spilling my guts

What does every kid dream of doing when they get their fist box of legos? Growing up and still building legos, professionally. Here's an ex-lawyer who did just that. His works are currently on tour accross the U.S. this summer. Be sure to check out the full article and photo gallery over here.

there goes the neighborhood

Had a nice and relaxing memorial day weekend. Kicked it off friday night by watching some 'blockbuster' movies at home. Not too thought provoking, but entertaining enough, such as comic book & video game character based fair. Headed over to j&d's new hut saturday. Prior to moving in they are redoing the floors and painting. So they got a keg and people came & went. They've got a slammin backyard, so we pretty much camped out there all weekend. It was actually kind of like camping too, we grilled all of our food, and even slept on air mattresses. I wasn't much for painting, but I mowed the lawn, cleaned the skylight, and provided some dinner as my helpful contributions. During the day saturday I got in a hike over the upper sanitas trail, and sunday steph & I headed up chataqua. Monday, stephanie ran the bolder boulder so I went down to the stadium to watch her triumphant finish. There were 50,000 registered runners this year & that many more spectators all over the place which made for a festive memorial day capped off by the star wars legacy special on the history channel.

charles nelson reilly lives on in pill form

Hey Gang! It’s me… Charles Nelson Pilly. I took off my ascot for you, and my pink cotton candy brain is sizing you up.


*originally appeared at the beach in march 2006

new & improved reviews

>>Now you can clicky on the album cover to head over to the bands' myspace pages and listen to selected tracks!

chemical brothers - We Are the Night: Most consistently solid release from the brothers chem since Exit Planet Dust. Even with the inclusion of the requisite quest vocalists from british bands du jour such as the Klaxons and Midlake, they fit right in with the album's homage to the wildly infectious frenchy house vibe of late. And even their fascination with washed up mid-90's intelligent rappers has paid off. Instead of Push the Button's disastrously annoying Q-Tip track, 'galvanize', that keeps popping up in budweiser adverts, we have former Pharcyde friend, Fatlip, singing a duet with a salmon which turns out to be a surprise highlight this time around. I wish, I wish I were a fish.



dj mehdi - Lucky Boy at Night: Ed Banger Records protege serves up a full length worthy of a long night out getting sweaty avec tout les mademoiselles belles a la discotheque.



satellite party - Ultra Payloaded: Perry's genius has obviously been waning for some time now, essentially since the wildly underrated Porno for Pyros days, but he still provides us with a good time, if nothing nothing more profound, on this latest release on which he teams with nuno bettencourt on guitron, peter hook on basstron, his wife and jane's dancer ELF on backing vox, guest turns from flea, frusciante, fergie, hybrid, and even the ghost of jim morrison. Two of these song previously appeared on the last Hybrid album, I Choose noise, in slightly more electronic forms, and one was originally on the Thievery Corporation remix disc, Versions. And if you're so inclined, you can join in all the spontaneity and unbridled fun of a flash mob this sunday, May 27 from 2-6 PM. Lat: 33:59:23N (33.9897), Lon: 118:27:39W (-118.461).



new young pony club - Fantastic Playroom: Just when you thought you'd heard the last 'ice cream' remix, along came another, just as good. What you were really waiting for, however, was the some new songs. Well here they are, and just as good as their predecessor. Check out 'hiding on the staircase'. It's thhhhhe sound.



spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga: Wtf - Someone please remind me why these guys are popular? Unimaginative luke warm watered down indie drivel sells, I guess. It's like listening to a KBCO select-a-set picked out by a lonely cougar on the prowl.

parklife

Went to see spidey 3 on a whim friday night. It was decent. I caught the early show, came home then hit the hay. I was tired from a dinner party over at the evergreens the night before.

Saturday we headed to nobo park where we stumbled upon a day long criterion bike race whose route just so happened to go round and round the park. So our plan of grilling out and playing bocce just got more festive.



