stuffy

They're cude and cuddly, but what are they supposed to be? Survey says: germs & maladies. Screw beanie babies, Giant Microbes are the way to go for any occassion!

<---Sore Throat

-sanitized, neph-

pesky

Catch and Release, a new movie starring Jennifer Garner, will feature a scene that takes place at the Boulder Daily Camera newsroom. According to the script, her character will be interviewed by a "male, 40s, and crunchy" character who asks her what she thinks about Colorado's "prairie dog issue". Her proper response is that we must "learn to coexist peacefully with other residents on the planet."

She then adds, "But really, deep down, when you're speeding home down Route 36, and you see their furry little heads popping up all over the place, like some biblical locust swarm, isn't there a part of you that's dying to yank your wheel to the right and see how many of those little fuckers you can take out before they see you coming?"

And you know what? She's right.

-nehper-

listening

Archer Prewitt - wilderness: Another solo album from the Sea & Cake's guitarist. He's great with Sea & Cake, but a little drab on his own. If you want to hear a good S&C side project, check out Sam Prekop's solo work instead.

Tosca - jac: Stands for joseph, arthur, conrad. After the extremely disappointing Dehli 9, it appears Tosca'a creativity has returned. There are some random vocal flourishes throughout, but they definitely add to, rather than distract from, the syruppy beats and loungey melodies. It's martini drinking music. I'm tert digging this.

Out Hud - let us never speak of it again: This one's a little more disco-dancy then it's more jammy-instrumental predecessor, S.T.R.E.E.T. D.A.D., which may or may not work to their favor, depending on preference or tolerance for that kind of thing. Very hit or miss.

Hella - church gone wild / chirpin hard: A double album à la Speakerboxx/Love Below. What the hella is this we're listening to? Audio root canal with no anesthesia, or perhaps what it would feel like to sit through Miss Congeniality 2. Next.

The Bravery - s/t: Kind of like a british version of the Killers, who are kind of like an american version of some other british band, except the bravery are from new york (almost like that sitcom Coupling)...

-level, neph-

vogue

Be careful what you pose for. Four models, who posed as wife beaters for a series of public service ads with captions such as, "Successful executive. Devoted churchgoer. Abusive husband," are now suing the city of new york citing that the ads have stayed up past their supposed 5 week run. They claim people now think that they actually do beat their wives. This begs the question, do they get confused for religious business men as well?

-perceptionist, neph-

a day well lived

The conditions couldn't have been better at Copper saturday with 6 inches of fresh powder style - absolutely ripped all day. Hot dog of the day award definitely goes to Derrick for launching a helicopter off the onion roll and clearing the guy who cut him off just moments before, and was still standing at the top of the jump like an idiot. Stopped by the Rocky Flats Bar & lounge on the ride back with Paul. It's one of those places you just have to check out some time. Imagine that bar that's located just outside of the county line that only serves domestic beer, and the entire menu is fried. Classic.

That night, played a double header of the OC game with me & jacq's improved & revised rules. The key to the french bread pizza is to hollow ou the middles to make room for more toppings. New slang of the night would have to have been *ass hat* hands down - you gotta love that assonance. Seriously though, no pun intended.

Spent easter sunday with the fam. Had a great breakfast - skiier's french toast, washed cars, went on a short hike, napped, and then had a scrumpscious lamb dinner.

<-----Is this an ass hat?

