Larry Bird

Here is the birthday gift rundown. Shoes.
Classic powell deck.
T-Shirt.
Tattoo. G! pointed out that if she didn't know me she would think i'd gotten my gifts mixed up with some teenager.

Mars Volta in town?

On their official website the Mars Volta have a show scheduled at the Higher Ground on January Ninth! Higher ground and Pollstar haven't confirmed this yet but if it happens I will have to find a way to be there. Usually the first couple of weeks after Christmas are a no extra spending zone at my house but i may have to sell something to make this show.

Edit: Higher Ground has confirmed, tickets are on sale this Friday at 11. Don't sleep on this, it's as close to At the Drive-in as we're gonna get in this lifetime.

Renewed

God I love Vermont, I renewed my driver's license through the mail!! No waiting at the DMV for me.
The only thing that made me pause was the fact that they didn't need me to come in and take another picture. That means that my picture and all of my information are in some government database somewhere, thank god i was rocking a giant beard.

Fiery Furnaces on the way

The Fiery Furnaces will be playing Higher Ground on January 18th. G! and i will be there weather permitting. Let's just hope we get a good set, I really love some of their work and really hate some of it. The one and only time i saw them was at ACL right before singing my choir(hated it) came out but they ended up playing a bunch of older stuff and only a couple of the dreadful tunes. Fingers crossed.

Threadless sale

Threadless is having another $10 sale. I need that shirt.

Skateboard Art/ Foundation One Gallery

Mike Giant

Foundation one gallery has a great fund raiser going. They are auctioning off skateboards painted by lots of well known underground artists. The bidding starts at $100 and the money raised goes to a skatepark.

Shepard Fairey

There's something about skateboards that strikes a chord with me and i'm sure with lots of people who grew up skating, often buying boards based on the artwork alone. I've been getting after my wife for some time to let me buy and hang up a nicely done deck. Maybe while we are in Paris Colette will do another deck. Check out the art here.

Uncle

Slash on Slash

I'm a sucker for rock biographys, I've read more than my fair share of them from classics like Hammer of the Gods to my latest read Slash. My favorite of all time is probably Catch a Fire, a biography of Bob Marley, although I've read a couple of really good Elvis books and Shakey about Neil Young is another good read.
Slash doesn't pretend to be written by Slash alone, right there on the cover is the co author's name, it's nice that they didn't try to pass it off as self written. That having been said, it defiantly sounds like Slash, I'm sure it was cleaned up a bit but it still sounds like a rocker that barely made it out of high school. The content is insane, plenty of rock cliches with Axl weirdness thrown in for good effect. The first half, which basically dealt with his childhood up through the teens, had me constantly saying "Who lets their kid do shit like this?" Slash is very unrepentant about everything he's done. The weirdest thing is the fact that he has some crazy heart shocking device implanted in his chest.
Over all it was a fun read, especially for someone with a soft spot for Guns and Roses. Very little is given to the life of Velvet Revolver after the band was put together so if you're looking for VR dirt this is not the book. My main gripe is Slash constantly saying "My side of the story is", we get it slash, two sides to every story, you don't have to remind us two dozen times that Axel's take on things is a far cry from yours. If anyone out there still reads this is a pretty enjoyable read.

Letter from an Occupant

My youngest is a bit obsessed with this song. Last night we watched about every video for it on youtube including the one above. He was brutal in his critique of some of the live videos. He still favors the actual video.



He listened to this at least ten times in a row today after school. It was funny to here my daughter belt out Neko's part as she did her homework.

Winona Ryder Naked

Winona appears nude in her new movie. The stills don't reveal much but check them out here.

Challengers

The New Pornographers disc Challengers is probably my most played album of 2007 so far, they have a new colorful video out for the title track.


My youngest son and i still really like Letter to an Occupant and Sing Me Spanish Techno.

Del the Funky Homosapien Who threw that?

