Lust for Life

A Jekyll Hyde Sunday morning moment:

Wow...I will never ever drink liquor again. Saturday night started off great but awkwardly ended in a ram ram random way. Picture this: a grass-less field that has a feeling of an apocalyptic landscape with leafless trees, jagged rocks, and broken slabs of concrete.





Then picture me all drunk, foaming at the mouth, and screaming at the sun at dawn. I'm still on that field which is on a hill overlooking downtown Austin. Its like something out of a Will Ferrell or Jim Carey movie.







Insanity is all can say. My drunken fumbling that morning is probably not as funny as I'm trying to make it out to be, and its probably more sad then anything. That is why liquor is banned in Little Richard's little world for good. When I wrote in my last post something about a "Weekend Binge" it should have been titled "We Be Weekend Binge Drinking". A positive note to the whole drunk thing, is the fact I didn't drive while I was extremely intoxicated. I ended up waking from my incapacitated state in my car, with the windows down, and the stereo blasting my newly acquired glam rock CD featuring tunes by the likes of David Bowie and Queen.



I was still downtown when I passed out in my car, which was kinda of a good thing because I had some important errands to take care of downtown that Sunday afternoon.

Perro caliente! Deng I'm a happy banana!!





So after all, I will be able to volunteer for SXSW this year. Around two o'clock on Sunday, I went over to the Hilton Hotel for the Volunteer call for SXSW. I got there way late, and there was a huge line and people every where. I thought it would be crowded but it was crazier then I(and the SXSW staff on hand) imagined it would actually be. All that chaos didn't help my hangover either. I signed up with a film crew for most of my volunteer hours. I get the impression all I'll be doing is working the door at the South Alamo Drafthouse during the film festival which doesn't sound to bad.

KRS-One and Saturday night:



I wanted to comment on the KRS-One show which was pretty awesome. If you don't agree with his views about 9-11, or if you don't like someone preaching to you, I wouldn't suggest going to one of his show because you might get angry or offended. One of my cousins has a strong belief that 9-11 was intentionally caused by the government. I personally don't agree with these views. Its not like I've done extensive research on the subject or anything, but just what I've seen with the Bush administration doesn't lead me to pursue such an extreme view on what happened on that dreadful day(don't get me wrong, Bush has done some really really fucked up shit though). Its to conspiracy theoryish in my opinion. Speaking of conspiracy theories, Alex Jones, Austin's own conspiracy theorist was on stage with KRS-One. I'm not a super huge fan of KRS-One, but I do respect his contributions to Hip-Hop, and I really like his emceeing style and general positive message. During the show, KRS-One requested that all the criminals(not literally) in the audience to raise their hands...I, on the other hand, acted a little shady that night; I snuck into the show because the cover was just to high in my opinion. So I paid half price at another entrance to get into the Mohawk. This is pretty much a rain check I'm writing to KRS-One; I'll buy a CD or something to make up for my deviant behavior, but sometimes ya gotta do whatcha gotta do.



So after hanging out at the Kris show for an hour, I headed over to Black and Tan(I paid the appropriate cover, $4, this time) to check out the Oh Snap!! and Hostage show. I missed all of Oh Snap!! but got to see all of Hostage's set. Hostage is a DJ from the UK and I dug his tunes. I had a blast and danced the whole time. A side note about Black and Tan; on Saturday night, it seemed that the bar ran out of all the beer I love to drink. They where out of New Castle, Lone Star, Pabst, Budweiser, and Shiner. I thought that was weird but assumed it was due to the new management. Hopefully they get their act together because that was a pretty negative experience.

I went to the Music Gym after Black and Tan, and that is where it all went down hill as I mentioned earlier. I think the Music Gym staff almost gave me full access to the bar towards the end of the night, no holds barred. I'm just glad they didn't give me or let me walk around with a Vodka bottle. I had a good time and met some interesting people at the after party. Good times with exception of the black out.

DFA, Thermoregulation, and The Weekend Binge

(Gonna Make You Sweat)

Everybody dance now
Give me the music
Everybody dance now
Yeah yeah yeah
Everybody

Here is the dome back with the bass
The jam is live in effect and I don't waste time
Off the mic with a dope rhyme jump to the rhythm
Jump jump to the rhythm jump
And I'm here to combine beats and lyrics
To make you shake your pants take a chance
Come on and dance guys grab a girl don't wait make the twirl
It's your world and I'm just a squirrel
Trying to get a nut to move your butt to the dance floor
So you what's up hands in the air come on say yeah
Everybody over here everybody over there
The crowd is live enough as I pursue this groove
Party people in the house move

Left to right (groove) work me all night
Come on let's sweat (sweat sweat) baby
Let the music take control (control control)
Let the rhythm move you
Sweat(sweat sweat) sweat...Yeah! sweat bitches! In my opinion, from my own experience, I can really gauge how cool a dance party or show was by how much I perspire. Well, my shirt was drenched because of all the awesome tunes Juan Maclean deejayed last night.