-easy livin', neph-

four more

Here's some more new & future album summaries:

teenage fanclub - Man-Made: Remember when the Fanclub was poised to take over the world? Not only did Nirvana sing their highest praises, but Nevermind even wound up taking second fiddle to Bandwagonesqe which placed first in Spin's best albums of 1991. {Mind you, this was also when Spin was run by Bob Guicionne Jr, and still carried credible weight as a music publication, as opposed to the pathetic rag for posers it has become today.} Well, after their disappointing & belated follow-up, Thirteen, everyone who hadn't already forgotten about them soon did, myself included. Apparently they made several cd's between then & now based on the greatest hits collection released in '03. So it's with some curiosity that I listen to this new disc wondering if they are poised for anything these days. And unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, Man-Made contains nothing too earthshattering or even that interesting.

death cab for cutie - The John Byrd EP: The Fanclub fizzled, but the Cab seem ready to stand up and take over that coveted, or cursed, "next big thing" slot with their recent signing to Atlantic Records. In what's basically a tide over until their next full length, this indie-retailer-only release is a 37 minute, 7-track disc of live material from their winter/spring '04 tour, the last date of which I was supposed to see, but alas got cancelled by a late season blizzard in april. I first really enjoyed these guys when I literally stumbled across one of their shows at the Echo Lounge one sunday night. They exude a lot more energy live than on disc and I was completely blown away - I picked up their lastest disc at the time, The Photo Album, at the merch booth, and then went home to dig out the other cd's of theirs I already owned, but hadn't really listened to much. This EP basically captures some of their best songs live and even has a cover of seBADoh's "Brand New Love". A great intro to the band, or icing on the cake for longtime fans.

the caesars - Paper Tigers: These guys are and always will be known for that song of theirs in the iPod shuffle ads. This, their second album, sure doesn't help create any sort of musical legacy beyond that. Every generation needs their one-hit wonders, I suppose.

prefuse 73 - Surrounded By Silence: Guillermo Scott Herren (I always confuse this name with Gil Scot Heron for some reason) is back to his most seemingly prolific identity, Prefuse 73 (others include Savath & Savalas, Delarosa & Asora, 'the mysterious' Piano Overlord, Ahmad Szabo, etc.), known essentially for its hip-hop for IDM lovers motif. Surrounded is yet another groovy down tempo fusion disc with guest vocalisms from the likes of not just rappers such as Ghostface, Masta Killa, & GZA, but also lovely chanteuses Claudia & Alejandra Deheza. The end result is a bunch of songs located all over the musical map, that should age well upon repeated listens.

friday techno of the day: metalheadz - platinum breakz 1

-bloody ears, neph-

ice deposit

You know it's still winter when you break your scraper on the impenetrable sheet of ice on your car in the morning. A hot bucket of water later, and I was in business so no worries.

Chalk up two wins today for logic and reason:

#1 - Ward Churchill's academic writings are protected under the freedom of speech. This should have been a total no brainer, but apparently a lot of people are still not clear on the First amendment. Unfortunately for Ward, his other questionable background issues, such as plagiarism and falsification of heritage, have now come into question and his fate at CU is still undecided.

#2 - Florida-based US District Judge James Whittemore upheld a previous decision by the federal courts not to reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, much to the chagrin of her delusional parents. This move also emphasizes Bush's belligerent pandering to the religious right and general disregard for the seperation of church and state, as he intervened earlier in the week with an 'emergency' session of congress to grant the federal courts the power to possibly overturn the state's earlier ruling. It should be noted that Bush failed to go to the congressional hearing once the 911 Report was released. Priorities = somewhat askew. P.S.

In also seemingly important news (by way of being sandwiched between the previous two stories on the front page of the Daily Camera) - the newly constructed high school in Erie, CO was covered in 15 foot high piles of tumbleweed this week. The school, baseball field, and the bleachers all serve as excellent backstops for the dried up brush from nearby prairies. It is expected to take a couple of days for workers to collect and burn all of the tumbleweed. They believe this will also be an ongoing problem until the surrounding areas experience more development. That's right - tumbleweed attacks.

-duck & cover, neph-

teeth

-chewy, neph-

who knew?

