Infinity Blues by Ryan Adams

Preorders for Ryan Adams first novel will start on October 6th on the Akashic Books web site. Here is some info from their site:
Preorders for the forthcoming Ryan Adams book titled Infinity Blues will be available on this page starting Monday, October 6, 2008. Preorders will include a signed HARDCOVER copy of Infinity Blues, with a bonus poetry chapbook by Ryan Adams titled Sad American Mythology. The chapbooks will all be signed and numbered; it will be a limited edition available only through the Akashic Books website as part of this preorder. The official publication date of Infinity Blues is March 16, 2009, but preorders will be sent out before then, in December or January.

No price but who cares, i'm buying this book.
Big thanks to Andrea for the heads up!!

Go drinking bear

Flite #1

Scot has a great new print about to go on sale, get the detail at Loser Goes 1st.

Mad Max for Muscles over motors

Chloe and I watched The Road Warrior, the second movie in the Mad Max trilogy a couple of nights ago. It sparked some talk about the oil crisis, i'm impressed by how much she knows about the current energy crisis. She pointed out that instead of battling ass chap wearing mohawked punk rockers for gas in the post apocalyptic future she is going to ride her bike. Thank you Mad Max, you've created another biker.
Last night we watched Beyond Thunderdome... we couldn't figure out what it was about.

Stuff Parisians like

Modeled on Stuff White People Like this blog Stuff Parisians like is just as funny and just as true.

Kings of Leon Only by the night

The Kings of Leon have a new album coming out next week that i am completely in love with. Only by the Night is a huge step forward for the band this album really sounds like they've found their sound. It seems like a lot of their obvious influences have been so integrated into their music that they are left with a true unique voice. There are so many high points on the album that i don't know where to begin. One of the most striking things is the way Caleb sings on this album, he isn't holdin anything back on these tracks. The first single Sex on Fire has a pretty awesome video and for some reason it sounds particularly excellent on the Metro. The album opener is titled Closer and right away it's obvious that the Followill boys are doing something different. Crawl has one of my favorite lines from the album "you better learn to crawl/before i walk away" sang over a perfectly fuzzy rhythm part. Manhattan slows things down in an absolutely perfect way with Caleb taping into that elated feeling you get at the end of a great night. All in all a great album and destined to wind up in my top 10 of the year.

Tour Dates: Because these guys can put on a show.
10/11/08 Las Vegas
10/12/08 San Diego
10/15/08 L.A. (Get on it Scot)
10/17/08 San Fran
10/18/08 San Fran
10/20/08 Seattle, Wa
10/21/08 Portland, Or (Luke i'm looking at you)
10/23/08 Denver, Co (Phil have a Fat Tire for me)
10/25/08 Austin,Tx
10/26/08 Oklahoma City (Practically a home town Crowd)
10/28/08 Houston, Tx
10/29/08 Dallas, Tx

The man who fell to Earth

French tv is a pretty mixed bag. There is a football match on every single night(yeah) and they often show entire sets from big festivals in and arounf Paris(Clap Your Hands last week) but the rest is crazy French produced hings and then American stuff that has been dubbed. They show a lot of recent movies which is cool, i've found it pretty easy to follow the plot of most action films and of coarse they don't take out the nudity.
Last week they showed the David Bowie gem, The Man who fell to Earth. This was cool in and of itself. If you hven't seen it it's a pretty weid film but just to make it even odder it started out dubbed for the first twenty minutes then it switched to English and then it just randomly went back and forth, five minutes of French here, ten minutes of English there. All of the music was in English which is what i expected and why i was watching(and i knew there were boobs and that crazy shot of Bowi as a naked alien). Gotta love the french tv.

Oklahoma in the news

Check this out, a tattoo shop in Moore, Oklahoma giving away free Obama tattoos.

Could it be?

This is what it kinda looks like a poster advertising an upcoming production of Grease in Paris. The only thing on the poster in English is "Grease" which begs the question "Are we looking at a French language version of the musical"? If so I'm in. In fact I'm in even if it's in English with heavy French accents. Grease is the word.
Sorry for the picture, my camera is broken, no viewfinder and only taking pictures without a flash.

Rock en Seine

Wouldn't you know it Rock En Seine is starting today and i'm as broke as a joke. The really horrible thing is that the French music television channel(not MTV) which is one of the five channels we get keeps playing blokes of videos from artist performing at the festival.

Way late REM

This concert was forever ago but i had to share a few pictures. After missing the National(don't ask) and rocking with Modest Mouse REM came out and blew us away.
They played an extremely varied set and sounded great. They all still have it goin on.


Johnny Marr came out and played the encore with REM. Can you imagine how awesome that was? I still can't believe it.

D Fest day one

We got a late start to D Fest but with the temperature in the upper 90s at 10:00 that was probably a good thing. The only band we really wanted to see on day one was the mighty Ghostland Observatory. As you can see from this sweaty picture of Gretchen with Aaron Behrens we managed to see them.
After a little bit of Moe's set the lasers were set up, the smoke machine was cued up, the cape was fastened and the hair was braided for an unbelievably show. I can't remember ever having danced that much at a show, the video that i shot was shit because i couldn't stop dancing.
Aaron's dancing really has to be seen to be believed, that kid can move. They played my two favorite songs, Heavy Heart and Move with your Lover, i couldn't have asked for a better set.