My wife and i decided to go to the Del show at Higher ground Sunday night at the last minute. After a rare day with no time spent on the law we decided to cap it off with something just for us, it was either 2 days in Paris(which was showing in Montpelier) or Del. We opted for Del, i'd been really wanting to go for quite awhile but with Gretchen's appellate shit fast approaching it's due date it looked like she would be spending Sunday evening in the library(yes she is in the library until midnight most nights).
Over all the show was great, it probably worked out to about $2 per group so we defiantly got our money's worth. The crowd was pretty interesting, not a hipster in sight but several hippie kids and almost all young and white.
The show started with Hieroglyphics newest member Knowbody. He was good in the non gangster not quite full of himself backpacker style. Then came a couple of white kids from Brooklyn that were good(Gretchen thought one sounded like Ad Rock) Next up was Junk Science, another three piece suited brooklynite. He sounded great and really invited a lot of crowd participation. Next was Bukue 1 who next to Del was probably my favorite. He went out of his way to make it known that he was a rapper, graffiti artist and skateboarder and at one point he did the sprinkler. He was a lot of fun with a couple of forays into a dancehall reggae style. At one point we had to shout cheddar and butter repeatedly.
And then it got weird. Devin the Dude and the Coughee Brothaz took the stage and as Gretchen put it things got "surreal", it was more cartoonish than anything else but let me run through their set with you. The first three songs were about weed(they are heavily in favor of legalizing it and smoking as much as possible regardless). The next song was about pussy and weed. Then there were two more songs about just pussy(one was accapella) followed by one dedicated to fucking fat chicks("too much pork for one fork" being the standout line) at that point my wife stepped out. Another song about weed and then one about weed and blowjobs and then one about the economy(bums now ask for three dollars instead of one) at that point i got another beer and gave it my full attention. Keep in mind that i've been to a Cyprus Hill show.
Del hit the stage at midnight. He came on strong(like it was the nine deuce) performing everything i wanted t hear, Mistadobalina, Dr. Bombay, False Alarm, Ahonetwo, and Virus from the Deltron album and ended it with Clint Eastwood from the Gorillaz album mixed in were several new songs from his upcoming album, the 11th Hour. The concert ended a bit strangely when apparently someone in the crowd threw something at the DJ causing Del and his sidekick A Plus to freak out. A plus went on a triad while Del repeated Who threw that over and over, for a couple of minutes i thought t was a new song because the DJ had a beat going at the time. After another lecture from aplus and then one from Del which included him pointing out that it was a peaceful gathering and then offering an ass kicking to the thrower he had everyone give then peace sign said he had one more song to do and then walked off stage.

Download - Del - Mistadobolina

Put it together

1
2
3
done

Beirut revisited

Trendwhore has video of the entire Beirut show i caught in Montreal.
They also have all the audio. Check it out.

Hot Hot Heat @ Higher Ground

The Hot Hot Heat aren't a band i would usually go out of my way to see but i had a good friend in town and really wanted him to see Higher Ground so away we went. I was beyond pleasantly surprised with the evening. Hot Hot Heat put on a dancy new wavish set that was a lot of fun and i found that somehow i know several of their songs.
What was really surprising was the great opener De Novo Dahl from Nashville. They had a great funky My Morning Jacket thing happening. Beduin Sound Clash also brough their ska/rock steady thing that was pretty cool.
Download - De Novo Dahl - The Funk

Dragon's Gate, Enfield, NH

I've spent a lot of time at Dragon's Gate tattoos over the past couple of weeks. Scott and Joanna are amazing artists and tattooists, if you're looking to get some new ink there's no one better.
My arm.
Phil's arm.
Ryan's leg.

Two things

Two things i forgot to mention about the Beirut show.
1. Often the band would be playing the mandolin the ukeleli and a slightly bigger ukeleli and those guys all stood next to each other on stage so if you just watched that side it looked like a band of giants with tiny guitars.
2. The t-shirts were cheap and so was the domestic beer.

Beirut in Montreal

As usual I'm late with this post but i had a good friend in town so... We were able to catch Beirut's second night (of three) at La Salla Rossa in Montreal. It was my first time in that venue and it was very intimate. I'm guessing the room held 250 or so and it was sold out. The show was right on. I expected it to be a reeling sloppy mess and it was and it was perfect.
I don't know the names of many Beirut songs but i know we heard Nantes, Elephant Gun(my favorite song), A Sunday Smile and Idle Days. Everything sounded great, just like the studio tracks but better. After Elephant Gun ended they were setting up for the next song when one guy started singing the humming part at the end and the band actually took it up and played a few more minutes of the song! Elephant Gun being my favorite track i was flipping out! You can probably tell from the pictures but I'll lay it out, they played the last song of the night on the floor. It was funny, i could see one of the horn players gesture to the floor from the stage and Zach just shrugged and grabbed his mike and climbed down along with the rest of the band.
The Flying Club Cup site has a video performance for almost every song on the album, it's a must see.

p.s. Thanks to Sam for the pictures.