Living here in Colly, we often forget the plight of the less fortunate who are not located near snowy mountains. In turn, some of these folks are forced to resort to unusual methods in order to get in their anual riding or skiing season. Having ridden the sand dunes of Truro, MA with an old board in summers past, I can kind of relate to the 'any means necessary' approach some must take. But not everyone has sand either. So, what do the other half do? To help answer this ponderous riddle, Aurelie just wrote a great piece on the increasingly popular snow domes popping up in parts of northern europe. They really should add some of these domes to snowboard/ski shops so we can demo gear...

-nephew-

bright berry blue side

Funny how the conservatives who want to keep Terri Schiavo alive are the same ones who support the death penalty. According to Allan Lichtman, head of the history dept. at American U., the congressional intervention "contradicts a lot of what those behind it say they believe: the sanctity of the family, the sacred bond between husband and wife, the ability of all of us to make private decisions without the hand of government intervening, deference to states and localities as opposed to the centralized government."

Things that currently interest me: stash blueberry tea, the mr. brightside video, & hit cookies

this week's new releases:

QOTSA - Lullabies to Paralyze: not bad, I could see this growing on me, flows better than the last album, I prefer them live
yo la tengo - Prisoners of Love: 3 cd career spanning collection of their best work, excellent. the third disc is the rarities collection for those of you who have the rest already
moby - Hotel: we've discussed this already, I enjoy the album but the accompanying ambient disc is a total snoozer
decmberists - Picaresque: great in small doses like a track here or maybe a track there, the singer's voice is a tad shrill
MIA - Arular: sri lankin by way of london lass rocking the guerilla dancehall type thing. totally loving this right now - the beats to make you bang for sure!

leaks:

stephen malkmus - Face the Truth: way better than Pig Lib right off the bat, easily some of his best work since pavement
beck - Guero: got my hands on the japanese retail version, and it sounds a lot better than the not-finished-production-wise version that was floating around earlier in the year + it has 3 bonus tracks. the Black Tambourine video is pretty nifty too, I saw it on the plane back from cali of all places. beck is so back.

-nephew-

expo nutshell

I spent the weekend working with Third Street Chai at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, CA. Started my travels off thursday with a couple guiness at DIA and a nap on the plane. Met up with the crew (john, jamie, kimmy) who had just arrived back at the hotel pretty late from an evening of drinking and just crashed.

Got the booth up and running Friday morning and quickly settled into the trade show groove. Post show we headed to the marriot lobby, evaded security after accidentally smashing a glass all over the bar, and eventually made our way over to the Spearhead/ Neville Brothers show in the ballroom where we continued to spend the majority of our time in yet another lobby, both chit chatting and hob knobbing.



Saturday, the show floor went great. Daryl Hannah was in attendance with a film crew. We headed over to the official wine & beer tasting after the floor closed and all got seperated - due in part to some silly "trainwreck drama". Hotel hopped from the reggae party at the radisson back to the dance party at the marriot where some pizzas were soon ordered to the lobby, and called it a night.



Sunday we started packing up the booth a little early, and magically had it all up in the van when it was time for me & jamie to head to the airport. Got back to boulder around 1.30am. Phew, that's the trip in a nutshell. You probably don't need me to crack it open...

-nexpo-

happy st. pat's

smokey & the ban

Boulder was one of the first cities in the nation to implement a smoking ban in public places back in 1995. Several other cities in Colorado, and across the US, have followed suit in recent years. With any luck, a bill may pass this week banning smoking in all public places across the entire state of Colorado.

Meanwhile, CU students have organized a capaign to have the punishment for getting caught with pot be reduced so that it is a lesser infringement than getting caught with booze. They are using the near impecable logic that stoned kids don't get violent, rape people, or overdose, like the drunk kids at CU have done in the past. Just make sure not to spark up in public guys...

The neph is heading to California with Third Street this evening for Expo West, so you probably won't hear from me until monday. Have a great weekend!

thursday techno of the day: Freerange Records Colour Series Blue

urge

The SXSW Music Conference is going on this week in Austin, TX. Known primarily for showcasing mostly unsigned or independently labeled bands, they have recently added films & obviously some other things as Sam Brown was the proud winner of the Interactive Big Bag Design Competition. I wonder if this drawing of Sam's from SXSW was made in honor of Merge Records.

