somethin like a phenomenon.

Ok. So I turned on my car last night and hot97 was on. I was so tired, I just left it on... Funk Master Flex was going crazy as usual, playing all the stereotypical garbage that is the hip hop industry these days... but then he played this one beat that really caught my attention. he's all like REEEEWIIINDDD NEW SWIZZ BEATS AND LIL WAYNEEEE LE'S GO

so i call my boy, who i know has been working with swizzy, and asked him if he did the new swizz/wayne track. he goes "yeah, that joint is crazy! they're playing it now?!?! i gotta go."

turns out swizzy's manager called my friend and asked for the rough mix that afternoon... they bounced a rough mix then emailed it to flex and he's playing it an hour later for all of nyc to hear.

anyway, it leaked as these things do... so here. enjoy.

Just a random iPhone pic.

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Dead Husband Coffee Maker.

We couldn't resist.

Some random woman put up a review of the Keurig B60 saying "After trying the Keurig B60 coffee maker at a friends and raving about it, my dead husband surprised me with one just like it for Valentine's Day."

@tehawesome pointed this out originally, and crossed his fingers hoping it was a morbid typo as he left the first sarcastic comment:

Henry S. Birdseye III says:
Did giving you the Keurig B60 coffee maker provide your husband with the closure he needed to return to the afterlife, or does his ghostly spirit still walk the earth, giving quality Keurig coffee makers to those he loved as a living person?

...and then it was all downhill from there. some of the favrd all-stars got on board and the games begun. some of my favorites:

J Campbell says:
I'm still waiting for either Valentine's or for my significant other to die so she can get me one. I can't hurry up Valentine's day, but let's just say I'm working on the other...
(courtesy of @nonlinearmind)

abigvictory says:
You're lucky to have such a loving dead husband. Mine kind of just sits there, naked, in his favorite chair.
(courtesy of @abigvictory)

Christy A. White says:
I wish I had a dead husband, I could *really* go for some coffee right about now. ~sigh~
(courtesy of @crispycracka)

here are the comments in their entirety:
page 1:
page 2:

now my man @weselec pointed out over here, she mentions her husband again, but this time in a much more lively fashion. Then again, the book is about dead people. Hmmmm.

TEH NEW HOTTNESS from Colin Munroe - Will I Stay

So you may remember, I told you about Colin Munroe back in June when he got pretty well known for his Flashing Lights remake... since then he also did an amazing version of Sunday, Bloody Sunday (I don't know who does this dude's videos, but they're SICK.)

Here's the newest from the Canadian hit machine:

PS: A Version with WALE is on the way too. I've heard it and it's HOTTNESS.

you should buy the track.

Castle Colors.

this is a really sweet eye trick... i was skeptical at first, but it's real.

Sarah Palin Cancelled Arrested Development's 4th season.

Oh. Wow. So this guy took my Sarah Palin lines (and everybody else's) and made this:



in reference to this from a while back.

I <3 teh internetz.

we're going for yuengling next...

So, after finding out our office building has vending machines, I posted this sign on the drinks one:
I just went down to get a snack and a soda, and this is what I find:

Awesome.

um... hahah awesome.

sesame street doing M.O.P.'s Ante Up. i've watched it 5 times now.



the d*wnload... M.O.P. - Ante Up

Gnarls does it again.

Ok, so we all know about my love affair with Gnarls Barkley. but check out this amazing short film music video from them.

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

OH YES. Red Bull Cola.

Can't wait for this to drop.

"As of April 2008 Red Bull Cola is available in Austria, Switzerland, Italy, United Kingdom, Ireland, Thailand and Russia. United States distribution has begun in Las Vegas, Nevada as of June 2008, with a nationwide distribution plan on the horizon.

Red Bull Cola also has more caffeine, at 45 milligrams per 12-ounce can, than Coca-Cola or Pepsi-Cola."

(wikipedia)

thanks to Paul Nyce for the photo.

some terrible proofreading right here.

seriously, how do you miss something like this?

DAN LAYUS DAN LAYUS DAN LAYUS AUGUSTANA AUGUSTANA AUGUSTANA

So. as you all know, (if you've been paying attention) Dan Layus is no stranger to my blog. this is for two reasons:

1. I went to college with him.

2. We used to be pretty close friends.

now, he's turned into a cocky jerk who never returns my calls gotten famous and is nothing like the Dan Layus that i once knew. so, as i discovered, all he is to me is a way to get hits on my blog. i've said it before, i'll say it again. i have no problem selling out. all i want in life from this blog is to see that little google analytics meter rise.

i noticed a spike in hits on June 17th from a web address: http://augustana-net.org This got me thinking... "i bet i know exactly what that is." and just as i suspected, somebody wasn't happy about the fact that i've been capitalizing on Dan's name to get internet famous.

"A Guy Uses Dan Layus's Name to Get Hits on His Blog Site(SAD)"
and then there's a link to a post of mine.

my (2nd) favorite thing about this is the person replying to the post says this: "haha, whata lose."

i'm not sure what that means, maybe it's an insult the kids use these days... calling people a lose... or something.

and the best part about all this... I've gotten 50 hits in the past two days... from this post calling me out. they're actually helping me by hating on me. so paradoxical. thanks guys.

an interesting sidenote:

there's 33 different variations of google searches with the words "dan Layus" in them that have led people here. some of my favorites:

dan layus in shorts
what's wrong with daniel layus
dan layus gay
dan layus mom

in closing, i'd like to thank the teen girls responsible for making me look good on the internet.

update: i replied to the post on the forum and it made the moderators mad, so they locked it. lawlz.

old, but hilarious.

somehow i missed the memo on this one:


thanks, phil.

top 39 things that bands do to annoy the creepy crawl. and Amy Winehouse has emphysema from crack-smoking.

this is funny because a lot of my friends from college played at this place. i don't think augustana ever played there. or gay dan layus. (see what i did there? just wanted to generate some google search results, sorry dan.)

some of the highlights include:

4. Local bands with managers.

5. Local bands that have a girlfriend as their manager (Can you say annoying pain in the ass?). This usually marks the beginning of the end for most bands at the Creepy.

10. Bands that arrive and state that they talked to someone at the club and were told they get to play 3rd at 10:30 and can play for an hour. When asked the name of the person they talked to they suddenly forget their name but are sure they talked to "someone".

I also enjoyed how they mentioned a bunch of STL landmarks that i've been to. Link

In other news, Amy Winehouse is not long for this world...

Always an adventure.

It started out with wanting to go to the free gnarls barkley show on june 8th at irving plaza. It was a myspace "secret" show... But irving plaza is now a place called "the fillmore at irving plaza" and it's an all ages venue.. So that means waiting in line for 10 hours with a bunch of myspace crazy teenagers who can't sing more than three gnarls songs and have no idea who cee-lo is, let alone danger mouse. "isn't he a cartoon character?"

So i ditched that idea. I heard at the Wale release party that they were also playing at the apple store in soho two days after the irving plaza mess. I decided that was my best bet. I gathered people who would be interested in this event, (dan ballone and shameless plug) and we made our way to the city in the 100 degree heat that has been plaguing our section of the country lately. Nothing out or the ordinadry for a drive to the city... Until we pulled on to greene street, 3 blocks from our destination. *POP.*

I didn't notice anything until i pulled into a parking spot... The steering wheel was not turning easily on my car. And the battery light was on. I knew these symptoms. Popped the hood... Yup. Belts that once controlled the air conditioning and power steering are now looking like pulled pork. And coolant is boiling and spraying out of the resivoir. "well we'll worry about this later, let's go see this show."

We got there and stood in line for about a half hour and then filed in to the apple store where we stood behind a pillar and strained our necks to see danger mouse and cee-lo and some guitar player play 6 stripped down vesions of their songs. It was a good set. We left in a hurry to avoid the crowds of people leaving. Like you do at the movies as soon as you realize it's over.