It was a real technical course for the bikers, lots of sharp turns. We saw one nice wipe out where two guys got tangled up in each other, then hit a tree. One guys bike had taco wheel, and the other wound up on top of a white picket fence. Neither rider was hurt. An acquaintance, Kieth Fowler was a repeat victor this year.



We were there pretty much all day, and even held on for a few more hours after dylan accidentally kicked off his flip flop right into jacq's nose causing blood to splatter everywhere. Truly a sight. Here's a picture of us being ferocious:



After the festivities died down, we headed over to the mountain sun for a rambunctious dinner. Sunday was lazy, watched Alpha Dog which was surprisingly good before finally catching the red sox triumph over the braves after a lengthy rain delay. I don't get to watch sawx games often since I'm way out of market. I was additionally thwarted twice last week when two other nationally televised games were rained out. After some handy work with my drill over at steph's I called it a night.

coming june 8th

monolith

Colorado finally gets its very own non-jam band festival, the Monolith, occurring Sep 14 & 15 at red rocks. Here's the line-up:

do it like jennifer love hewitt

*I couldn't resist - the quote is from mike doughty during a soul coughing show at the masquerade years back and I think it pairs up rather well with perez hilton's juvenile doodles. Love it.

help save internet radio

Unless senatorial bills pass prior to July 15, internet radio station's will see their required royalty pay out rates increase to unfiscally feasible levels, putting an end to many of the smaller, commercial free sites. I am lucky enough to live in a city with a decent terrestrial college run station, but just knowing that options will become more limited sucks, because every once in a while I do check out soma.fm for some chill grooves, and my hometown Radio 1190 is also simulcast online.

Support independent internet radio!

look on the mr. brightside

The Killers walked offstage during their sold out concert at red rocks last night, because Brandon Flowers was suffering from a throat injury. The band took to the stage around 10pm but Flowers led his bandmates off midway through the second song. A doctor then went onstage and told the audience it would be damaging to Flowers' voice to carry on singing. Drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr promised disappointed fans the band would return to perform there (news, video). Which is cool because just yesterday jacq & I were bummed that we weren't going. Now we are all gung ho to get on that make-up show so we can sing along to mr. brightside with all of the lights and such so there you go.

week at a glance (updated)

Went and saw Tapes n' Tapes last wednesday at the bluebird. I was always on the fence about these guys. Their cd was decent but I always forgot who I was listening to, as they sound like a lot of other bands - the Archie Bronson Outfit & Modest Mouse both come to mind. They sold me with the live show, very energetic and it kind of helped putting a face to the music. Half the set was comprised of brand new material and they played my fave, 'insitor'.



Friday was graduation for the CU kiddies, and pearl street was mobbed. We grabbed some dinner at chipotle after I got a run in. Called it an early night. The next morning I met up with j&d to help jean move out of her pad in denver. We had lunch at a well known cougar den and even spotted one in heat (pix coming soon - they are WAY too funny). Headed back to the evergreens and caught a really funny SNL with molly shannon as the host, then headed to the dark horse to catch joaquin's new band, the bronz, tear it up. I'd never been there before and they have some really crazy stuff going on in regards to decoration, all very layered. As promised, here's the pic:



Up bright and early for a mother's day hike with the fam to brainard lake. We always have some sort of adverse weather impeding our hikes there, but we made it this time, only having to deal with several feet of snow covering most of the road. Nothing we could hike right on over though. After our hike we headed back to hillside for a bbq which included a haphazard badminton game with a garden hose for a net, and a squash & tennis racket rounding out the other 2 raquets.