-united, neph-

sithy

In case you missed it last week on the teeveetron, here's the latest trailer for Star Wars: Episode III. I absolutely cannot wait to see this.

-revenge of the neph-

unique

It's wintery again, and I like it.

This weeks leak style:
Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic: This is great, snatch it if you can.
Alkaline Trio - Crimson: Decent, if you like A3. Not as good as Maybe I'll Catch Fire...
Hot Hot Heat - Elevator: Haven't listened to this one yet, I'll cue it up tomorrow.

this week's shuffle style:
thievery corp. - The Cosmic Game
new order - Waiting for the Siren's Call
moby - Hotel
mia - Arular
trail of dead - Source Tags & Codes
trail of dead - World's Apart
interpol - Antics
kasabian - s/t
fischerspooner - Odyssey
kings of leon - Aha Shake Hearbreak
pavement - Stuff Up The Cracks
ween - Live at Stubbs




-huh, what?-

miles of style

Another quick round of OC style friday night because Saturday the fam headed to copper to begin celebrating paul's 60th style. What can I say - GREAT day of riding, the conditions & weather were sweet style. That evening for dinner we went to Aqua Pazza, a new iti place over by the walnut lofts, which was yum style.

Here's the neph all shadow carve style:



-neph style-

digits

Crooked Fingers were great last night. They only got 45 minutes of play time, as they allowed their local tourmates, Devotchka, to headline last night's show. Former Archer's bassist, Matt Genting played his first show with the Fingers last night - too bad they didn't break out some old Loaf faves. Setlist:

1. Bad Man Coming
2. Let's Not Pretend
3. Islero
4. Andalucia
5. You Must Build A Fire
6. Call To Love
7. Weary Arms
8. Sleep All Summer
9. Twilight Creeps
10. Rotting Strip

If you have bittorrent and FLAC, you can grab the show here - (thanks to mike B and COtapers). Sara accompanied me to the show, and I do believe she owes me a round of doo-dahs because the Killers' "chief songwriter and lyricist Brandon Flowers" penned "Somebody Told Me", unless of course she can prove otherwise. Nod, wink.

Three more not-to-miss shows have been added to the Fox line-up this May. Doves & Mercury Rev join forces on May 9, and Built to Spill hold court on May 27 & 28. Throw in the ...Trail of Dead show on the 13th, and I'm in heaven. Really I am.

-nerph-

waiting for the sirens' call

New Order has a knack for putting out albums every 2-7 years or so. And since their forthcoming album, Waiting for the Sirens' Call, will only be their 8th studio output of new material since they rose from the ashes of Joy Division in 1980, it's stateside release date of April something or other is cause for some ceremony. Unless, of course, you just stumbled upon a copy from your favorite file spreading dot com and you can celebrate early. In the UK, promotional scarves have been made available to promote the album. They remind me of the inflatible buoys & album covers they used to promote Repubulic years ago. So, does the new disc merrit the hype? Who cares - hype can be fun, especially if you can participate.



-nephorder-

american coma

Quentin Tarantino is in the process of negotiating a deal with New Line Cinema to direct the latest installment of Friday the 13th. He was recently turned down to direct the upcoming Bond film, Casino Royale. It looks like I'll have to wait until 2006 for my ninjas.

The Flaming Lips have released a cover version of the White Stripe's "Seven Nation Army" on their new mix cd for the LateNightTales series. It's actually more of a clever mash-up though, as most of the lyrics are taken straight from the Butthole Surfer's "Going to Florida", from the classic Cream Corn From the Socket of Davis EP. You can listen for yourself - it's the first track on this 30 minute stream of the LNT mix.