Got some food and headed back to the car to call triple A. Mister plug decided to take a train home. Dan and I said goodbye while i waited to get some triple a people to get on the phone. Finally got somebody, They said it'd be a while before somebody could come get us. That's fine, we'll wait.

So we waited.

And waited.

We decided to take a little walk. There was lightning all over the sky, and wind was picking up. We knew storms were coming, we just didn't know when. We walked a few blocks when things really started to pick up... Fierce winds, stuff flying around... Dust blowing everywhere... So we decided to head back to the car. Good thing too, right as i unlocked the car door, the sky let loose a huge thunderclap and the buckets came down. We got in the car just in time. The storm only lasted a few minutes but it was really cool.

We noticed a couple walking up the street yeling at each other. No big deal Until the guy decided to throw a bag full of women's clothes (presumeably ones just purchased for her) at the girl. He then began to chase her, caught up to her and grabbed her around the waist, and tried to forcefully drag her somewhere. At this point i jumped out of the car and started screaming "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?????" he stopped and turned to me, mumbling somemething about how he was joking. I said "yeah, i don't think so. I saw you. That's no way to treat a lady." "no we were just fighting. Babe, tell him." girl: "no we were having a fight. It's ok." at this point, they went inside a door the guy had been trying to find the key for during this whole exchange. They went inside but as they did the girl looked back at me with a sad look and said "thank you."

A few hours later, the tow truck finally shows up. We were very happy. We were even more happy when he said: "ya know, there's not too much room in the cab... You can just ride in the car if you want."

So there we were. Riding in my car, which is now on a tow truck making it's way out of the city. This is awesome. And probably all kinds of illegal. And bumpy. Very bumpy.

So then we're cruising down 78 on this thing, when my man pulls the truck over. I look up, white smoke coming out of the engine of the tow truck. Dude comes back to the car: "oh it's ok, just over-heating a little bit. It'll be fine once it cools down." ok. So we start up again... Pulled over a few more times, pulled over a third time. This one's the charm. Homeboy says the truck needs to cool off for a little while. So we sit there for a minute.. He comes back and says hes calling triple A in jersey to come get us and take us the rest of the way after we get off at the next exit. Ok that's fine. Let's just get home.

Dude cranks the engine. It turns over indefinitely, but doesn't kick in. He does this about ten more times. Still nothing. We're officially doubly-broke-down.

And that's where we are right now. On the side of 78 and i'm documenting this crazy night on my phone. I hope something good happens soon.

EDIT:

another tow truck did eventually come... 2 and a half hours later. we broke down at 12:30am, the 2nd and 3rd tow trucks got there at 3am. three tow trucks and my car on the side of 78 is quite the site at 3am. my car broken down on top of a broken down tow truck, a tow truck to take my car off the broken one, and a huge tow truck to take the broken tow truck away. wow. i was in bed at 4:30am. got up this morning at 8:20am. and surprisingly, i'm not doing too bad.

bonus: you can read charlie's version of the night here.

young hillary.

just amazing. i love it.

futurewatch: colin munroe.

so me and my lady were in old navy, and i heard this song over head... at first i thought it was the original that kanye sampled for flashing lights. but then i hit up the trusty internets and found out that it's this canadian kid, who produces all his own stuff and whatnot, remixed the track and did a really good job of it. 

get the track here.

and the video:

how a record leaks. ie: the carter III.

this is awesome. a fantastic article on record leakage here. (spin)

while we're on the subject, feel free to steal the leaked lil wayne album, the carter iii. or don't, because i personally feel that it's not even worth the 3 mouse clicks it would cost you to get it.
lil wayne - the carter iii

even better is the story on how this got leaked. basically, lil cheezy wheezy said some mean things about mixtape djs, so all the djs that made mixtapes with him in the past decided to let the album out on the internet, as a slap back in the face. awesome.

(i was all set to write this huge album review about how much i hate lil wayne and this album, but i figured you can just go steal it and find out for yourself how bad it is.)

(this isn't the real album cover, but it is pretty cool.)

Envy - Tongue Twister (JailBeat Remix ft. John Blake)

Envy is an amazing new artist on the UK scene. I found her a while ago on some random blog. We then got aquatinted through myspace messages. She sent me the vocals to her track Tongue Twister a little while ago, and me and the JailBeat boys went to town on it. Greg Barbone played keys, Ryan Gilligan engineered, and I produced it. John Blake came over and laid down a ridiculous 16 as well.We got the remix done super quick and sent it back to her a few days after she sent us the parts. She loved it. Sadly, the single had gone to press a few days beforehand, otherwise our remix would have been on it. We will be working on a new EP with her in the very near future, so this remix will be on that... but as for now, enjoy it.

download it here.

also check out John Blake on the JailBeat produced track West Indies, Indeed(still demo status)

john blake practicing his verse, ryan and greg on the couch.

me tracking greg.

the video, which originally caught my attention in the first place:

Quote of the day, courtesy of Barbone and little Wayman:

Eric: So do you go clubbing a lot in the city?

Barbone: The only clubs i ever go to are places with chris. Like music clubs.

Eric: What's the cover like?

Barbone: Oh we just get in VIP.

Eric: Chris knows somebody?

Barbone: No, somebody usually knows Chris.

is dan layus gay???

so this is interesting. I was telling my friend how when i googled "dan layus gay" right after i made that last post, that it was the first hit on google. now, when i search the same thing, it doesn't even come up. what are you doing google?!?!? don't make me go to wordpress. i've already been tempted.

i'll just keep writing about the augustana guy being gay, because my web hits have been climbing nicely. and as we all know, that's what life is all about.

memorial day weekend. dan layus is gay???

so it's memorial day. as i was taking a shower and washing sand out of places i did not even know could house sand, (ear folds, eyelid wrinkles, armpits, etc...) i began to compile in my head a list of things that this blog would be about. i do my best thinking and idea formation in the shower for some reason. melodies, lyrics, writings of any nature, these things just flow better when water is cleansing my body. i have no idea why, that's just how my brain works i guess. i often have great ideas in the bathroom that vanish as soon as i step out of it, unless i make some sort of conscious effort to remember them. like just now, i counted how many topics i wanted to talk about. 5. and i remembered each one on the short journey from the bathroom to TextEdit. let's begin.

sunday:

we started off the weekend yesterday afternoon with mojitos on the lake with John Blake , my fiancée, and myself. pavinci's in hopatcong has a nice deck, and they're good at making mojitos. with 151. this place is also connected to the barbershop, which is the studio that ryan gilligan, greg barbone, jason byrnes, joel gresham, mary niewola, and i used to work at. we hung out there for a while, suffered through a very awkward mid 50's grey-haired man playing terrible covers of margaritaville and sweet caroline, and then headed over to ryan gilligan's for another awkward moment... the family barbecue. it was only awkward because when the three of us rolled up, there was a collection of maybe 15 middle-agers that we didn't know, with ryan's dad being the only familiar face. that didn't last too long though, ryan's mom appeared and informed us that ryan and company were inside at the dining room table. we moved through the awkward assembly inside where we sat down to listen to ryan recount the weekend's adventures. (ryan and greg went to the hamptons with nothing but backpacks and 2 days worth of an empty schedule... it involved hitchhiking rides from college girls and running from police helicopter searchlights on the beach... ryan should have a blog on it soon)

we left ryan's and headed to the next barbecue on the itinerary. along the way we stopped at a place to pick up some beverages, and as we were leaving, i saw a twitter update that read: "shamelessplug: just heard that the barbershop is on fire."

i called mister plug (who had been calling everybody trying to find a ride to the barbecue we were heading to) and asked if he meant literally or figuratively. he said literally. like, flames coming out of the roof. we decided to go pick him up and give him a ride, mainly inspired by the possibility of seeing the place that screwed all of us over go up in smoke...

we rolled up to see fire trucks all over the place, blocking the road completely. i got out of the car and walked closer to see what was going on...

