well read

This week's obvious readers of "The Manual" are the Pussycat Dolls for their insanely catchy diddy, 'Don't Cha', and Rhianna for her dancehall leveler, 'Pon De Replay'. Both are flying high atop my guilty pleasure playlist.

-hot licks, cool tricks-

tuesday tune reviews

dwight trible - Love Is the Answer: Ninja Tune's answer to Warp's Jamie Lidell. Disc one has wordies, disc two is all instrumentally. Cool slick like, ya dig?

rogue wave - Descended Like Vultures: Me likes as it reminds me of the impending autumn. Easily my pick of the week. Like Kingsbury Manx meets the Shins, or Death Cab meets Broken Social Scene. Sometimes the sum does add up to all the parts.

iron & wine and calexico - In the Reins: I dig sam beam's stuff, but it always makes me kind of drowsy. This emotes the same slumbery side effects as iron & wine, with the calexico side offering up slide guitron, horns, some drummage, and the occassional vocal. Fans of either band will surely dig on this.

idlewild - Warnings/Promises: This is the album that r.e.m. should have put out last year in much the same way that X&Y was the album U2 should have put out last year.

-fore-

strobed

The weekend started with a very enjoyable rooftop dinner in boulder with abra, jenn, & matt. We had originally planned to take in a movie after dinner, but opted to go from here to there along pearl street instead, which proved to be a good chunk of fun.

Saturday paul & I went to the free guitar stringing over at Robb's where the staff bestowed guitars-of-the-day accolades for 'george' & the D-28. We really just wanted some free strings, but we rolled with it. From there it was off to a Q with J&D over at sheila & brendan's in Firestone. Not wanting to get stuck that far away from the rest of the world, we headed back to my place early on, where we busied ourselves with some abstract photography.



Had breakfast over at hillside sunday morning. Rode my bike around in the beautiful afternoon. Had lauren over to watch the abysmally ridiculous vma's in the evening (mc hammer - what/why?).

-neph-

at long last...

A picture of a painting by robert ashton hanging in my hut:

viva las vegas

Here's wishing some fear and just a bit of loathing to everyone in vegas this weekend for Brian's wedding...

-neph-

gum luck

It all started innocently enough, with a quick jaunt over to the local starbux during lunch. I had a free bevy coupon from the last time I went there, and they didn't have any iced coffee brewed so they gave me an americana (espresso shots with water - definitely american) instead. Feeling a bit risqué I opted for one of their new green tea frappuccinos, which "inspired by japanese tradition, blends fresh-tasting matcha green tea with a hint of sweet melon".



Looks & sounds tasty enough right? Completely wrong - it tastes like a gumball. It should be pink. Needless to say I was thoroughly disappointed with my drink selection on the day. And to serve ice cream to eskimos, I stepped in someone's discarded gum, which of course got stuck all over the inside of my car.

-sticky, neph-

words of wisdom from safety fly

-tru-

folky tales

I want what the Brothers Chaps are on when they decided to start quoertern screaaoorpture! For real.

tune round-up

broken flowers - OST: Haven't seen the film yet, but the soundtrack sure is good. The standout tracks come courtesy of Holly Golightly and the Greenhornes.

animal collective - Feels: Bizarro stuff that reminds me of some of the Elephant 6 :collective's work, most notably Of Montreal or Olivia Tremor Control, with a touch of Arcade Fire thrown in. Unfortunately, not everything is equal to the sum of its parts.

fruit bats - Spelled in Bones: Really fucking annoying self-proclaimed 60's throwback.

the zephyrs - Bright Yellow Flowers on a Blue Double Bed: Average-ish sounding post shoegaze.

broken social scene - {self titled or Winsurfing Nation}: This is an advance, not sure what it's going to wind up being called. I prefer the latter as you may be aware of my great disdain for eponymous album titles for anything but the debut. A rose is a rose though, and there's a lot going on in this garden of sound, which makes sense when you have a dozen or so folks in your band. This will need some more listens to disect fully, but so far so good.

hanne hukkleberg - Little Things: The next Joanna Newsome? Perhaps, but really, can their be another?

brian jonestown massacre - We Are The Radio EP: Another brilliant release from the dysfunctional family. Unless Anton developed the knack for falsetto, it would appear that the co-writer of most of the five songs here, Sarabeth Tuceck, is taking a turn on the vocals, giving this an almost Byrds meets Mazzy Star vibe.

bjork - Drawing Restraint 9 OST: Some really bizarre shit for what I'm assuming will be a really bizarre movie (from Matthew Barney, the director of the Cremaster Cycles I-V). The opening track has a guest vocal by Will Oldham (Bonnie "Prince" Billy), who opened up for her on her last state-side tour. If you liked Medulla, you'll dig the experimentation at play here.

-nephening-

William R. Locklear, july 02, 1971 - august 19, 2005

a.k.a. Russ, Mistykiss



Maximum respects from the Beach go out to the original "FREAK!"