A nine-year old coma patient may have Green Day to thank for his improved condition. American Idiot, one of the boys favourite albums, was played to him while still comatose. About an hour into the album, he suddenly awoke. The band is reportedly thrilled.

-nephew-

crooky

I just won a pair of tickets from 1190 to the Crooked Fingers show at the Gothic on thursday! I'm rather pleased by this. Some may know the lead man, Eric Bachman, from his old north carolina outfit, the Archers of Loaf. If you want to hear why I'm excited, you can stream the entire new Crooked Fingers disc, Dignity & Shame.

-neph-

quitters never win

Got off to a jump start this morning jiving to a little Lanemeyer & the Movie Life along with my breakfast. Right now I'm listening to a Built To Spill show from the Pyramid Alehouse, Berkley (2004 nov 6) where they're playing pretty much all new material. I can hardly wait for the new album to be completed, but knowing how doug operates in the studio, it will likely take forever. One of the new tunes is appropriately titled, "The Wait".

Boulder's in the news again as Elizabeth Hoffman, CU president, announced her resignation earlier today, hot of the heels of the ongoing football recruiting scandal and the current controversy surrounding Ward Churchill. Does the fact that she's giving up the fight lend any legitimacy to the futility of the university's apparent problems?

Why bother creating your own chat room, when you can just use somebody else's? That's exactly what Howard Stern fans have been doing for the past few weeks on Kathy Gifford's site. The traffic, and more assumingly the content, became too overwhelming over the weekend, and now you can no longer access the chat room. I wonder where they'll go next?

Confirmed my plans to attend Expo West with Third Street Chai today. We have a 10x20 booth again this year, and our crew will consist of John, Jamie, Kimmy, and myself. I think I'm the only idiot who takes time off from work to go work somewhere else. Expo can be a lot of fun though, and I'm always down to support the Third Street bunch.

-nephed-

bottle

goin back to colly

Started the weekend off with a quick (and early) round of the OC game at j&d's. We were all heading up to copper super early the next morning, so we took it easy. Fade into 4.30 am saturday morning. I woke up before my morning paper was even delivered. We were worried about the parking sitch since copper had sent out emails that there was to be no onsight parking for the Gravity Games, and you would have to take a shuttle from Frisco or Silverthorne to get to the mountain. As it turns out, you could still park at the mountain, which we did because we were there by 6.45. Our early arrival afforded us the luxury of breakfast at Jax's and of course many fresh runs.

The events running on saturday were all over by the pipe & terrain park. We chose to take advantage of the uncrowded mountain instead of standing around at the competition (which will be broadcast at the end of the month on OLN anyway). The one thing we did see was when dylan & I stumbled accross the snowmobile freestyle demo over by the super bee. Picture if you will a snowmobile doing a rail slide, turning around in an embankment, then launching off a ramp into a backflip and landing - insane.

When we were finished riding, we dropped all of our gear off at the car, grabbed our roadies and headed back into center village for the afternoon festivities. Bumped into Hannah Teter in her haute couture / plaid plaid plaid world digs at the Burton tent, who placed 2nd in the women's super pipe earlier in the day with this performance:



We stuck around just long enough to see the Walkmen play, but left before J5, because we were all pretty beat and the show had started late. I was kind of pissed that they didn't play "We've Been Had" from the Saturn commercial, but oh well. Got back to boulder & refreshed in time to meet up at Styr with nathan and his buddy gary from michigan. We proceeded to the Rio, then camped out at the Scumdowner for a while before cabbing it back to nathan's for some chinese spirits.

Spent sunday all over the boulder creek path, first walking home from nathan & michelle's, then later in the day to go get my car I left downtown the night before.

-nephew-

skipped & spun

Let's start by crowning this week's most ridiculous name for a band: Les Breastfeeders. Sunny side up, indeed.