turns out it was only an electrical fire in the kitchen of pavinci's... not $8 million worth of audio gear ablaze. but still, it was weird that we were there about 2 hours earlier...

picked up plug and rob weir and headed to dj paul nyce's house, (which is about 3 minutes from my house) and we were the first people there. that's always fun. but when you have a slightly twisted john blake with you, life is never boring. more people eventually showed up and it was a good time. we were home in bed by 12:30, which was good because we had an early day at the beach in the morning.

monday:

got up bright and early to go to the beach with Natalie, her sister, and her sister's friend. well, Natalie got up. i rolled around until 5 minutes before departure. i heard Natalie say something about how her sister was "up, ready to go, and very chipper." i said something about how i was none of the above...

as you may or may not know, in New Jersey, everybody goes to the beach on memorial day. which is why it was weird that there was no traffic. but maybe it had to do with the fact that it was 8am. yes, actually, that was the reason. we were heading to sea bright.

we got to the beach and settled in when we realized, it may be 80 degrees, but there was a stiff cold wind whipping across the beach... which made it not pleasant. i eventually dug a trench in the sand to lie in which effectively blocked the wind for a while... but that got old. i walked over to the water's edge and looked at the ocean for a while and pondered upon things. things like how a decent amount of my friends in college never saw the ocean in their life. things like how big the atlantic ocean is, things like if you could see across the ocean that you would be looking at the beaches of portugal (if they have beaches), things like how this kid over there with the skim board is not really getting anywhere, things like how he's walking toward me now...

a long dark haired teenager who had been unsuccessfully trying to ride the remains of the waves crashing on the sand walked in my direction. he's wearing long board shorts and carrying what i assumed to be a pretty nice skim board. he looks at me and says "sometimes you just can't win."

this was probably the most profound thing he'd say all day, whether he realized it or not.

as i laid back down on my towel, i enjoyed listening to the different voices around me and trying to figure out where they lay in the 360 degree sound field. yes, i'm that big of a nerd... and it struck me that i've not heard so many mindless conversations in a very long time. nobody was talking about anything of value for as far as i could hear. and then it also occurred to me that maybe intelligent people, or at least people who talk about interesting things, don't go to the beach. or at least not on memorial day. or maybe not new jersey... maybe they go to the hamptons or something. i dunno. we were only there because it sounded like a good idea. as i was thinking these things, i realized that our little group really didn't have any conversations about anything life-changing. but then again we didn't talk much. so i kinda felt bad for judging, but then i kinda didn't.

i did get to do some reading on the way there and back, which was nice. it seems the only reading i do these days is blogs... or firewire raid hard drive manuals... i'm reading these two books currently, velvet elvis, and traveling mercies. the former is a book on God and Jesus and faith and life, and it's really good... the latter is more of a woman's story about her life journey and finding God and whatnot... it's interesting though because she uses lots of swear words and stuff... it was one of those books that you could get in a Christian book store but should have an R rating... caused lots of controversy in church circles when it came out and so on and so forth. i recommend both.

that was pretty much it. we got home at 2:30, again avoiding any traffic thankfully. i took my shower that i mentioned earlier, and started writing this on my wonderful lady's back porch. it's hot and sunny out but pleasant in the shade. i just rsvp'd for Wale's release party this weekend which should be amazing... i need to write a Wale blog next.


funny side note:

i use google analytics to track my hits on this blog. it has a feature that not only tells you where your general web traffic is coming from, but which google search results showing your site led visitors to you. one that really made me laugh:

"dan layus gay"

apparently this is a concerning issue in the internet world? what was even funnier to me is that "dan layus gay" gave me 3 visits, whereas "who is dan layus married to" only gave me 1 hit.

i guess i need to write more about dan layus if i want random teenage girls to visit my blog.

one thing i would like to point out about the augustana front man heartthrob: he didn't always have this same image that he puts forth now. example:

and now, here's what augustana used to look like back when i knew them: (and they actually hung out with me and returned phone calls)
in summary, no, i don't think he is gay. he's married and has a kid.

the heavy. album review and live show review.

so. there's this band. called The Heavy. i started writing this review of the album a while back but never finished it. Then I saw them live. and it blew my mind. so, i'll finish the review first and then i'll talk about the show. (also, the album i had before i got the actual CD at the show is in the wrong order. but i got a t-shirt at the show with the track listing of the album i originally had... so i'll keep on this path. i'm assuming the track listing of the t-shirt and the original album i had was a pre-record deal order.)

the review:

Somehow, I stumbled across this band... The Heavy. I think it may have been on somebody's random blog who was raving about them... since I'm a chronic lurker, I can't remember. I'd like to remember though, so I could go back and leave a comment thanking them.

This is a good album. I'm a big fan of it. It doesn't ever get old. I got familiar with the music before I got familiar with the band, so that's how I'll write this review.

The album 'Great Vengeance and Furious Fire' (AH! I just found the original spot [cool hunting] where I first head of them! sorry... back to the review) starts off with a few 70'scopshowesque crushers, adequately living up to the band name. The usage of horns in the first two songs lead you to believe that this is going to be another trendy post-motown lo-fi dap kings link wannabes, but the horns completely dissapear after "Colleen." The cool thing about this album is that every song is very different. There really isn't one style that stays constant. The band has this to say about how they sound: "Picture Tom Waits fostering the RZA while John Bonham and The Parliaments host a garage sale for Chester Burnett, Willie Mitchell and the Stooges...The Heavy reek of lo fi samples, broken down beats, a disgusting but yet compelling delivery on all fronts and more stinky than anything that has ever come out of your back passage."

"That kind of man" is the opening song, and (I would assume) also the first single. The horns and sirens give you a mental picture of car chases and retro-ness, but the video for the song further drives that M.O. home. There is also a lack of horn players in the band when the camera shifts to musicians performing in a club of some sort... So I'm going to go with a well-selected sample. I would be interested to see how this works out live. "Colleen" features a very hip-hop heavy beat with a repeating acoustic guitar sample and ominous horns throughout. The choruses kick in with harmonies that may or may not be female and drums the size of a mac truck.

The next track, "Set me free" has a VERY familiar feel to it. Right from the start, it's as if this drummer and singer took a trip over the pond to record a track with Bret and Jemaine. The bass line is addictive, the stammering acoustic guitar is catchy, the vocal line channels curtis mayfield... in other words, it's really catchy.

It's at this point in the album where it's as if they said "ok let's slow it down a bit.... then we'll squeal the tires as we take a hard left turn after this..."

"You don't know" is a white stripesy kind of slow headbang jam that takes it to another start/stop rock level. vocals are sparse on this one, with a guitar solo dominating the latter half of the song. "Girl" is the midway lighten-up song that starts off with the singer, Kelvin, reminiscing about a girl he saw walking down the street. no new concept, i know, but the way he flips it is entertaining and fun as well. no real song structure here, as the first 2/3 of the song Kelvin is more talking than singing, but he picks up with a soulful melody eventually that finishes things up. At first listen i thought that this was an odd song, but it really grows on you and is a perfect party song.

They slow it up again for "Doing Fine" with an acoustic driven ballad that will have you doing the slow clap halfway through it. not ones for keeping any pace, the next song is a hard rock thumper, "In the Morning" complete with 'whoo hoo hoo' singalong breakdowns. following what is now becoming the fast/hard to slow/mellow transition theme, "Bruk Pocket Lament" is about personal problems and searching for answers. which leads nicely into the faster "Dignity" with a distorted bass riff being the main instrumentation.

the last song "Who Needs the Sunshine" introduces piano for the first and only time, and Kelvin changes his vocal up from the usual falsetto to a raspy almost spoon meets parodical scott stapp impersonation. as dumb as that sounds, it's still a good song.

overall, the album at first listen seems like a big mess, but it grows on you and turns into a beautifully composed work of art.

after listening to the album and loving it, i decided to do some homework on the band, but if this was social studies, i'd be getting a D. there's very little on the 'net about these guys (and girl). their website is very sparse, with nothing but tour dates and a small discography, along with two links. one to their myspace, and one to a very obscure youtube video of what appears to be the ending of a set. (note: i later found out that that's exactly what this is)

there's also a movie called The Heavy, but that has nothing to do with them.