-neph-

pomp & happenstance

In other news of the influentally departed, the long-awaited Hunter S. Thompson memorial took place saturday at his heavily guarded Woody Creek ranch. As you may know by now, the author wished for his remains to blasted out of canon atop a 150 foot statue of the Gonzo fist. And they were, however his ashes were packed into about five firework rounds instead of a traditional canon as seen below:



As security was very tight, and access to the area very restricted, I opted instead to catch the rockies/cubs game with dylan, matt & the ladies:



Since the Rocks have the worst record in the national league right now, our tickets right along the first base foul line were a scant $5 a piece. And to top it off, the Rockies were victorious on the night!



Afterwards we hit a couple of LoDo establishments and a random loft party that seemed as if it were actually some kind of strange store front, or model unit.

-swing battah, battah, sah-wing, neph-

mooged

Robert Moog, 71, a music related electronics pioneer most famous for his invetion the Moog Synthesizer, passed away yesterday in his Asheville, NC home. He had been diagnosed with brain cancer last year. The current president of Moog Music, Mike Adams had this to say, ""[Bob] was a musical pioneer for the love of it and musicians everywhere have had the opportunity to expand their own creative horizons with Bob's inventions. He will truly be missed by all of us, but we can take comfort in the fact that his musical innovations will live on in the music he has inspired and the products we will continue to make."

=( neph

scrippy lost her mind

dress code

Why waste your time with biz cas, when you can go straight to biz slak? Sandals are the nu shuz.

merch

I completely spaced visiting the merch tent at the trey show, but I probably saved myself some loot because I probably would have picked up one of these Jeff Wood prints. They were limited to 275, and from my understanding the inks were heavily layered to give it that rocky-esque feeling:



-nerph-

my birthday weekend

Friday night my old housemate, Heidi, was kind enough to take me out to the hip new boulder restaurant, Frasca, for some tasty foodies & wine. Afterwards we hit trilogy for a spell, then I woke up on a couch with a dog barking at me. Not too excited on the canine alarm clock, I grabbed my bike and headed home in the chilly overcast morn.

Despite the weather being somewhat dismal for the Trey show at Red Rocks saturday, the rain held off while we were in the lots Q-in, only to turn into a light mist later. This was a highly anticipated show, the last of only a handful (eight, maybe?) of re-scheduled dates after the {thankful} demise of a monday night Zooma date. And, as a bonus, STS9 was the opener. They played a great, hour long set during which we unfortunately lost a couple members of our party.



It had been since spring 2003 at the fillmore since we last saw Trey, and now he's touring with an entirely new backing band, 70 Volt Parade:

Trey Anastasio - guitar/vocals
Les Hall - keys/guitar
Tony Hall - bass
Ray Paczkowski - keys
Skeeto Valdez - drums
Jennifer Hartswick - backing vocals
Christina Durfee - backing vocals
(Kuroda was on lights, I can only assume Langedoc was on sound)

Although I miss the horns a little, the change in the band dynamic is a welcome refresher. It definitely brings about a heavier, darker sound which was pretty staunch(!) on the night. All the new material was extremely toOoight-tah as well. Another intersting thing to note was the absense of a 'set break' - instead trey played 4 solo acoustic songs before the rest of the band came back for the '2nd set'. According to trey, this started sometime last week because he just wound up playing acoustic guitar backstage during the breaks anyway. The show lasted 2h45m. There was a boom video camera and other random cameramen in the crowd (one decided to film jacq for like 5 minutes!), so maybe we'll see an official dvd sometime in the future. The rain seemed to deter a huge taper section, although there were a few brave souls with mini umbrellas hovering over mics in the pit. This pull is the first to surface. I'm certainly looking forward to the new studio album...



-neph-tah-

last night

Absolutely sick show beginning to end...happy birthday to me!

Set:
* Drifting
* Cayman Review
* Dark & Down
* Air Said to Me
* Invisible
* Night Speaks to Woman
* Spin
* Plasma
* Push On Til the Day
* Goodbye Head
* Back on the Train@
* Inlaw Josie Wales@
* Pebbles and Marbles@
* Waste@
* Shine
* Sand
* Tuesday
* Mr. Completely>
* 46 Days
* Come as Melody
Encore:
* Love is Freedom
* I am the Walrus

@ = solo acoustic

TAH!

the happy couple

special friday reviews

After stumbling upon them, I feel compelled to give my thoughts on a recent batch of dubstep 12"s. Now here's an interesting phenomena! It reminds me of what I was doing with the more sinister sounding d&b records I got my hands on - and that was to pitch them way the fuck back to emphasize their creepy brooding potential. Of course the d&b heads thought I was off my rocker for doing that, but I really didn't care and it looks like I was on to something after all because now rekkids are being produced that way.

Dread D - Are 1/Invade 2 (black op's, jc44): A side has trashcan percussion & sludgy basslines. B-side has shaker sounding beats, with hollow reverby bass stabs.