After the Ghostland set we hustled over to Blank Slate to catch the last half hour of the Apples in Stereo set. They sounded great but we were all jazzed up from Ghostland and ready to dance so i didn't give them my full attention. We left the festival at about 1:00 and wouldn't you know it, it was still hot as hell.

Grace Potter and the ironics

You know the night is going to be good when your cute 20 something bartender has a Petunia tattoo(a la Pete and Pete) and gives your party free shots to celebrate your shared love of the show. Like i said earlier a cousin(Melanie you rule) hooked us up with free tickets to this sold out show. My expectations were low, i really only listened to the first two Black Crowes discs so imagine my surprise when this turned out to be one of the best nights we've had since arriving in Ok.
The first surprise of the night was that Grace Potter and the Nocturnals were opening. It's ironic that we finally saw this Vermont band at the Cain's Ballroom in Oklahoma after living in Vermont for two years. They were great, a lot more rocking then i expected.
The Black Crowes put on an amazing show, the band had two gospel singers with them that sounded great. It was amazing how tight yet still jammy the band was. Hard to handle sounded like a brand new song with the band really jamming it out without losing the groove. Since i was only familiar with the hits i had plenty of time to just get down on the famous spring loaded dance floor(thanks Gretchen!!)
This fellow with the mullett had a dance that required him to jerk backwards frequently narrowly missing Gretchen each time, rock on mullett dude.

Black Crowes

One of G's cousins invited us to a sold out Black Crowes concert. I'm not one to look a free concert in the mouth(why in the hell did i turn down those Hold Steady/Art Brut tickets) so we will be there getting down with the hippies.

A brief update

Things have been incredibly busy with packing, discarding, shopping and cursing the visa process and the exchange rate so the posts have been lacking. A big sorry to the two people that read this.
Some days i've just got to give my ipod props. I rarely listen to it on anything but shuffle and although I use less that half of its 60 Gig capacity i end up having to skip over things i'm not in the mood to hear, but some days it seems to be hardwired into my brain and only plays things i love to hear right then.
I need to do a full write up of the R.E.M. show, it was tits.
I did find time to get to the tattoo shop.
Phil is here for the heavy lifting and whip cracking but i keep distracting him with tattoos and stuff.

Long live cover art

I've just got to say that this article is encouraging. As everyone knows there is something special about vinyl and not only vinyl, i miss carefully planned and well executed packaging. Whether it be a cd booklet, that carefully folded sheet in cassettes or the big gatefold covers for vinyl it was a really cool physical connection to the music and the artist themselves...

False 45th Record Club

G! and i attended the False 45th record club blowout at the Black Door in Montpelier on Tuesday. What a great event, we heard lots of cool music and met lots of really awesome people. The music choices were really all over the place making for a very diverse mix. Everyone submitted two songs and the False 45th crew put a mix together that we all got copies of. I chose American Girl by Tom Petty simply because it is an awesome song. I've always thought that this track is the sound that the Strokes were trying to get on their first album. My other pick was The Slow Descent into Alcoholism by The New Pornographers. I chose it because it's a great track by a great band and I always thought it would be funny to hear that track in a bar... and it was.
G! didn't submit any songs so on the way home we discussed what her choices would have been. Her choices would have been Ecoutez bien by Eux Autres and maybe I wanna be your Lover by Prince. Those were tentatively arrived at after 30 more were proposed and then withdrawn.

We also checked out the bike art that is displayed around town.

D Fest Tulsa, Oklahoma

During the month of July I will be in Oklahoma. The temperature will easily be in the 100s but at least Tulsa will be hosting D Fest. This year the festival will be hosting a pretty decent lineup. There are several bands i'm excited to see including The Roots, Ghostland Observatory, Apples in Stereo, El Paso Hot Button and Helmet. There is even a chance that I'll get my hippy on and check out the Disco Biscuits and Moe. At least the beer will be cold.

Nick Cave

I'm way behind on posts but the wife is done with law school for the moment and is now constantly distracting me.
I've been giving the (sort of) new Nick Cave album Dig, Lazarus, Dig! quite a bit of attention lately. I've got to confess that I loved The Boatman's Call but was pretty ho hum on every other Nick Cave and the Bad Seed album. I did like the recent Nick Cave helmed Grinderman album.
Dig, Lazarus, Dig! is a pretty ideal marriage of Cave's story songwriting, distinctive voice and the rocking sound from the Grinderman album. Midnight Man is probably my favorite track on the album but there are several standouts that cover a wide array of styles.

Yo Yo who

The strangest thing i witnessed last week happened in the kindergarten classroom where i help out with English twice a week, check this out.
Kindergartener: Can we listen to music while we color?
Teacher: What do you want to listen to?
Entire Class Chanting: YO-YO MA, YO-YO MA, YO-Yo MA, YO-YO MA, YO-YO MA
Teacher: Ok
Me:(to crying student) What's wrong Austin?
Austin: I wanted to listen to Beethoven.