Now, on to the live show:

I was at one of the head designer's desks on a lazy afternoon at work when i saw in a random magazine that the Heavy was playing a little place in brooklyn. I got online right away and ordered tickets... then called my Fiancée who had recently developed a newly found love for the band... and told her that i got us tickets to the show. she almost peed her pants. i haven't seen her that excited since i proposed... anyway, we rolled in around 8:30pm with greg barbone and jon check, and as we were walking in, saw the guys from the band unloading. they were super nice and talked to us for a few minutes. i was happy, it was going to be a good night.

they finally took the stage around 11. the room had since gotten packed to capacity. the energy in the room was buzzing, even before the band took the stage. as i suspected, no horns... but there was a cd-j sitting on top of the keyboard, which would be later used to run the samples for that kind of man and colleen. the band came out and rocked a 45 minute set of pure amazingness and energy...
Kelvin working the crowd like it was all made up of his best friends. at one point he began saying "you know, when you got this kinda girl that just..." and i said "GIRL" (in the same tone that he uses in the song 'girl') and he stops and says "No, not that kind of girl, hahaha."


when they had finished playing and left the stage, the crowd was going crazy. I decided that i had to be the guy to start the "one more song" chant, and the crowd quickly picked up on it... to which the band came back out and played another new song. it was fantastic. they finished and left a guitar feedbacking on the stage... some random girl got up on stage and moved it, then got on the mic and started pumping the crowd up to show appreciation for the band once again, to which they responded whole-heartedly. she got down and the guitar was still feeding so i went over and hit the stage tuner on the pedalboard silencing it. ha. anyway, this band is killer and i highly recommend seeing them. we were lucky enough to see them on what was the last stop of their US tour, but they'll be back in the the states in september.

we finished the night off with jon check's roof, which looks like this:

the "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks.

as you may or may not know, i'm a huge stickler for proper punctuation and grammar. [although i couldn't care less about capitalization, unless it's denoting proper respect]
this blog made me laugh a great deal.

quote of the (past 22 days) courtesy of mike sauer:

mike: chris, you know what's funny? every cool or interesting thing you have to talk about, i already know about because i read your blog...

more coming, i promise...

for those of you who don't know, yojimbo is the best thing ever... ryan turned me on to it a while ago, it's now crucial to my life.

the whole reason i wrote this is because i was going to say how i have all this stuff saved up in a yojimbo entry that's waiting to be blogged. this weekend, i promise.

need to post new stuff.

this is a blog i've been enjoying greatly today... mainly because the writer says things like this:

M83 - Skin of the Night
No idea if the rest of the album is any good because I just keep listening to this one song.

okayplayer shows us some love (again)!

oh snap.

my man El Keter shouted us out AGAIN(once previously) in OkayPlayer's blog. Apparently The Blakes Have Got New Faces (vampire weekend remix) has been getting some airplay on El Keter's radio show(wed. nights, 12-3am).

Mark Ronson also emailed me and told me that he liked the song. haha.

and they keep it comin....

just another amazing video from Gnarls Barkley. these guys are, in my opinion, one of the freshest acts out right now. they keep it real innovative.

directed by wendy morgan.

cd records and cctv music videos.

make your cds into 45's! crazy!

also, this band made a music video using the security cameras that are everywhere in the UK, for free under the Freedom of Information act.

show me what you workin wit...

this just showed up in the mail for me today:

it's gonna be a busy saturday!

BARACK OBAMA MADE YOU A MIXTAPE

really simple, chuck-norris-facts-esque funny website about what Barack Obama did for you.

one of my favorites:

hint: click on the purple text to change what it says.

why i haven't been posting too much lately...

it's a Moog/Realistic Concertmate MG-1... it doesn't work right now, but i'm working on it. sorry for the rubbish pic, but it'll be real nice when i'm done with it.

in the studio with scratch track.

i recorded scratch track a while back when they were thinking about having me record them. due to locational difficulties, they went with someone else... but we still had fun tracking two songs with a ridiculous amount of vintage microphones. check it out here.

quote of the day, courtesy of Jared Venezia:

jrod: i was thinking of when you unplugged the sub in the burg
jrod: and it reminded me of a method man rap
jrod: roll on the set/kick a hole in the speaker/pull the plug and then jet

low headroom!!! HA!

for all my geeks:
"This sign should be in more places, like on most of the cheap audio gear they sell at guitar center. And on joemeek outboard eq's."

from ryan

writing on the go.

get it?

this is awesome... now if only it included staff paper in it as well.

(now, why when i searched wikipedia for "musical staff paper" did NME come up? ew.)

good news for firefox lovers...

i've fixed my page so you guys can view it without it crashing your computers. at least i think i did. let me know.

don't forget what it's really called:

dear charles manson...

Radar asked Bill Geerhart to send follow-up notes to the serial killers he wrote in the late 1990s, posing as a 10-year-old. The killers promptly replied (both in 1998, and recently).

in the late '90s, pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart had a little too much time on his hands and a surfeit of stamps. So, for his own entertainment, the then-unemployed thirtysomething launched a letter-writing campaign to some of the most powerful and infamous figures in the country, posing as a curious 10-year-old named Billy.

As it turns out, no group hates to disappoint a child more than convicted killers, all of whom responded promptly to Billy's questions about dropping out of school. Their letters, published here for the first time, range from criminally insane to downright sensible, offering snapshots of the personalities behind some of America's most hideous crimes. Recently, Radar asked Billy to follow up with his mentors as a college student.(Link)

from boingboing

my favorite part of this whole thing, manson's reply to the kid:

Hay Lo Soul,
Good To Too Two 2 here from you. I thought things got so good for you that you just 4 GOT WHAT you could of remembered or could remember what you don't forgit. Where is your mind—must you watch TV all day to go to night school to be a D.A. JUST to forgit I didn't take your money when I had ALL your credit cards locked up in my dreams—Rife with Con Va Lution due 2 subjewgashen. My spelling got better—see when you go to school you learn to spell—oh well I'm just playing clown words to say I didn't forgit Hellbilly—Bill we always had good days + I'm glad your gonna be a D.A. Be one who works for justice + not one who wants to win win + and don't care if people didn't do rong—anyway be as good as you are when you git a job + don't let the job make you bad you make the JOB good.
Easy, Charles Manson

google maps street view.

so google maps has this thing called street view... it's made from a bunch of pictures taken from a camera on top of a car that cruises around and stuff... anyway, check out what happens to this guy on his bike as the googlemapsmobile rolls by... (play with the original view here)

randomness inspired by nyc and leffe brown.

So here i am in new york city. The village. Vol De Nuit to be exact. The best place in the city. A little gem tucked away on west 4th between new york's version of a diner and a myriad of apartment buildings, the red hallway identified only by a red light bulb on either side leads to what is considered a treasure by those that discover it by raw coincidence or wod of mouth. They will return often. And tell their close friends. But not the kind of friends who get really drunk and cause scenes, the kind who enjoy a good beer and like to relax and talk amongst themselves. I know I just started two sentances improperly, one with 'and' and one with 'but' but I don't care. Correct grammar should not get in the way of inspired writing. Proper punctuation, however, should always be used.

When I used to blog a lot, or in those days, it was called xanga... So, when I used xanga a lot, I used to do random posts where I'd just write. Sometimes it was a list of things I liked and things I didn't, other times it was just random thoughts. Thus this. Taking it back. Like the new craze of retro 60's soul that is so popular in music that I like right now. (Baby Charles! I'll explain later.) There's something about writting with no goal in mind that is so liberating. Writing with no boundaries : writing with a purpose :: going commando : boxer briefs. Analogies are so much more fun that similies. It's even more fun when you pronounce the colon  "squirrel colon flying squirrel colon colon horse colon pegasus."