Scuba - Timba/Sleepa (hotflush records, scuba001): A side is slow mo' fo' sho' with some high pitch squeaky noises, the bassline sounds just like it would if it were a 45 on 33. The b-side has more thuddy bouncy feel to the beats and a menacing synth line.

Dub Child - Take Me/Psycopath (storming productions, storm004): This is more along the lines of what I used to tinker with. A side has a traditional d&b structure to it, it just sounds pitched down. It has female singing & midway through we get some nice hoover sounds. B side features more of the same - hoovertronic punches and dark atmospherics. This isn't straight dubstep, more like d&b with dubstep tendencies.

Moving Ninja - shellcode/murky/lost tribe (tectonic, tec002): This is my fave of the batch. The A-side crawls at almost a downtempo/IDM-ish pace, real sparce. B1's percussion sounds like bamboo or wooden blocks with slippery bass lingering behind it. B2 is a bit livelier and has a real round sound to it.

-nephstep-

contact

The frustration has waned and I've come to terms with the fact that I'm in dire need of a new timing belt, a power steering re-vamp, new front brakes, new oil pump, new spark plugs, and new head gaskets (ouch). Considering that since I've owned my beloved voit it now has 105k miles, it's been across country twice, it goes to the mountains & back most weekends in the winter, and I've never had it serviced, the damage report isn't too bad. Add the fact that it's a '97 which was the first year they made the Outbacks, a lot of the damage is due to since improved upon engine designs. Once I get it back from the subaru dealership sometime next week, all it will need is a new set of tires, and I can cotinue to roll freely around the earth.

-bummed is what you are when you find out it's been towed, neph-

park & ride

Since monday I've been celebrating my own bike-to-work week. Conveniently, it has coincided with my-car-won't-start-and-is-falling-the-fuck-apart week.

-bikes & trikes, neph-

choonies

sigur ros - Takk: The album title translates to 'thanks'. Full of billowing crescendos mixed with unintelligible 'hopelandic' vox - an audio sunrise, sunset, or some other marvelous weather pattern. More immediate and a much more uplifting than (). Think Mogwai meets M83 in all sorts of ethereal grandiosity - brilliant.

american analog set - Set Free: More accessable than previous efforts, but treads the familiar path of woe-is-me-isms. If you can find the japanese version, it has 4 bonus remixes which are pretty nifty.

calla - Collisions: The album title must be referring to the impact of trying too hard with lackluster results.

death cab for cutie - Plans: Uh-oh, the switch to a major has been made, and we all know that this often leads to artistic bankruptcy. No new ground is being broken here, for better or worse. It seems that with each release that the meloncholy begins to engulf what little energy already existed in the songs. This was my initial problem with Transatlanticism, but then I warmed up to it after seeing the songs live. Maybe this will grow on me after hearing the songs on the new season of the OC.

-nerph-

real world discovery

This is the true story of seven astronauts, picked to orbit in outer space, and have their lives monitored, and find out what happens when shuttles stop working properly and start falling apart. Real World Discovery!



Cue theme music: 'I don't want to live in space' by bert & ernie.

-mars needs women, neph-

ree voos

kingsbury manx - The Fast Rise and Fall of the South: Keeping it mellow as usual, but with much less multi-instrumental layering than on Aztec Discipline. The songs are left to stand on their own, which seems to work just fine for these north carolinians. Music for your afternoon tea.

her space holiday - The Past Presents the Future: Postal Service for the clinically depressed and chemically disfunctional. With song titles such as 'missed medicine' and 'self helpless', Marc Bianchi is back with another disc of what he does best - making pretty electronic arrangements whilst lamenting all the woes of his poor indie life. It's the swirling strings that get me every time.

treva whateva - Musics Made of Memories: First full length studio disc full of fun-time down-tempo/broken beat house type stuff on ninja tune. 'Singalong' is hot.

son volt - Okemah and the Melody of Riot: Jay Farrar is back to his post Uncle Tupelo nomicker. All the members are new, but he does well to reprise that Son Volt sound of ol' which is a lot like a cross between r.e.m. and mark kozelek.

gillespie's last stand

Almost forgot my weekend round-up, so here goes; Saturday we stopped by the St. Julien for their happy hour - it was rumoured they give free apps, which they do, but it's relegated to just one item off the menu. Still not bad though, as they also have complimentary kalamata olives, wasabi peas, and chewy granola (only in boulder, right?). From there it was off to nathan & michelle's fairwell hoora/bbq/yardsale. Dylan brewed up some 3 rum punch with bottles he brought back from the honeymoon in St. Kitt's. The usual debauchery ensued as the philosoph conglomerate saw it's demise - Nathan & michelle off to boston, theresa & rich are off to milwaukee, and what's his face & so and so are off to somewhere else. It's sad to see them all go, lord knows we've all shared some good times. The next morning I woke up the proud new owner of a set of bookshelves and a strobe light.

Note to self: Grosse Resevoir.

-splish splash, neph-