Opening Day

It's 8:30am and I'm awake. I went to sleep at 3am. Welcome to CMJ, the land of too much Red Bull and speeding heart rates.

Last night was The Syndicate's annual Conflict of Interest opening night party. Although it was bigger ("I'm upstairs" "I'm in the hallway thingie" "I'm downstairs but not in the very downstairs"), and DID have some delicious cotton candy and popcorn, there was a lot of "who the hell are all these people" and "the open bar is over!" Regardless, we had a great time. I learned that getting pulled around in a plastic mail crate will result in falling on your ass (and elbow) and spilling your beer on someone's kneecap...

Let's recap shall we?

Ian and Caitlin came out and were as adorable as ever...


So were Dan and Jake...


And F is in town!! FFFFFF!!!!!


This was the best idea ever!! You can't even tell who they are!!


Okay, I take that back.. THIS was the best idea ever.. Beer bottle cotton candy!


Ohhhh sooo delicious


After deciding to forego the $10 beers that Spirit was serving up after the free drinks ran out, we decided to take it to another bar. That bar was not Blarney Stone apparently. Those a-holes left me while I was in the bathroom. You will not be forgiven!

Anyway, we found our way to Dusk at 7th and 24th and took it over. Luckily we had the best bartender ever and finished out the night in grand fashion..

Abby's in town from San Fran. She video'd us. It's probably embarassing.


Canada drew napkin pictures for hours.


Ben has a razor sharp jaw. His chin will stab you.


Dude. This is Brad and Jake. Jake is the best. I just met Brad and he seems nice too, but dude, it's JAKE!


Scandal in the Spectre office.


cheers cheers cheers cheers


Omar!! Love of my life! My dearest friend! From the wilds of Montreal!


Rohan finally decided I was worthwhile enough to include me in his life.


And finally, the bartender Syd (or Sid) awarded me second place for the 11:30 hour napkin contest. I told him the Snakes on a Plane jokes were soooo yesterday.


All in all it was a great time... And there's only 25% of the population here so far... Many stories to come..

Ridiculous Bands with Ridiculous Names Names Names Names

My dear friend Derek aka Gary Powers has been telling me to check out Shout Out Out Out Out for months now but, even though I trust his taste, I'm a bit slow with these sorts of things. Go to a record store? Wha??? So I did what any other lazy promoter would do and had Justin at Fanatic send me a copy, which just arrived yesterday. Although I was suspect at first, they won me over as soon as I heard the first verse of Self Loathing Rulz:


I want to thank myself for being so hard on myself.
There's no one else could know how much I really must improve.
I see my faults come through in every aspect of my life.
I just see the downside of every single thing I do

I then realized that self-loathing DOES rule. With the crazy vocoders, the vocals reminds me of none-other of Noah Weaver of USE. Musically, the massive group of Canadians that is Shout Out Out Out Out is insanely addictive and ready-made for the dance floor. When I played the record for my dear friend Laura last night, she asked where she could get a copy only a few minutes into it. This was after I was late getting to her apartment due to excessive bedroom dancing.


Equally exciting are Sweden's Suburban Kids With Biblical Names. I've had a few mp3's of this duo for a while now, but recently got ahold of the full record, which is being released by Minty Fresh. With the voice (and accent) of Jens Lekman, mixed with poppy jaunts and snaps & claps and a endless supply of glass-is-half-full-let's-take-a-stroll-through-the-park-and-kiss-at-sunset attitude, it's impossible not to fall in love with SKWBN. God I love pop music.

LDW ver. 2 was a great time last night. DJ Rndm especially. It's sorta hard to dance when you can't stop staring and saying "HOW DID HE DO THAT." I was insanely impressed. And I learned that nothing makes Ben Sisto dance like a little booty hip hop.

Stupid Birds

Totally stole this from Gawker


I know it's tragic and all, but HOW FUCKING FUNNY IS THAT PICTURE.

Electrolytes

Sorry for the lack of updates.. I had birthday happenings and now CMJ is on the way so I'm ecstactically pulling out my hair. Once I remember to upload my birthday pix (and once Thom Savant finally sends me our famed modeling-outside-Great-Scott pictures) I will do a proper run down of all the happenings of that evening. I promise. BRADEN I PROMISE, OKAY???