Uh oh. Writer's block just hit. I'm writing this from my phone and I stopped to talk for a minute. Lost my random train of thought. Ok it's back... I'm here with my beautiful fiancee and her best friend. Her best friend lives in the city and can't wait for us to get married and move to the city. It works because my two best friends just moved to the city. So we'll move to the city once we get married. We'll never do it if we don't do it soon, so why wait? You're only young once. Y.O.Y.O. Speaking of yoyo, LOVE is right around the corner... I wonder when Mark Ronson is gonna throw another one of his parties. (if you watch that, look closely at 0:17, you can see my yellow and blue hat next to the huge bald guy with the camera on the stage) It's been a while, he used to do them quite regularly.

I need to stop looking around at people. It kills my thought process. "Oh look at that guy. He has a dog on his lap." "I wonder if that girl looked in the mirror before she went out. Prolly not." "You can see the sky from here, but no stars." "I wonder if she's gonna be upset that I was writing on my phone instead of talking. It's ok she doesn't read my blog anyway. Hahaha."

The guy with the dog on his lap just pulled out a laser pointer. The dog jumped off his lap and rolled into a chair trying to get the sporatic red dot. It made me lol. Ryan is uptown at Quad studios babysitting the place while people film a movie about 2pac and biggie there. In case you aren't familiar with the plight of the two biggest hip-hop acts of the 90's, Quad studios in times square is where 2pac got shot... One of several times, not the one that killed him, but one of the times none the less. Greg's at home making music. I tried to get him to come out but he's a (fill in the blank.) Ok I'm done for now. More randomness to follow.

why i love my job.

this is an email from me to my boss about what kind of wire to use for a music system installation project:

From: Chris Renne
To: John E
Sent: Wed Apr 23 10:26:51 2008
Subject: Re:

Which wire are we using for the speaker system? The Cat5e? Or the Cat6? People been hounding me for days bout this ish


and my Boss' reply:

Remind them that we have a server down, a scheduled deployment of CS3 within a few weeks, a laptop user data project in testing, you moved half a dozen computers and phones at the end of last week, several green initiatives that need to get done this week, Chrissy is out Friday and you need to get her system rebuilt. We will get it done before the party but would they really prefer to sit and listen to music while they can't work because you don't have time to work on higher priority items? Cat5e.

something is wrong.

this is the picture that comes up when something goes wrong on twitter. i love it.

why to kill the parasites?

this is ridiculous. it's some random japanese site poorly translated to english, with plenty of randomness... this girl Holly Hostess has these little parasite friends because she has no people friends (except for the one who loaned her a comb and gave her head lice) and there's plenty of merchandise for sale on the site. enjoy.

whoooooaaaaaa.

this is amazing. i promise.

backwards gnarls barkley album! for freeeeeee!

Gnarls Barkley (which, after watching this video, I am convinced is the best band out right now...) has decided to release a FREE $youremailaddress.name download of their album, The Odd Couple. go here to get the reverse 38:45 long mp3.


this is kind of funny to me, because after my little fiasco (no lupe) with distributing gnarls barkley songs before they were released, i then posted a zip file of the album named "yelkrab slrang.zip" on my idisk for download... giving it a backwards name to fool whatever 'net creeping bots that are out there searching idisks for illegal unreleased music.

wow....

check this out over on my video page...

as if singers weren't divas already...

...this is just ridiculous.

twitter saves lives.

When a Berkeley grad student was jailed in Egypt for taking photos of a demonstration, he Twittered the word "ARRESTED." His Twitter followers (Egyptian bloggers and American friends) called the college, the US Embassy, and the international press, and the police soon released him. Of course theoretically he could have just called someone, but that wouldn't be much of a story...

via gawker

CAT PLAYS THEREMIN!

and here we have an amazing video of a cat playing with a theremin.

cross-country time!

just got back from a trip to the midwest... which is why there were no updates. hang tight and i'll post stuff tomorrow...

alone backwards!!!!

real gangstas.

check this guy out. wow.

kinda reminds me of this:

wow, the internet works.

ok... so i read this blog called musicsnobbery fairly often... the guy's entertaining and whatnot... so he's having a 3rd anniversary party at maxwell's in hoboken. he had scheduled 3 bands to play: the teeth, la laque, and salt & samovar. well, the teeth broke up... so here's this guy, Chris, scrambling to find a replacement headlining act. he was denied by 61 local bands. so then, he comes up with this hair-brained brilliant idea.

so, a few days go by... and then he posts this a few hours ago, and a link to moby's blog, which reads:

ok, so on friday i saw a video link from musicsnobbery.com
in said link mr. music snobbery. com admitted that he was having a party at maxwells and his
headliner had cancelled.
he then asked a few people(me being one of them)to play at his party.
so, as i spend way too much time on the aforementioned internet and i have free time on april 10th and i love to play if there's an audience and/or beer involved, saw his
request and i emailed him and said, 'i'd be happy to play at your party'.
then he wrote back and, to paraphrase, said, 'great'.
so i'm playing at his party.
at maxwells.
in new jersey.
the april 10th musicsnobbery.com 3rd year anniversary.
i'll be doing drunken cover songs of my own songs and drunken cover songs of other
people's songs.
i'm particularly excited to play a cover of 'new dawn fades'.
which i rarely(and/or 'often')play.
see you thursday, i hope.
it's the only live show i have scheduled in the u.s of/and a this year.
hopefully see you thursday night w/ salt&samovar and la laque.
moby

p.s-the bars in new jersey close early, so i'm not sure what we'll be doing after the show.
but we'll be up late, as both me and my bandmates are, for lack of a better term, "alcoholics". we're open to post 1:45 a.m suggestions. thanks.

-moby



wow. just goes to show you that the internet is a mighty and powerful thing. i wonder if moby reads my blog. i wish i could go, but i'll be halfway across the country at that time. yall should go, get your tickets here or here before they sell out.

oh yeah, tickets are $8.

John Mayer, drunk and faux-scratching his vocals.

go here for the video.

thoughts on sleep, or a lack thereof.

As I am in the middle of my 11 hour day of running sound, having awoke at 4:50am, I will now discuss sleep and some things that I don't understand about it. What tells your body that you didn't get enough sleep? How does your body know that you got up really early, rather than went to bed really late?

I'll explain. I went to bed at about 11:30pm last night. I got up at 4:50am That's a solid 5 hours. Now, I can go to bed at 3:30am and get up at 8am and be absolutely fine at work or whatever. But I'm so tired right now, I don't understand it. More tired than I've been on less sleep. I think there's something in the air at churches... Not to mention that I'm mixing 4 services in a row here. I love doing it, I just wish I was more awake!

On the way here this morning, I was hoping to see the sunrise... But the sun didn't get up during my travel time... It was still dark when I rolled up to church.

Oh well. Anyway, if anyone knows how your body knows the difference between getting up early and going to bed late... Get at me. I'm interested in this.

the new two dollar bill.

get it?

akon calls t-pain.

new Busta Rhymes track.

as you may or may not know, my best friend Ryan Gilligan was on the road with Busta Rhymes as his recording engineer for some time. He's not anymore, as of last month... anyway, here's a link to the new Busta Rhymes single, "Don't Touch Me"* on which Ryan recorded all of b-dog's vocals.

and here's a picture of Ryan holding $10,000.**

*song courtesy of thefader.com

**this money is not ryan's. it's a funny picture because we're giving music out for free and ryan won't see any money from the release of this single or any future releases that he had something to do with.

new Flight of the Conchords tracks.

go here to get 2 songs from FOTC's upcoming Sub Pop release... coming on April 22nd. also, as US tour is rumored to be happening...

Ladies of the World, Business Time

hypocrisy, the leaven of Sony/BMG.