(Meee all hot and bothered)

Holly cow that Juan Maclean thing at Beauty Bar was super cool. I went ape shit midway thru his set when he spun Blind by Hercules and Love Affair and his own Give Me Every Little Thing. I had whole lot of fun and can only imagine how great next weekend's DFA extravaganza will be.



By the way, I was really really shocked and happy by all the people that turned out to support. I didn't think it would reach capacity at like 12am because of the small crowd at his last show at Mohawk. The line never seemed to reduce in size, I'm thinking, either cause it was free or because of the promoting done by Toyota and its people. Either way, I'm glad about the turn out.

Weekend plans are looking to be the Mohawk for the KRS-ONE show...




and then I'll finish the night off with The Famousish's Oh Snap!! and Hostage shindig at Black and Tan(looking forward to the after party at the Music Gym again too)

One Day

Yes, one day, one way or another, I will see these bands this year; Glass Candy, Fan Death, and Polyamorous Affair. I discovered each of these bands online through Myspace or Blogs. Their music is oh so nice and dreamy because of the smooth Disco sound and lush female vocals that just scream cool! I've just been thinking here lately about these bands and wanted to write a little something something. Glass Candy is the only band out of the three that I've actually come the closest to seeing.

In September of 2008 I went to vist my brother who lives in Seattle Washington. Glass Candy is based in Portland Oregon, and before I left for Seattle, I found out about a show they where playing for free at an art gallery. It was too good to be true, so in a heart beat I RSVPD for the show, and I intended on renting or borrowing my brother's car to drive to Portland. The distance between Portland and Seattle is pretty much the same distance as a drive between Dallas and Austin, so it wasn't a big deal. Unfortunately plans where made on my behalf to be somewhere else that same day, and I had to cancel my Glass Candy wet dream. To say the least, I missed an awesome show as you can see in the Glass Candy/Nemo video. I love Ida No's dance moves, she is so solid gold ice cold.





Fan Death is an up and coming act out of NYC. They are gaining a lot of hype in the blog world, and its probably because of Erol Alkan's promoting efforts and production of some of their material. Sometimes they are compared to Hercules and Love Affair and Glass Candy, and I can hear why, never the less, it is good music which warrents all the chatter. Keep an eye out for'em cause they're touring right now up North.





Polyamorous Affair is a LA duo which doesn't tour much outside of Califorina or LA for that matter. I hope this changes because this is an interesting band which has an eccentric style and sound destin to move people.

Horray Tuesday

Barack Hussein Obama II is offically the 44th President of the United States.

A Monday Post

This is the second time getting sick in just a months time frame. My immune systems must be tore up I guess. This time I came down with some sort of stomach flu, and from Tuesday until Friday I was on my death bed. I had a fever I couldn't shake for three days, and, with a sigh of relief, I was finally able to break it on Friday morning. Hopefully I'll be 100 percent better by this weekend. Two side notes on the whole sickness thing:

1). I hadn't puked in like 10 years but I broke that record on Wednesday morning. It was something like that of the...

Exorcist pea soup scene...



Sucked. Sorry about the visual, but I'm artist, I gotta paint a picture for ya.

2). I also will not be able to volunteer for SXSW because I missed a few days at work. I'll be forced to use the vacation time, which was set aside for SXSW, for the days missed when i was sick(!ugh!). I'm very upset because I'm gonna miss Devo and who knows what else.

I'm a sad banana...




I digress...

This weekend was pretty laid back for me. On Saturday, The Famousish's party with Cobra Krames seemed to have a pretty good crowd, and other peeps where happy bout the turn out too.



(I always love Lydia Reynold's flyers because there so cool and simple.)

At the party, I was just chilling the entire night and taking it easy. I didn't think I was even going to go out, but I made a last minute decision to do so because I had a feeling(it could be psychic) that it would be a fun night. The venue which is an after party hot spot, The Music Gym, kept the party going til 5am. Some of it got a little trashed though, one of the benches along the wall collapsed. I guess that's what free vodka does to people, makes'em crazy. I also feel too, that the floor will cave in one of these days, sometimes it feels like a trampoline in there. A Highlight of the night is when I bumped into an old co-worker from Victoria by the name of Mandy. I hadn't talked to her in like 3 years, and I hadn't seen her in like 5 or 6. Good Times.

