Happy Memorial Day! Thanks to my incredible powers of procrastination, I will be doing some actual work today (with a break for kickball if the weather holds). But I wanted to give a quick update on the bands I saw Saturday night.



We began the evening at a party at Ryan Pound's house. Apparently it was an all-day cook-out type affair, but we got there late in the evening. Caspian Sea Monsters (Brian Sliwa's band) were playing when we got there. Unfortunately my memory of the evening is a little fuzzy, but I remember they ended the set with Brian (who had been playing guitar) and the bass player both playing bass on "Heart Full of Soul."



Next up was The Cherry Valence, just back from their tour of Spain. It was the first time I've seen them since Erik and Charles joined the band, and since the sound was so bad I'm going to reserve judgement for now. I don't know what was going on, but the only way to hear anything but a high-pitched squall was to go inside the house. Danny said it sounded like the PA was broken. All I know is that it sounded wrong -- not bad, because this is an awesome band -- but just wrong. Of all the movies I made of bands during the night, the Cherry Valence one came out the best, so I'll post that soon.



The cops showed up promptly at 11 p.m., so we headed down to Kings, where We Vs. The Shark, an woman-fronted Athens band with a bit of a Bloc Party sound, was already playing. I bought their CD, but haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. But Danny and I agreed they were the best band we saw all evening. They have my undying admiration for covering Groove is in the Heart.



The final band of the evening was Strange, with Dave Mueller on guitar and vocals and Linc from The White Octave on bass. They reminded me a lot of The Bolshoi and Gene Loves Jezebel.

Music

A few words on Yahoo Launch.

I signed up for the yearly rate, which, thankfully, allows me to quit with no strings attched within seven days. The program downloaded easily to my computer, and automatically loaded all the music files currently on my computer into the player/search engine. It also downloaded Yahoo Messenger, which I do not use, and automatically set it to open when I turn on the computer. Like I said, I don't use it, so therefore I have to close it out whenever I log on.


When the music player plays my current files, the sound quality is good. However, no matter what I do, I can't get it to connect to wither the Y Unlimited Music Store or the LaunchCast Radio -- which was what I wanted in the first place. Clicking on either of those two options brings up an "Action Canceled" error message. At first I figured this was because my default browser is Firefox, but even after I made IE the default (a painful thing to have to do), it STILL doesn't work. I should mention that I'm running this on a four-year-old Gateway which has never worked well with XP, so there's a real good chance many of these problems are on my end.

Verdict: I'm going to quit the program and uninstall. And perhaps use my still-valid student ID to finally buy a new computer.

I just found this site: eville.net. The "Conversations with Idiots" feature is priceless. Miss Laura and I have often talked about posting our own crazy IM conversations, but since our IM names are actually our own names (we use them for actual work), and since they often involve intimate details about our boyfriends, that might not be such a good idea.

Here's an interesting article updating the subscription music services. I'm debating whether to try the new Yahoo Launch service, but two things really irk me about it: 1. It only seems to work in IE (I'm addicted to Firefox now), and the music is not playable on iPods. Still, I like the idea of paying $60 a year to be able to listen to just about anything I want whenever I want. Well, actually, I like the idea of not paying anything, but I'm tired of bad sound quality, viruses and other nasties that come with services like Soul Seek. Plus, I want to at least attempt the legal model.

Related article: Washington Post: Music Subscription Services Reach for an Edge

Also, here's a quick article from Poynter on Apple's decision to provide podcasting capabilities in its next version of iTunes.

Related article: Apple Catches Up With Podcast Trend

Local blog Audio Activism suggests an International Podcasting Endowment

Related story: Audio Activism: International Podcasting Endowment


What I'm listening to: The new System of a Down. So far I feel the same way as I do about other SOAD CDs: The music's great, but Serj's voice makes me want to kill someone. I'll give a more thoughtful review later.

Black Metal Dialogues

This is just about the most absurdly funny thing I've read in a long time. I love the guy's e-mail address, and I love his idea for a black metal CD-release party both in Oslo and in his hometown of Gary, Indiana:

"i am thinking a fall release, just as the leaves are changing and the earthly death that is winter cackles in the distance. i would like to have two record release "parties", one in oslo and one in my hometown of gary, indiana, where i am the king of black metal. both "parties" will involve a single goat, tethered to a tree with the letters "WT" painted on its side in pig's blood. these letters, of course, will stand for witch taint, the greatest and blackest band in all of black metal. we will string up loudspeakers in the trees near the goat. at precisely midnight, the infernal sounds of our crushing debut will begin to play at a volume never before acheived by modern man. and that is when i and the members of mysticum will appear on the horizon on horseback. we will approach the goat, coming just close enough that our faces become dappled with the reflection of dancing flames (oh yeah, we should have a fire near the goat. i forgot to mention this). we will sit motionless on the horses (we will have one for each of us) until the final track of our legendary debut is finished. then we will turn and ride off into the distance, leaving the tethered goat shivering in the night. someone is going to have to come and get the goat eventually because it will probably be a rental. maybe we could have the drummer from mysticum do this since he won't be on horseback with us. he should totally come to the party though. just because he can't be a member of witch taint, doeesn't mean he shouldn't be able to witness the majesty. i don't want to be a total dick to the guy or anything."


