.
I have eaten there a couple times and they serve very good Asian cuisine.
-DIRTY-
You can read about the fire here. I actually had dinner @ Mai’s this past Friday, and it was delicious.
"You Need to Have Cuddles and Head Ready for Me"
(photo taken by Voke Olokpa)
A conversation I had at the entrance of Notsuoh this past Saturday night, shortly before I began my set:
Me: (opens door) “You should come in soon! I’m about to start, and I don’t sound like anything else you’ve heard tonight so far.”
Her: “Oh, so that means I can go home now.”
Me: “BYE!” (slams door closed, hops on stage to begin set)
My set could’ve been...
Imperfect Sound Forever: What Pavement Means to Me
(Above: a flier designed by the Space Gypsy for the Pavement tribute band I fronted last December with members of the Mathletes, Young Mammals, Giant Princess and Sings. If you weren’t at this show, you missed out on some legendary fool actin’.)
By now, everyone who has ever used the term “indie rock” in a sentence knows that Pavement, one of my all-time favorite bands, is doing a...
Not Even a Monsoon Can Put Out the Fire in My...
It is official: living in Texas for more than a decade has made me fundamentally averse to cold weather. I know I’m forsaking my Northeastern roots by complaining about this week’s rainy, 40-degree weather, especially while the Northeast is being blanketed by blizzards, but I’m ready for spring to come to Texas once and for all. I’d rather sweat than shiver; I’d rather smell my B.O. than see my...
Whatever Happened To Life Without Buildings? →
postpunk:
tomewing:
Two members of one of the 00s honest-to-goodness cult acts talk about the band, their split, their working process, and what they’ve been up to since. Interesting!
Life Without Buildings’ “Any Other City” was one of my favorite albums of the last decade. Imagine the Fall fronted by a hyperactive lovelorn schoolgirl, and you have an idea of what this...
WatchCheck out this video of my friend Marshall’s band Warbler Pl performing live inside a reverb chamber in Austin. I play percussion in it, and you can see me @ around the six-minute mark.
Three Chords and a Buried Hatchet
This past weekend didn’t consist ENTIRELY of personal upheavals. On Saturday night I attended the last show of Beerland’s three-night series commemorating the release of Casual Victim Pile, a compilation that Matador Records founder Gerard Cosloy, who moved to Austin five years ago, made of bands in this city’s burgeoning garage-rock scene. Casual Victim Pile is the first compilation I’ve heard...
Beaumont, Texas Had a Rock and Roll Scene??!? →
No, seriously. This link interests me for two reasons:
1) I moved to Beaumont from Brooklyn, NY in the middle of high school, and it felt like instant social death. I didn’t hear any good bands from that city until long after I’d moved to Austin, and that’s only because most of them eventually moved here anyway. (Shout-outs to La Snacks and Ringo Deathstarr!)
2) Everything...
Vagabond Nomad Game Proper
This past Friday morning, my landlord e-mailed me to demand that I pay all of the back rent that I owe by Monday morning, or else he’d evict me and take me to court. (I chose those pronouns because my name is the only one on the lease; and because, by that point, my roommate had refused to help me catch up on expenses.) In hindsight, I think the e-mail was his way of retaliating for the...
Why I Don't Spend Much Time on Facebook
Because I get too many messages like THIS:
So what’s up sean long time on see ever since the last time me and you taik about the situion you been asking me about for a very long time. But ,I thought about it sean it came back to hunt me down the line. So I,m still running on the professional level in houston. And so I did my own the in houston. But it is time to bring back that reality. So...
It's So Cold in da T...How We 'Posed ta Make Heat?
I just made a stupid mistake at work, one that I wouldn’t have made if I’d focused solely on the task at hand. However, my brain is scrambled from having so much to do and so much more to think about. I corrected the mistake quickly, and ran to my boss’ office to confess it. He simply smirked, smiled, and sent me on my way. Earlier today, he left a full plate of homemade tacos in the office...
alt-riot:
Lull - Polvo
Can I Ride (Kitchen...
Comin' Up on the Rough Side of Cookie Mountain
(A batch of butterscotch oatmeal cookies, freshly baked by yours truly)
As I wrote previously, for the last five months I’ve been selling homemade cookies through the mail (and now at shows), as a means of keeping myself and my roommate financially afloat until we were able to move into a cheaper apartment equidistant from both of our jobs. Although this side hustle has been lucrative for me...