On Sunday, I hung out of with other friends from Victoria and celebrated a birthday at Elysium. It was a jolly good time as we drank, sang, and danced to sounds of 80's music.



I guess since there is really nothing to do on Sundays, except for going to 80's night at Elysium, I ended up bumping into a couple of the people that where out and about on Saturday night as well. People love to dance, and those are my kinda people.

Dancing and people...so that brings me to whats coming up this week, Thursday January 22ND, Juan Maclean will be gracing us with his presence again. Juan Maclean is on the label called DFA, which is "one of the greatest record labels ever"(Franki Chan). Juan came a couple of months ago last year and played with a live band. I think it was back in August but don't quote me on that. It was a very small turn out at the Mohawk, but it was still a lot of fun. At a couple moments in the show, the music was just so perfect to dance to. It was built up by house beats which kept the feet moving, and synthesizers which hypnotized with sweet rhythms. The climax of the songs seemed to last forever and caused a real dance frenzy. I'm sure his DJ set will be a riot too, so I know anyone who likes dance music will not be disappointed. Its FREE if you RSVP...

Serious Psychic Phenomenon

On January 2ND I wrote a blog about upcoming events in the month of January. After ranting and raving about Learning Secrets upcoming shows towards the end of the month, I predicted and stated this..."I'm sure more surprises will blossom in the next couple of days or weeks." Is it just a coincidence that last night, on a fricking Monday of all nights, DJ Franki Chan stormed the Black and Tan and spun a taste tester set of iheartcomix material and other joints. Really, this rowdy random dude should just move to Austin. Its probably like his second home or something. I can't even count the number of times he has been here in Austin. It was a pleasant surprise, and I wish I really did predict this, but alas, I have no super human powers(yet).

The Free Week Experience

This Free Week had me running all over the place on some days, and it really gave me a sense of whats to come with SXSW this year, with all the club hopping and live music. I really can't wait for SXSW if you can't tell. Some of the acts really surprised me and turned out to be as...

Tony the Tiger would say "Grrrreat!"


Especially cause its free.

By the way, Tony is such a hipster(ref diagram #3):



A couple of the bands that I liked or which caught my eye where...

The Great Nostalgic



I read about them on the east austinite blog, and thought I check out on Wednesday at Club De ville. I wanted to also see another band that was playing that same night, their name eludes me now, but I missed'em. I liked The Great Nostalgic's sound because of the lead singer's somber yet passionate voice, and the drummer's enthusiasm in producing cohesive beats with the two keyboardist's complimentary synthetic backdrops.

El Paso Hot Button(EPHB)



This was probably the biggest surprise of the whole week. I was really floored by EPHB. A friend told me to check him out instead of seeing Loxsly at Club De ville. ELHB is just a one man band, and he strips the music down to a basic bass drum, tom tom, and a guitar. He also mixes in other intstruments and pedals to give it a layered sound. The dudes voice is rocking, like that of a 70's rock god(I'm exaggerating of course). If you like Ghostland Observatory, you'll like EPHB.

Ume



The female lead singer, Lauren, of Ume is the reason I like the band. She projects the charisma of a strong front woman because of her stark ironic adorable Goldie Locks look, in contrast with her trashing and the headbanging she does on stage. At one point, she went down on her knees and it seemed that she was gonna light her guitar on fire like Jimmy.

Flash boys



Well, I thought the Flash Boys get banned from Austin venues occasionally, but I guess this is a regular occurrence. During their show at Beerland, the lead singer told the crowd that this was their first show at Beerland since getting banned, and this will be their last show because their banned again. I have no idea what they did to get in trouble, but I royally enjoyed the chaos that night. This is drunk punk at its best. I can't even recount the amount of times the lead singer slipped on spilt beer, or fell on someone in the crowd screaming and spitting. The mic kept getting disconnected, but that didn't ruin the show, it just added more rawness to the "who gives a fuck" attitude and demeanor the the Flash Boys display.

Lets Get This Party Hype

I've been browsing blogs and keep coming across all this hype around Harlem, a local band which is playing at Emo's during Free Week. So Emo's is the place to be on Thursday because not only is Harlem, the band which is going to be one of the most successful bands of 2009, playing, but Ume, another local favorite, will play right after'em. Some how I keep missing Ume when they open for other acts or have there own shows, so I'll kill two birds with one stone and check'em out.

On Friday, I'll be all over the place checking out Moth!Fight! and others at Mohawk and Flash Boys at Beerland. Moth!Fight! is a quirky band which has a chaotic sound with melody mixed in for fun. Flash Boys are just a psychotic punk band that just seem to go ape shit and get banned from clubs and venues occasionally. Check out this Flash Boys video a friend made;

Someone Great

Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun

Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o' the great;
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownéd be thy grave!