On a totally different note, I noticed that traffic to this site had jumped recently, so I took a look at my Site Meter to see what was up. Apparently it all stems from my post about The Mars Volta, because everyone in the world is online looking for shit about them. Site Meter allows me to see exactly what people typed into their search engine to get here, and the results can be pretty funny. Here are a few actual phrases people are typing into Google, with notes on when searches came from other countries:

cedric bixler is sex
the mars volta shirt meaning
the mars volta bootlegs (From Portuguese Google)
mars volta 2005 bootlegs (Canadian Google)
concertina mars volta meaning
omar rodriguez lopez pics (Canadian Google)
mars volta songs (Canadian Google)
mars volta show review
mars volta t-shirt
meaning in mars volta songs
cedric bixler zavala pics
meaning mars volta songs (Dutch Google)
the mars volta shirt (Finnish Google)
omar rodriguez glasses
the mars volta guitar player
sounds like the mars volta (Canadian Google)
Cedric Bixler-Zavala voice
mars volta noises meanings (UK Google)
omar rodriguez-lopez uses boss

I should also note that I got a LOT of page views from people searching for The Fucking Champs, the KISS midget tribute band and Cheetie Kumar. I also got one that looked to be from Arabic Google searching (in English) for "the best musical sexy girls."

Yay! My friend Joe helped me put the Moaners video online. You'll need to size the screen down to see it better. (It's not the entire song, by the way.)

Here are a couple of photos from last night's show at Kings.


The Legendary Shack Shakers -- polka-billy from Nashville (I think)


The Moaners -- featuring Melissa Swingle (Trailer Bride) and Laura King (various bands). I like the Moaners because they hearken back to Melissa's early Trailer Bride days, only now she's a much better musician. Old-timers in the area probably remember when Trailer Bride was just two girls, before they became alt-country superstars.

The Dynamite Bros. (sorry, no photo) rocked as usual. I have a couple of Quicktime movies I took with my new camera, but I'm still trying to decide how to get them online.

This is funny. Tim Ross is reminiscing about the early-'90s rock scene on his blog. Maybe it's time for me to post some old Chew Toy flyers.

Let me start this off by saying how much I love Slayer's "Reign in Blood." About a year ago I allowed a former boss to borrow my copy because his teenage daughter was getting into death metal, and he wanted to help her find some bands he thought she might like (not often you hear that).

Anyway, the girl promptly lost the CD, and it's taken me until now to go out and get another copy. I arrived home yesterday to find it waiting for me in the mail (yes, I prefer to order my music online). I cannot describe the joy of kicking off my shoes, uncorking a fine $7.99 bottle of Chardonnay, and relaxing with "Altar of Sacrifice" blasting over my stereo system. Now, if I can only convince my friend Johnny to teach me to play drums (listening to Dave Lombardo always makes me wish I could play drums).

David Ranii has a good article today in The News & Observer about how radio is trying to recapture listeners lost to iPods and satellite radio. I find it interesting that one of the methods is to incorporate "train wreck" playlists, which is something college radio has been doing for years.

Finally, Nicky Trimiar (Mercury Birds, Taija Rae) sent me a copy of her swirly new solo project, Basalt, which I'm listening to right at this very moment. It's lo-fi, mainly her and her guitar with a Casio and a few effects. I can definitely hear a My Bloody Valentine influence. And she's got a great voice too. e-mail her if you want more info.

Check out this cool new blog, Beauty Ninja. I want that cigarette bracelet, and I don't even smoke!

Check this out this weekend at Lump Gallery:

Scarab

May 6 – 29, 2005
Opening reception: Friday, May 6th, 2005, 7 - 11 pm

Lump gallery/projects
505 South Blount Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
919-821-9999
www.lumpgallery.com

Lump gallery/projects is very pleased to present Scarab, an exhibition exploring “Heavy Metal” aesthetics. Lump will host an opening reception Friday, May 6th from 7 - 11 during the First Friday Gallery Walk located in downtown Raleigh. The exhibition will run from May 6th through May 29th and is on view Saturdays and Sundays from 1 - 5pm.