Best Interpretation Video Ever

This is the video that made me obsessed with metal interpretation. It's done to a song by a band called "Trivium" that I know nothing about. As you may have seen a while back on this very blog, I made my own interpretation video to one of my roomate's songs. It was titled, "Feel the Touch of Distant Goats." Anyway, watch this, it's one of my favorite things in the whole world. "BOAT, RUDDER, STRANGE MOUNTAIN!!!"

My Band is Playing This Weekend

Just as the title says, my band, "The Vague Prophets" is playing this weekend. The show is Saturday at Goofy's in Crown Hill. I don't know how effective of a promotional "tool" my blog is, mostly I just wanted to post the cool flyer my drummer made. Nice work, Joey!

Best Albums of 2008

I had to come up with my "top 5" albums of 2008 for a website I do some freelance writing on. My editor wrote a great piece about how overall, 2008 was lacking in any true "masterpieces." He made the point that as critics, we're happy to argue the importance of albums over drinks with other music dorks (I've done this very thing with Vampire Weekend's album on numerous occasions), but there wasn't anything phenomenal released this last year. I almost agreed with him, except for the Why? record. I stand by my statement that it will be recognized in the future as a landmark recording. By the way, I've been seeing "Alopecia" on numerous "best of 2008" lists. Here's my list (not in order) of the top 5 records of the year:



1. WHY? - Alopeica
Hands down the best album of the year.



2. Howlin Rain - Magnificent Fiend
Former Comets on Fire guy gets signed by Rick Rubin's American Recordings, refines his stoney hippie jam rock, and releases a stunner of an LP.

Howlin Rain not only released one of my favorite records of the year, but also my favorite album cover. A song off the album contains the line, "One you were a magnificent fiend, Eyes like electric eels." I'm not sure if this is a Hunter S. Thompson reference or not, but it's bad ass either way!



3. Grand Archives - The Grand Archives
"The Archives" debut is full of sunny pop hooks, delicate vocal harmonies and excellent post-folk.



4. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
They were called many things this year. Derivative, over-hyped, Ivy League snobs, etc. When you get pass all of that, Vampire Weekend released a record of insanely catchy, accessible indie pop. What's so wrong with that?



5. Radiohead - In Rainbows
The sound of Radiohead becoming comfortable with themselves and releasing exactly the album they should at this point in their career.

Sub Pop is a Good Record Label

I'm finding more and more of my album purchases have been from Seattle's own Sub Pop label. The first album from the label I bought (like many people) was Nirvana's Bleach, which also happens to be their only platinum record.

This last Summer the label celebrated their 20th birthday. There was a two day festival out at Marymoor Park, and I attended one of the days courtesy of my friend Julie. It was amazing to see Wolf Parade, Green River, Foals, Grand Archives, Comets on Fire (most likely their last show!) and Kinski all in one day.

The label has continually found innovative music from all over the world. From the electro-pop of The Postal Service to the new "post-folk" movement that seems to be going on with bands like Fleet Foxes, Grand Archives, Iron & Wine, etc., Sub Pop keep things fresh without restricting themselves to one genre.



I once referred to Sub Pop as, "a music critic's wet dream." None of their artists (with the exception of Nirvana, The Postal Service and The Shins) will sell millions of records, but they continue to have credibility and remain relevant.

Here's a list of some of their albums I've bought in the last two years that I've especially enjoyed:

Band of Horses - Cease to Begin
Grand Archives - The Grand Archives
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Foals - Antidotes
Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
Comets on Fire - Avatar
Kinski - Down Below It's Chaos

PURE COUNTRY GOLD

Pure Country Gold is a two-piece garage rock band from Portland. They are also, "arguably Portland's best bluesman. . ."

I've known Patrick (guitar/vocals) for probably about 8 years. He played in a few bands around Arcata including "Petey and the Associates" and "ScoPac." They play Seattle on a fairly regular basis, and our house has become their "Seattle home." Patrick was upset (jokingly) when Chuck moved into the house and "took over his room." Their music is fun, danceable, and very entertaning to see live.

It's been cool to see their progression musically and their popularity level grow. I now hear their songs on the radio and watch fans sing along at their shows.



Jake is without a doubt one of my favorite drummers to see live. He plays hard, consistent and is technical while playing what is appropriate for the song. He's also fun to drink with. One of my favorite quotes of his was, "let's go back to your house, drink a lot of beer and stay up late!"



Here's Patrick relaxing at the house this last weekend with my hamster "Fire Chief Emily." I wish I would have stayed up a little later, as I understand he fell asleep in the chair and started snoring while wearing the turkey hat!

P.C.G.'s self titled album on Empty Records made my top 10 list for 2007. Check that out, or go to their website to learn more:

www.purecountrygold.com

www.myspace.com/purecountrygold

New Year's Eve!