The major labels are very outspoken about the evils of piracy, and aggressively pursue those who chose to download music and not pay for it. That being the case, it is quite amusing that up to 47% of Sony-BMG’s software is pirated.

Recently, a tech support call for a program called Ideal Migration (a Windows server management tool) was made by a Sony BMG employee, and the product code given was pirated.

The ensuing drama included a seizure of some of Sony-BMG’s assets. Paul Henry, The CEO of the maker of the software, was quoted as saying “I think piracy is linked to the policy of a company. If the employee has the necessary funding to buy the software he needs, he will. If this is not the case, he will find alternative ways, as the work must be done in one way or another.”

Bottom Line: A company that is using pirated software should not be surprised when their products are pirated.

from ars technica.

strangest / creepiest ebay feedback ever....

check this guy out.... here's some of my favorites:

*This person saved my life. he is everything I hope to be.

*This man represents everything I aspire to be. My sun, stars, and everything.

*When I recieved my HP power supply, it was the happiest day of my life. Thanks.

*Finally I can melt lead. What would I do without athomemarket? Not soldier.
(think he may have meant solder there...)

not sure how i'd feel if he left me feedback like that...

digg this

john blake on the mic.

bet you didn't know john blake wore glasses. or sang.

go here for the video.

you can hear the finished version here.

muxtapes.

so this is really cool. click on the tape. it's a virtual mixtape community. all you can do is upload songs, re-arrange them, and name them. then share your muxtape. here, this is what i came up with:

Envy: next big thing.

this girl will be huge. just you wait. we hooked up with her and are working on a remix of her single, Tongue Twister. the Tongue Twister single drops on april 28th, but we didn't get wind of it in time to get the remix on it. oh well. you'll be able to get it here when it's ready.

here's
greg killin' it.

vintage.

and here's a little bit of the geek in me creeping out:

in honor of spitzer...

go here.

future watch.

keep an eye out for this chick right here.

Jailbeat vs. Brooklyn.

for some reason, the Jailbeat crew ended up in Brooklyn last night. barbone, gilligan, JohnBlake (honorable mention: marty) and i decided to swing around the BK and see what we could find. gBones heard that there was some good music at some place somewhere in the burg, so that was sort of our objective... 

after a nice ride into the city, through the L.E.S. (which is where i wanted to go in the first place), we then ventured over the manhattan bridge and into brooklyn/trafficland... 20 minutes later, we were at our destination... which was less than 3 miles from the lower east side. ok, i can deal with this... i thought... until we had to park. found a really tight spot after about 10 minutes, which wasn't bad... i've driven around the same 6 square block area for over an hour before, missing half of ronson's radio show...

anyway. we rolled into a random place in williamsburg, and it was just as i expected. to put it plainly, JB said it best: "I'm too black to be here."

there's something about brooklyn that doesn't feel just right to me. maybe it's the fact that everybody has the same look... the look of not caring, yet caring so much. John Blake called it: "extremely planned disco-ordination and lack of taste" Maybe it's the feeling i get when i'm there... because it is new york, but not the new york i'm used to. maybe it's the hipsters. no, most likely it's the hipsters. a good friend of mine said: "if everybody is a non-conformist, but they all are not conforming... together... isn't that conforming???" yes. yes it is. I'm not speaking for all. i've met some really cool brooklyn cats. in fact, i met some last night. actually, pretty much everybody i came in contact with last night was really cool and chill. again, not the new york i know. 

it's not the personalities that bother me. it's the... trying so hard to not be cool, and in essence, making that what "cool" is. see, "cool" is relevant. merriam-webster actually says 'fashionable, hip' under one of the definitions of the word cool. so when kids dress exactly like urkel and go out to a club (something that would have NEVER been considered the thing to do 5 years ago) but there's 10 urkels in a  25 foot radar scan, how is that unique?

we moved on... to the spot bones was talking about. he said that there'd be some calvin harris type stuff going on. ok, i'm in. i'm sure you know that's right up my alley if you are paying attention. also, i heard that the night was sponsored by the palms out crew... who are actually pretty cool, a little on the remix-heavy side of the blogosphere, but they do this cool thing called sample wednesdays, where they take an artist or an album and break it down as far as what they sampled for each song. it's interesting to see that daft punk samples barry manilow.

as we walked in, it's like hipster central... not worth going into detail about, all i'll say is that me and john blake did NOT fit in. on second thought, we don't usually fit in... he's usually the only black dude, and i'm the home-schooled kid who excels at social unexpectedness. 

the first kid that was on stage was something i won't waste too much time on... i'll just say that it was terrible. two white heroin-chic dj bois with tight hoodies and sunshields on... (one djing on an iBook no less...) and this skinny black rapper dude with a flannel shirt, skinny jeans, and an urkel hat with the flipped up brim. now, i use the term rapper loosely... no flow, no style, just rhythmic talking over bad 80s synth driven dance music. and not the cool kind, either. the most quotable man of the evening had this to say: "my man's like an american dizzee rascal on crack." 

this wasn't so bad i guess... but i had no idea what was coming.

this girl took the stage with her version of a laptop dj... and the kids next to me mentioned something about her humping the stage a lot... that was an understatement. the girl couldn't really sing, again more like rhythmic talking. this time over some weird pop stuff. and the dj would sing along with her at random times... while she pranced around the stage in something that was a mix of ballet, napoleon dynamite's dance scene, and stripper antics. she wore some neon-iridescent purple tights with some sort of aerobic blue granny hot pants... and a strange collection of other things.

"where would you even get such terrible tights?" i asked the girl next to me. "american apparel." she said, reluctantly. 

if you feel you must, check out the 'music' here.

the girl who came on after her was some equally terrible act, who paraded around with a huge stuffed bunny rabbit. her name was bunny rabbit. i tried to find a picture that was an accurate description of the weirdness... but i couldn't. her myspace.

i did see antwan there, of ithinkyoureswell. he takes polaroids and stuff. cool kid.

here's some pictures he took of us:

despite what it looks like, i was just really tired.

"is this chick serious right now?"

my boss just told me a story about how his friend once said, to some people leaving manhattan to go to brooklyn, "have fun in the coolest place in the universe!"

we finally left, and got as far as two blocks from the mouth of the holland tunnel, where we sat. and we sat. for 1 hour and 20 minutes. well, i shouldn't say that. we moved. about two blocks in 80 minutes. i had to pee so bad i peed in a gatorade bottle. marty wasn't driving so he ran off to some bodega... came back saying "see that's why it's good to know spanish. i convinced some cleaning crew to let me use the bathroom."

as we were sitting there, people were honking unnecessarily and randomly. the passenger in the car next to us decided to get out of the car and yell at the woman behind us. i had my window down and he was right between his car and mine... yelling at the white girl driving the car behind the one he was riding in. skinny black dude decides to take a water bottle and throw it at her car... it bounces 30 feet in the air and back 5 cars... she yells something about calling NYPD and gets back in the car. things calm down and we pull across the intersection... a few minutes later, i look behind us and see 10 people all outside cars in the middle of the intersection pulling apart a fight between the guy and girl, screaming and yelling and honking all over the place.

the cause of the traffic was a badly designed 6 to 1 lane funnel into the holland... i got home around 3:15am. not too bad i guess.

what it all comes down to, and why hipsters think this terrible music is "good..." is that no matter what it is, whether it be pseudo-rap, or stripper ballet, or whatever... as long as it's another hipster on stage doing it, it's cool.

dan layus album coming soon.

for those of you who went to college with me (all 900 of you), you know who Dan Layus is. others will know him as the front man for the non-threatening rock act Augustana.

Augustana was actually named after the college, not the month August and the girl's name Anna, as they would have you believe in an interview early on in their band's publicity.

ANYway, I actually like the band, (although I wouldn't admit it in the hip-hop circles I find myself in... one of the rappers actually compared the band's video for Boston to a 'gay shaving cream commercial') but that's not the reason for this post. The thing is, when I was in college, me and the front man, Dan Layus, used to be pretty close friends. I'd go to his room every night and tell him my girl problems and we'd go to the mini-mart and get junk food at 2am. We also recorded a record together.