Jenny McCarthy cures autism!?

At this point if my wife say Jenny McCarthy on the street she would probably whip her ass. Autism is a rather touchy subject in our house.

Iron & Wine delivered

I preordered the new Iron & Wine album The Shepherd's dog from SUB POP a couple of weeks ago, it arrived today!!! In addition to the disc it came with a handful of stickers, a button and a single with two unreleased songs, Arms of a Thief and Serpent Charmer. Now I'm wishing I'd ordered the limited edition pack of silk screened art signed by Sam himself. Maybe i'll add it to the Christmas list.

Random Boobs/Meg White

Two of my three best friends will be visiting in the next couple of weeks and they like boobs

and sushi.

In other news there is a supposed Meg White Sex tape floating about the internet and is rumored to be part of Meg's recent breakdown. Check it out here, it doesn't really look like her to me, at least not how i picture her naked.

A Chelsea walk

I just want your dinosaur head

Here at my house we have all been listening to Tegan and Sara's new album The Con quite a bit. My youngest is in love with the song Back in your head. He loves the video but it is a little off putting to hear him yell "Look out for the black guys" or "Oh no, where are all the white guys?" He has also decided that he likes Sara but not Tegan. This has lead to him yelling "Don't look at me" during Tegan's brief appearances in the video. He has actually watched the video so many times that he can give a running commentary when we are listening to it in the car, "the balloons are falling", "they are running down the stairs" etc... He also has a thing for dinosaurs which lead him to rewrite the words into "I just want your dinosaur head". You can't tell me that doesn't rock.
That having been said i think everyone in my family would recommend both the album and the video.

Another note on my kids and music, while getting a band aid for a scraped knee(bicycle crash) for my daughter the other day i could hear her comforting herself by softly singing The Crane Wife 1 and 2 by the Decemberists.
I'm also missing(sniff) the Iron and Wine show in Montreal due to her first soccer game.

Feist @ the Fylnn (aka. the Guitarsenal)

My lovely wife caught the Feist show on Sunday at the Flynn Theatre in Burlington. She said it was a great show overall-and she loved it when Feist invited the crowd up for the encore. The only things she was disappointed about was that Inside & Out wasn't played and the "half-assed" version of Mushaboom. "It was if Feist felt like she had to play it, and nobody really wanted to admit that they were glad she did." Feist has one of the most talented voices in music today. (and G! fell in love with her "endearing sprite-like quality" and "witty on-stage presence")Download - Feist - Mushaboom
Download - Feist - Inside & Out


In other news it appears that Ryan Adams has a seven song Ep coming out soon, see I am Fuel for the scoop.

Damn! hell! crap!

If you haven't seen this great piece in the Onion concerning Pitchfork then check it out here.
Have you seen this post at False 45th? Expect lots more f bombs and photos of tits.

Rufus Wainwright Places Des Arts

After a comedy of misadventures, that resulted in us missing the opener(A Fine Frenzy) and the first half hour of Rufus's show, we finally made it to Places Des Arts.
While we did miss the first part of the show, what we did see was phenomenal! Apparently we heard all of the new album minus two tracks as well as lots of others, including two Judy Garland tunes a folk song and an unbelievable cover of Hallelujah. I'll admit that i fell in love with Wainwright's debut and while my wife has each subsequent release i haven't really paid much attention to them. It appears that I've been missing out. Rufus has an absolutely amazing voice! It didn't hurt that the venue had amazing acoustics, he even sang one song sans amplification. His mother joined him for two songs, including the aforementioned cover of Hallelujah which required a long pause in the middle while they tried to remember the words to the next verse.
This was the first time that i've been to a sit down concert in recent memory. I think the last time may have been Natalie Merchant in the late '90's at the Brady in Tulsa, Ok.