My friend Michelle was nice enough to put me on the guest list and get me a "Backstage V.I.P." pass for a show at The Paramount on New Years. I wasn't too excited to see The Presidents of the United States of America, but wanted to see Monotonix (Michelle is their booking agent) and hang out with some old friends from Humboldt. Rather than write a long, drawn out story about the night, I've decided to post photos with captions. . .



This is Ami, the singer from Monotonix doing a little "crowd surfing" on a drum, which he also somehow managed to play. Monotonix is a 3 piece "garage rock" band from Tel Aviv, Israel. They've been receiving a lot of attention lately for their over the top, chaotic live performances. I overheard the drummer from The Presidents telling them how he was a huge fan and had seen them play at The Comet Tavern before. Monotonix got flown out from Tel Aviv, and received a "generous" amount of money for their single show at The Paramount.



This is how I arranged the food in The President's green room while they were playing. I hope they liked it!



I got to stand right on the side of the stage for The President's set, a pretty sweet spot! For some reason, the balloons didn't come down right at midnight, which Jake (Michelle's roomate in New York) said was a "bad sign" for the New Year. They actually came down sometime around 1:00 AM. Strange.



This is Michelle and my friend Ryan Carlisle. They were both very involved in the music "scene" in Humboldt, and I've stayed in touch with them over the years.



Leigh (Ryan's friend from Portland) Ryan and I



This is the mandatory, "I'm drunk and posing with the guitarist from P.U.S.A." shot. They actually were nice guys, and for some reason had no complaints about our "crew" hanging out in the green room, drinking their booze for about two hours.

After leaving The Paramount we went to a house party of some friend of Leigh's. I finally made it home around 5:30 AM. It was a pretty amazing night overall, I met a lot of people, got to see Monotonix for the first time, and of course got silly drunk.

One More "Snoto"

This was what our house looked like on Christmas Eve. . .by far the most snow I've seen in Seattle!

White Trash T-Shirts!

Is it just me, or is this t-shirt incredibly hilarious and just all around awesome? You know the type - there's some run down gas station in the middle of nowhere, you walk in and there's a rack full of shirts with ridiculous animals with the town's name on it. This particular gem came from dowtown Sacramento, where the wolves, deer, bald eagles and bears run rampant through the urban landscape. Yeah right!

My dear buddy "Mysterious Bunny" got me really into these a few years back. If I remember correctly, he had a black shirt with two panthers on their hind legs, fighting to the death. Then sure enough, right above it, the caption read, "Crescent City, CA." Not necessarily a place known for it's wild, black panther population. M.B. also used to "rock" a "t" featuring a vicious wolf gnashing his teeth, with a vato looking dude riding a motorcycle underneath, one hell of a combo!I don't know what it is about these shirts that so intrigues me. . . maybe I just find it incredibly funny in an ironic way. Am I crazy for obsessing over these things?

I love SNoggin! (Snow Bloggin')

It has snowed a shit ton (roughly around a foot) here and I've been fully enjoying it. Over the last week or so I've gone sledding, gotten into drunken snowball fights, made "snow penises" on people's cars and slipped and ate shit on more than one occasion. Hee Hee. It's also a lot of fun to make up snow words. For example, a Snow Blog is considered a "Snog," a Snow Oasis is called a "Snoasis," and Snow Rape is called "Snape." Yuck.



Here I am trying out my "Snildo" on "Scuba Steve."



This is my little snow angel, isn't he precious? Notice the attention to detail on his snow outfit, or "snoutfit."



The little guy went for a little sled ride. Yes he did, yes he did (in a pussy voice).



Who is this guy? Is this a snow man? Hitler? Or maybe, just maybe it's a "Snace" or "Snow Face."



And finally, Steve points and says, "here's a nice old piece of shit."

F.A.G.tastic!

One of my projects that I haven't mentioned much is F.A.G. It started in the Winter of 2005 as a "real" rock and roll band featuring three lads with the last names Ferrell, Allen and Graves, thus the acronym F.A.G. It was a short lived band, but I think we actually played 3 or 4 shows. Later on, Jeremy (Ferrell) and I recorded a couple of tracks with super producer DJCJ (AKA GAYbriel). You can check those out on our myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/fagfeaturinggaybriel

The concept is simple enough. We determined that there is a huge untapped market out there - rap music that appeals to gay people. . .or "Homo Hop" as I like to call it. So, Cecil (Allen), Flamer Flame (Ferrell) and Gaybriel wrote, recorded and posted the "gams" (gay-jams).

While in town working on the film "KaraoKing," the crew got back together at the legendary studios located at the Durant residence. We added a new member, "Cool Queef." The song below remains tragically unfinished, but I feel showing the creative process is almost as entertaining.