Trey Anastasio has announced his 13 city spring tour at the end of april, beginning of may. He'll be touring with a new group of musicians, having recently completed work on his next solo album. Sadly there is no colorado date. Not too worried though, because Trey has been known to do crazy things like summer tours, and he's expressed much love for red rocks.

Colorado is home to the Gravity Games this weekend at Copper, however, so I'll most assuredly take that as a door prize. The men & women's superpipe finals are tomorrow, and Jurassic 5 is playing in the afternoon. Should be a total hoot - see you there.

.:Some new albums I got my hands on this week:.
*the raveonettes - Pretty In Black
>>Decent, same kind of stuck in the 50's style songwriting as before, but with less J&M Chain style distortion that I enjoy. sideways thumb.
*adam green - Gemstones
>>The other half of the Moldy Peaches, so you can kind of guess what the lyrical content will be - redonk. The music is similar to the They Might Be Giants style quirk. This is not nearly as charming as any of the MP stuff - Adam & Kimya work better as a disfunctional team. thumbs down.
*the evens - s/t
>>Ian MacKaye & Amy Farina {from the Warmers} join forces on this excellent album. Imagine the softer side of Fugazi with Amy singing instead of Guy. thumbs up. There's also rumours about some west coast tour dates.
*dead meadow - Feathers
>>Another DC band, album #4 for these guys. An indie rock version of Black Sabbath psychedelia. thumbs up.
*decibully - Sing Out America
>>Second album for this Milwaukee band. I much prefer it over their first. The melodies are pleasant enough, and the songs segway nicely into each other, but it's just missing something. Perhaps it's the banal shimmeryness of it all. sideways thumb.
*jack johnson - In Between Dreams
>>JJ gets props because he surfs, is pals with G. Love, and the ladies love his casual acoustics. Their adoration is completely valid, as his contribution to the latest Handsome Boy Modeling School disc was one of the highlights. A trimmed down version is included here. thumbs up.

Friday techno of the day: Basement Jaxx - the singles

-nephagory-

archival offering

*nephew is out today, so what follows is some material from a retired LJ account*

momentary absense with reason

12:26pm 03/05/2002

This is directly related to my laptop being in the hands of Myrtle Beach locals. It seems, last week I haphazardly left the titanium doorstop in my hotel room whilst searching for a Gideon's (which I religiously collect as souvenirs of my sojourns - for my roomate to enjoy, mostly). I have yet to retrieve the 4.9lb beast.

Thank goodness for Right Said Jed, my buddy who just arrived from l'Italia. According to the clock on this PDA-sized Vaio computron, it is 11.11 in the a.m. (wish made). Jed & I have made it our reckless mission to get cool duds for our digital snowboarders broadcasting live from the *living room TeeVeetron*. We decided the blue mushy couch rests well directly in front of said monstronsity. Earlier this eve, we had a run in with the law...I will relay this cute yarn in the form of a recipe:

Ingredients:
1 jed
1 preo
30 Euros
1 expired california driver's licence
1 expired colorado driver's licence
1 valid passport d'italia
1 valid passport from our beloved etates-unies
1 licence to kill
1 motor vehicle
several SKYY malt drinks
a pitcher of el myr cran-rita
a dash of natty light
the need for more natty light
1 police officer (automobile included)

Directions:
Over the course of a few evening hours, mix the above ingredients, gradually, and in order.
Stop at a green light for a minute (this helps to blend the law officer into our recipe).
Enthusiastically mumble and/or babble at the officer as if he was the greatest thing to have just happened. (hint: Stress the use of no one particular language without the use of any grammar for best results).
Hand officer colourful new Euros along with passports.
The next step is crucial, and if carried out as a planned accident, you will be complete...
(last step):
Suppress your urge to burst into hysterical fits of laughter as said officer walks away suppressing the exact same urge.
(another note):
This recipe had no adverse results what-so-ever. It was, however, prepared by professionals, and readers should use extreme caution when attempting to recreate the aforementioned masterpiece.

-kp-