Dan wrote a whole album's worth of solo material in a semester. We'd go to the studios in our tiny college and bang out songs as soon as he had them ready. This was in late '03. The album was done and we burned a bunch of rough copies for our friends before Christmas break... but the both of us decided not to go back to college the next semester so we parted ways. The cd never got finished really, and I think we all forgot about it. 

I just recently dug up all the old session files, and I'm going to actually put some time into mixing it and getting it ready for the world... so check back often and we'll post a download of it up here on the chrispyness. 

for now, you can go steal the new Augustana EP here:

Tracklist:

1. Hey Now [4:41]


2. I Still Ain't Over You [3:31]


3. Sweet and Low [3:34]

i think i had a heart attack.

this is so amazing. so amazing. i just found this and i'm kind of obsessed.

the artist name: Dans Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip.
the song name: Thou Shalt Always Kill.

lyrics:
Thou shalt not steal if there is direct victim.
Thou shalt not worship pop idols or follow lost prophets.
Thou shalt not take the names of Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, Johnny Hartman, Desmond Decker, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix or Syd Barret in vain.
Thou shalt not think that any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a peadophile… Some people are just nice.
Thou shalt not read NME.
Thall shalt not stop liking a band just because they’ve become popular.
Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry.
Thou shalt not judge a book by it’s cover.
Thou shalt not judge Lethal Weapon by Danny Glover.
Thall shalt not buy Coca-Cola products. Thou shalt not buy Nestle products.
Thou shalt not go into the woods with your boyfriend’s best friend, take drugs and cheat on him.
Thou shalt not fall in love so easily.
Thou shalt not use poetry, art or music to get into girls’ pants. Use it to get into their heads.
Thou shalt not watch Hollyokes.
Thou shalt not attend an open mic and leave before it’s done just because you’ve finished your shitty little poem or song you self-righteous prick.
Thou shalt not return to the same club or bar week in, week out just ’cause you once saw a girl there that you fancied but you’re never gonna fucking talk to.

Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were.
The Beatles… Were just a band.
Led Zepplin… Just a band.
The Beach Boys… Just a band.
The Sex Pistols… Just a band.
The Clash… Just a band.
Crass… Just a band.
Minor Threat… Just a band.
The Cure… Just a band.
The Smiths… Just a band.
Nirvana… Just a band.
The Pixies… Just a band.
Oasis… Just a band.
Radiohead… Just a band.
Bloc Party… Just a band. [ed.’s note: this is debatable]
The Arctic Monkeys… Just a band.
The Next Big Thing.. JUST A BAND.

Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries.
Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements and never will be.
Thou shalt not make repetitive generic music, thou shalt not make repetitive generic music, thou shalt not make repetitive generic music, thou shalt not make repetitive generic music.
Thou shalt not pimp my ride.
Thou shalt not scream if you wanna go faster.
Thou shalt not move to the sound of the wickedness.
Thou shalt not make some noise for Detroit.
When I say “Hey” thou shalt not say “Ho”.
When I say “Hip” thou shalt not say “Hop”.
When I say, he say, she say, we say, make some noise… kill me.
Thou shalt not quote me happy.
Thou shalt not shake it like a polaroid picture.
Thou shalt not wish you girlfriend was a freak like me.
Thou shalt spell the word “Pheonix” P-H-E-O-N-I-X not P-H-O-E-N-I-X, regardless of what the Oxford English Dictionary tells you.
Thou shalt not express your shock at the fact that Sharon got off with Bradley at the club last night by saying “Is it”.
Thou shalt think for yourselves.

the video: go here.

the audio:



UPDATE: the version that is on the final album is not as good as this one. i was disappointed.

this is for real?!?!

ever wanted to go to space? i know i did... now i don't know if it's just me getting the late pass on this one... but check this out:

in 2009, you will be able to book a flight on Virgin Galactic... to space!!! tickets are only $200,000 so hurry up and book one before they sell out on the first flight. only a $20,000 down payment required to book!

Stevie Wonder live on Sesame Street.

this is amazing. Stevie Wonder playing Superstition with a full band live on Sesame Street in 1973.

i wish Sesame Street was this cool now. 

things to look out for:

the Sesame Street subtitles. priceless.

the kid in the red shirt going nuts on the fire escape.

Stevie singing about Sesame Street at the end.

how to ride the subway in nyc.

courtesy of Sesame Street.

still so true.

go here for the video.

adverts.

anyone ever wonder when it became cool to use competitors' brand names in tv commercials??? since when can pepcid AC show someone taking tums??

the times, they are a changin.

limited edition music video.

So as we all know, My blog has a little history with Gnarls Barkley and their new song, Run. well, apparently, the new video has been banned from U.S. TV... it failed this test which monitors strobe effects that trigger epileptic seizures. How crazy is that?!?! 

check out my boy JT in the intro, lookin' like screech if he landed a spot hosting YO! mtv raps...

this video is now technically just a "promo" and will only be available online until director Happy can make the changes that meet guidelines established to prevent TV images from disturbing epileptic viewers. (crazy)

Danger Mouse told Billboard.com, "We're having issues (with the video). I think it's cool. It works for me. But I'm not necessarily that easily seasick. We can't predict how people are going to interpret it."

on a side note, DANGER MOUSE IS PRODUCING THE NEW BECK ALBUM!

i peed a little. two of my favorite music makers ever, together in one delicious listenable package! oh man. oh man.

enjoy this:

the only podcast you'll ever need...

is my man Mark Ronson's Authentic Sh*t show.

broadcasted from the tiny storefront window-esque booth in the lower east side of new york city, Mark mixes a fine selection of records and serato tunes on friday nights to a broad audience on the internet and the sidewalk of avenue A. 

I've been in the booth a few times when Mark was having his show, and it's an amazing experience. He also has guests live in the booth from time to time, one of which was Adele when I was there. she's an amazing artist, but that's another story. check her out, I think she's something like #1 in the U.K. right now.

for those of you who are podcast savvy, here's the xml link to post into your favorite podcast machines.

http://www.eastvillageradio.com/podcasts/9903/69.xml

enjoy. 

owned.

by a blown coolant hose.

kate moss on recording console design.

(this is old, from 2005, but still funny)

During the now-infamous evening, at a West London studio where boyfriend Pete Doherty was recording a new album, I gather that the skinny beauty spilled her drink across the mixing desk.

'Chaos ensued, since it could quite easily have ruined several thousand pounds worth of equipment,' says one who witnessed proceedings. 'Kate wasn't in the least bit upset, though. She just shouted out: 'What a bloody stupid design. What's the point of it being designed like that, if you can't even put your drink on it?''. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems it happened at Doghouse Studios in Henley on Thames, so the desk in question was probably their Amek Angela, worth about £15k.

how to play guitar.

"I taught myself to play guitar. It's incredibly easy when you understand the science of it. The skinny strings play the high sounds, and the fat strings play the low sounds. If you put your finger on the string farther out by the tuning end it makes a lower sound. If you want to play fast, move your hand fast and if you want to play slower move your hand slower. That's all there is to it. You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that's pretty limiting. Even if you took a few years and learned all the chords you'd still have a limited number of options. If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day.

Traditionally, guitars have a fat string on the top and they get skinnier and skinnier as they go down. But the thing to remember is it's your guitar and you can put whatever you want on it. I like to put six different sized strings on it because that gives the most variety, but my brother used to put all of the same thickness on so he wouldn't have so much to worry about. What ever string he hit had to be the right one because they were all the same.