But before I forget..

This is tonight:




You can watch and listen to Birdmonster perform live and try their best not to move around too much/lose their headphones on Morning Becomes Ecclectic on KCRW here

This is next week:



Did you know there's a band called Inspect Her Gadget? Are you kidding me?!?!?!

OH! AND GO SEE EXTRA GOLDEN AT CMJ! I PROMISE YOU WILL LOVE THEM!

Let's Get Some Shoes

The Killers Hate Green Day Cause Green Day Hates America

Please please please B. Flowers... just shut the hell up.

Tally Hall Are Racist?

My friend Justin sent me this link to an article in the Michigan Daily which tears Tally Hall a new asshole and accuses them, of all things, of being racist.

Now I have no idea one way or the other if Tally Hall are racist, but I think this article is a perfect example of some shitty writer trying to play superhero to the general public. As a music critic, one should be critical, yes.. but there's a very fine line between well-written criticism and all out personal-vendetta hatred.

Ummm did they steal your girlfriend dude?

Like You Need Another Excuse to Drink/Read Pitchfork

Doug pointed out this lovely drinking game for the lovers/haters of P-fork. I guess it would be fun if I didn't tend to read it in the morning. No one likes being wasted at 9am.. or do they?

Last night I thought that it might be interesting to create an America's Next Top Model drinking game....

1. Every time someone says the word "fierce" take a drink.

2. Every time Tyra does the same pose twice and then asks "do you see the difference there?" take a drink.

3. Every time there's a mention of "dead eyes" take a drink.
to
4. Every time they criticize someone for not looking "modely" at judging and then fix it by A. pulling the model's hair into a ponytail or B. taking the model's hair out of a ponytail, take a drink.

5. Every time Tyra talks about when she first started modeling, take a drink.

6. Every time there's a picture of Tyra in the shot or on the screen, take a drink.

7. Every time Tyra slowly flutters her eyes when she's being serious, take a drink.

Congrats! You are now wasted! You will also never be a model cause you just drank 10 beers and that is like 8000 calories. Fatty.

Lights Off

CMJ is only a few weeks away and I'm super excited that Ann Arbor's Mason Proper will playing our party on November 1st (free Magic Hat!! More bands TBA!!)... It's all I can do to not squeeze these guys to bits every time I see them. The band recently visited New York to re-record their debut album There Is A Moth In Your Chest, which will be re-released on Dovecote next year. That's a lot of re-ing for one sentence.

Check them out in stick figure form:




Oh, and just cause I can't get over how great this was, Aimee, Laura and I baked some apple pies on Sunday. It was pretty amazing. We're going to make some good wives some day.



After "designing" my pie...


I accidentally dropped Aimee's while pulling it out of the oven..


I felt real bad



Harvey Danger= <3 .... twas the best...

And listen to The Kooks: She Moves in Her Own Way. I fell in love with it last night while on the elliptical machine.

Fun Bender

I started to write about last week a few days ago, but lost motivation.. I mean, my words are not nearly as entertaining as loads of ridiculous pictures! Luckily Doug uploaded his collection this morning.. Here are some of my favorites (sadly there are no pictures of dear Zaneta, who also was in town over the weekend.)

On Thursday we went to the Courtside where we sang a lot and Doug broke a table while performing "Burning Down the House." I got mad at the host for letting someone else sing ABBA and the four of us did a tear-jerking rendition of "That's What Friends Are For" that no one else seemed to like...



Friday, after enjoying some ZuZu mojitos, we decided to "stop by" The Pill.. which turned into a dance extravaganza. This picture is so cute it makes me wanna vomit.


Saturday we sorta destroyed the Long Winters before their show. After a large (and amazing) dinner, Nabil was practically comatose.


We went to Harper's Ferry for the show and ran into one of my favorite people ever, Mr. Kevin Hoskins.


It was a great, great tiring week. Tonight, Harvey Danger! Hooray!

Why

Why do they put two poptarts in one package if a serving of poptarts is only one? Do they just assume people will eat two servings? I mean, they're right, but maybe I would only eat one if they weren't wrapped together. Just sayin'.