-- William Shakespeare











Robert Rauschenberg October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008

Free

Nothing in life is free...except for this week. Its that time of the year when Emo's throws its annual Free Week. There is alot of things going on because Emo's has some company this year. The entire Red River District is exploding with shows all over the place, so much that I can't figure out much of whats going on cause there is just to much to digest. I'm just going with the flow and I'll see whatever comes my way. Transmission Entertainment is hosting events at four different clubs so you have options this year.

Here is Emo's Line up:



FreEmo’s Returns (Free Week Line-Ups)

All shows are free for 21+ and $5 for under 21.



January 2 (Friday)

Outside: Lemurs / Ringo Deathstarr / Ovenbirds / The Boxing Lesson / The Great Nostalgic

Inside: Pataphysics / Silver Pines / JC and Co. (members of Belaire) / School Police


January 3 (Saturday)

Outside: What Made Milwaukee Famous / Oh No! Oh My! / The Pons / The Mercers / The Georgian Company

Inside: The Ugly Beats / The Jungle Rockers / Amplified Heat / Dans La Lune


January 4 (Sunday)

Outside: The Tunnels / Christian Bland (of The Black Angels) / Woven Bones / The Astronaut Suit / LEVIS (ELVIS Acoustic Set) / DJ Scorpio

Inside: The Always Already / Haunting Oboe Music / Prayer for Animals / j.be


January 5 (Monday)

Outside: Abby Birds / Stereo Is a Lie / Courses and Angles (ex-Gulf of Mexico & Mandon from Lil' Cap'n Travis) / Your Kisses Cause Crashes / New Roman Times

Inside: Zookeeper / Booher and the Turkeyz / Frank Smith / Masonic / Sad Accordions


January 6 (Tuesday)

Outside: The Bremen Riot (Mike Nicolai & Grand Champeen) / Moonlight Towers / Militant Babies / Gleeson

Inside: High Watt Crucifixers / Black Earth / Full Stride / Baby Dick (members of Fuckemos) / Yayo / Shitty Car Wash


January 7 (Wednesday)

Outside: Unit 21 / Iron Age / the Altars / Porkeria (members of B.S.A.)

Inside: When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth / The Diagonals / Eagle Claw / My Education / Black Cock / Selenese


January 8 (Thursday)

Outside: Off With Their Heads / Broken Gold / Deskonocidos / Ghost Knife / Send Help

Inside: El Paso Hot Button / Harlem / Ume / The Blacks


January 9 (Friday)

Outside: Strange Boys / Special Guests / White White Lights / The Teeners / Man Stamps

Inside: ATTAK (iN)FORMATION / This Horn of Africa (ex-Animals of the Bible) / Bee V.S. Moth / Serious Tracers / Che Arthur


January 10 (Saturday)

Outside: Special Guests plus: DJ Remy Mac (Ramesh from Voxtrot) / The Black / International Waters / The Minotaurs (ex-Sound Team) / Corto Maltese / Cry Blood Apache / Bear Claw

Inside: Those Peabodys/ The Crack Pipes / Shapes Have Fangs / Red Leaves / Wine and Revolution / A Giant Dog


January 11 (Sunday)

The Service Industry (Industry Night- 50% Off all drinks with TABC card or pay stub)

Transmission Entertainment's Lineup:





Okay, so not only is Free Week really breaking in the new year very nicely, but there are quite a few different things coming up this month. 101x radio station, which I dont listen to, is bringing some acts to the Parish. The acts are some pretty cool indie bands, Tapes 'n Tapes and Los Campesinos. 101x also just had a show at Emo's last month with the Ting Tings and Black Kids. I get the impression that they don't usually play this kinda of music, but maybe I should listen to station because I might be surprised(probably not).

I'm really really excited about this though; the Learning Secrets outfit is working with DFA records and Toyota to celebrate their 5th yr anniversary. Two parties will happen on sepearate weekends back to back. This is going to be the coolest things happening this month in my opinion, and I can't wait for the these free parties to happen. Juan Maclean will be DJing a week before the anniversary party which will have a member of the band Hercules and Love Affair DJing. I'm sure more surprises will blossom in the next couple of days or weeks.

Fyi-SXSW just put out its call for volunteers...So if your looking to volunteer this SXSW to save a little money, now is the time. Sign up now at http://volunteer.sxsw.com and attend one of the 2009 Volunteer Calls. Email volunter@sxsw for more info.


SXSW Volunterer Call 2009:

Sunday, January 25th, 2:00pm-5:00pm
Monday, January 26th, 6:00pm-9:00pm

Hilton Hotel, 500 E4th St
Governor's Ballroom, 4th Floor