Tuning the guitar is kind of a ridiculous notion. If you have to wind the tuning pegs to just a certain place, that implies that every other place would be wrong. But that's absurd. How could it be wrong? It's your guitar and you're the one playing it. It's completely up to you to decide how it should sound. In fact I don't tune by the sound at all. I wind the strings until they're all about the same tightness. I highly recommend electric guitars for a couple of reasons. First of all they don't depend on body resonating for the sound so it doesn't matter if you paint them. As also, if you put all the knobs on your amplifier on 10 you can get a much higher reaction to effort ratio with an electric guitar than you can with an acoustic. Just a tiny tap on the strings can rattle your windows, and when you slam the strings, with your amp on 10, you can strip the paint off the walls.

The first guitar I bought was a Silvertone. Later I bought a Fender Telecaster, but it really doesn't matter what kind you buy as long as the tuning pegs are on the end of the neck where they belong. A few years back someone came out with a guitar that tunes at the other end. I've never tried one. I guess they sound alright but they look ridiculous and I imagine you'd feel pretty foolish holding one. That would affect your playing. The idea isn't to feel foolish. The idea is to put a pick in one hand and a guitar in the other and with a tiny movement rule the world."

-David Fair

a bedroom in a box.

probably the coolest thing i've seen in a minute.

website.

go here for the video.

digg this

quote of the day, courtesy of our waiter at applebee's.

"Can I start you off with a Blue Moon or a strawberry smoothie or whatever you'd actually like?"

i remember working at friday's and having to greet each table with a pre-written script, it was the worst. such a lack of personality. like potato skin and ultimate mudslide pedaling robots.

when will it stop???

The 32 oz Monster BFC. Single-handedly responsible for accidental teenage energy overdoses nation-wide.

grammy battles.

Vince Gill:

"I just got an award given to me by a Beatle. 

Have you had that happen yet, Kanye?"

incredible.

that's my boy.

this is why we love Greg Barbone.

and that's my fiance in the middle. stay away.

and another reason:Greg, obviously oblivious.

yes you can.

tribe called quest - can i kick it, 1999.

goodbye cruel (facebook) world.

It's over. i've officially de-activated my facebook account. it's done.

I always disliked facebook, something about the whole aspect of everything you do is public. that, and, the fact that everybody who i never wanted to talk to again found me and requested me as a friend... that's all. goodbye.

applecare. pfft.

this is for the uber-geeks.

I was troubleshooting a client's computer... she was having a crazy finder issue where only one specific folder, when double clicked, would relaunch the finder and send her back to an environment she had built a few hours previous. the strange thing is that if she clicked the disclosure triangle, the folder would display it's contents and let her access the files within.

i was stumped. so i called applecare. we have a tier 2 number, which gets us past the monkeys in bangarang, but i was impatient and hit a bunch of numbers until i got a human.

after much explination, the woman on the phone said:

ac: Ok, well take the preferences folder and drag it to the desktop.

cr: The whole thing???

ac: Yes, take the preferences folder and drag it to the desktop.
cr: Yeah, ummm, i'm not going to do that.
cr: Hows about you give me a specific .plist to drag?
ac: Oh ok, then I can transfer you to our product specialist"
cr: Yes, you can.

attention macintosh-using myspace bloggers!

I've discovered how to make your html snippets work in myspace blogs.

you know how you get this window every time you try to make a new blog in safari?

well, here's the solution. 

just hit cancel. it'll bring you to an editor that looks like this:

now, you can paste whatever kind of html you want. I know that the basic editor has those little buttons for links and pictures, but that's all it'll do... you can format however you want in this one.

enjoy.

energydrinkheartattack.

the biggest monster i've ever seen. 32 ounces.

Avalon Exchange.

You want to talk about ridiculous thrift stores, hole-in-the-wall-super-secret-spots that only you and your closest friends know about, the best thing to happen to clothing since the seventies, (or sixties, or eighties, depending on how old you are... 20 year rule..) then listen up. What I'm about to tell you is the most amazing thing Pennsylvania has to offer. (citation needed) This is the grand-mother of all used clothing stores. I'm talking about the highly underrated Avalon Exchange.



When I last went there, it was in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh, right around the corned from Five Guys and the O. It was upstairs above a bank and something else random... Now they've moved to Squirrel Hill, which is where Jerry's Records is... the best record store in the country (but that's for another time)



buying clothes:
All I can say is that this place is absolutely incredible. High class
name brands, they only take in GOOD stuff, and the prices are extremely
good. The clothes are all super clean and usually in near perfect
shape. They only buy high end stuff, and if people donate stuff, they
only sell the good stuff.

selling clothes:
bring all your old gear in here and lay it out for them... they'll pick through it, take what they want, and give you 30% CASH on it. Or, if you feel like trading in, they'll give you 45% retail value in store credit. not a bad deal at all.


Avalon has a myspace,
but their last login was on 7.19.2007 so I wouldn't expect any comments
or top friend spots from them.

Their "General Interest" section simply says:

your clothes.
beards.
vintage.
jokes.

and the music section:

we used to listen to bad things but currently we are listening to good things.


Contact info:
Avalon Exchange 5858 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA
phone: 412.621.1211
hours: mon-sat 11-8, sun 12-6

some of my favorite things that i've gotten there.
perfect replica flight of the conchords vest ($10):



an awesome bright yellow and green puma jacket ($12):
(really dumb picture of me but you get the idea)

and a pair of deisel jeans for $10. ridiculous.

here's the kids who run the place:




and here's just one of my favorite pittsburg pics:
(myself and shameless plug)




Moral of the story: it's probably worth a trip to pittsburgh just to
visit this place. I don't care where you live.





-chris renne.

quote of the day, courtesy of my boss.

"If there is a Hell, it's not having your teeth drilled while listening to Kenny G, as I thought previously. It's being on a train and trying to work in a DAW while the woman on the phone next to you sounds like a car trying to start in the middle of a cold snap. And she doesn't stop for the whole ride." - my boss

real hood.

the almighty jivetheuniversal and myself.

the easiest way to pull files off your ipod.

on a mac of course... get this. senuti. just open it up, search for the song you want, and hit the green import arrow. so simple. and it works with leopard. (click on the picture to go to download.)

my letter of cease and desist from .mac security.

From: abuse@mac.com
Subject: Regarding your .Mac HomePage
Date: February 4, 2008 7:11:53 PM EST
To: me

Chris,

We have received a Notice of Infringement concerning content on your account. Therefore, we have removed the alleged infringing material from public access, and are notifying you of such removal in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 17 U.S.C. Section 512. This file has been moved to the Documents folder of your iDisk.

If you feel that actions taken against your account are in error, you may serve a counter notification that complies with the requirements set forth in section 512(g)(3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Be aware that this infringement was in direct violation of the Terms and Conditions of your .Mac membership. If you are found again to be distributing this, or similar, content on your iDisk again your account will be terminated immediately without notice or refund.

File moved:
gn*rls_run.mpthree

Review the .Mac Terms and Conditions here:


Regards,
.Mac Security

digg this.

whoops.

i got in trouble for posting the new gnar*s bar*ley song. i got a very nasty letter telling me to take it down. who reads my blog anyway?!?! not anybody important, that's for sure... guess i was wrong. anyway, if you want the track, leave me a comment ;)

the internet is as awesome as it is worthless.

some gems from this random blog:

"... and your picture of Stalin riding a Year3 Limited Edition Starflower inside a German concentration camp was both upsetting and historically inaccurate."

"I don't know where you get your facts. The first generation of MLP's were made by Hasbro, not the Khmer Rouge. And Hasbro has not made toys from human skulls since the 1960's"

read: so i guess i got kicked off another my little pony forum

new music in the makin's.

check it... i'm doing a new project... taking ratatat songs and writing my own songs on top of them. here's a small clip of what's in the works.

quote of the day, courtesy of Homer P. Dashington

chris renne: you got an ebay account?

Homer P. Dashington: yes but leave me out of your attempts to game the system

cloverfield.

was good. 

but not for the faint of stomach, be forewarned. Marty put it best, as the credits were rolling:

"that wasn't a motion picture, it was a motion sickness!"