Monday's bike ride was thwarted due to a major hailstorm. Last night steph & I headed to red rocks to see bjork perfom. The weather behaved and although overcast all day, we did not get rained on. Joanna Newsom, a harpist channeling a bard from D&D opened the show. The stage was all done up with flags and everything was very vibrantly colored. The back up musicians included an all female ten piece brass band dressed in different neon colored jumpers with a hula hoop inside and a flag attahced to their backs making them look like oompa loompas, a keyboardist, the electonic duo matmos, and the lengendary mark bell of LFO fame. There were also three larage lcd monitors position on stage in front of each of the electronic musicians gear which displayed their knob twiddling - a nice effect I must say. Curious instrument/computer device of the night was the round trampoline/drum looking touch screen that had controls that seemed to emmulate what video pool looks like. It seemed as if it was used to manipulate & trigger drum loops. Overall it was a great performance, a bit livelier than her last red rocks appearaance which featured a string ensemble as opposed to the more upbeat brass section. The newer material was also more effective in this setting. Here's the setlist and some grainy camera phone shots from our 16th row seats:

Earth Intruders
Venus As A Boy
Aurora
Dull Flame Of Desire
All Is Full Of Love
Pleasure Is All Mine
Vökuró
Jóga
I Miss You
Army Of Me
Innocence
Wanderlust
Immature
5 Years
Hyperballad
Pluto
Oceania
Declare Independence

good riddance

1933-2007

pole position

Maybe for next season...

reviewsday

voxtrot - s/t: This highly anticipated debut bored me almost as much as the recent Ted Leo disc. Warning - No Diving, there's absolutely no depth.

handsome furs - Plague Park: This is one of the dudes from Wolf Parade (not the one in Swan Lake & Frog Eyes) and some lady whose origins escape me, his girlfriend maybe? I don't know. A stripped down offering with guitar, synth, and an occasional drum machine this hovers in the land of sounding like Wolf Parade's 'dinnerbells'.

bjork - volta: Not the 'return to form' I'd hoped for ('form' for me being Post), but it's still another eclectically unique bjork offering which will thrill fans, while not likely converting any new ones. One major pinched nose to the duets with Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) cuz they stink.

dungen - Tio Batir: Great distorted psychedelic rock sung in some scandinavian language.

jt donaldson - Franchise Player 01: Bumpin' tech house from the first installment in what implies at being a series.

om miami 2007: Round 2 of the 'miami' series provides more sunshiney, funky, and vocally house as mixed by label owner Rob G.

ben watt - Buzzin' Fly 4: Post Everything But the Girl dj/producer returns with more deep house bookended by some techier dub fair in this consistently pleasing series.

beastie mysterie

The beastie boys are slowly unveiling pieces of a new video from their upcoming all-instrumental release. There are 3 parts posted so far, with a new clip promised each day. So far it's a cloak & dagger type story going on, and the musical grooves are just that - groovy.

lockdown!

Getting to work was a pain this morning, I kept trying to head east but all the roads were blocked due to a major lockdown at Boulder High.

who needs glasses

I cannot wait to get one of these new fangled 3D printers. Imagine emailing your pals blueprints of nifty objects then printing them out - the fun would never stop. Or more practically it would enable artists to provide downloadable sculptures or instant replacement parts to various items direct from the manufacturer - this is way cool.



Here's how it works:





Plenty more info can be found in this article.

nectar of the gods

Had a casual dinner over at the evergreens on friday and watched the good shepherd which was pretty good, as I generally enjoy espionage related fair.

Saturday I got caught up in kentucky derby excitement on espn. So much so that I was inspired to go buy ingredients for whiskey sours, but when I returned, kentucky derby coverage was no longer on espn, so I assumed I had missed the race when in fact coverage switched to the networks. Oh well, GW was on his way into town for one last hurrah prior to heading off to the northeast. After enjoying kentucky derbiesque bevies, we headed to the mountain sun with stephanie for some dinner. We'd been kind of toying with the idea of checking out bassnectar at the fox, and since there really wasn't much else to do on account of the rain, we decided to go.

We headed over when the doors opened to make sure we got some tix. We were way early, and there was some beat up looking chick doing a human beat box on stage with an acoustic guitar to a room of about 15 people including ourselves. We were momentarily worried this may have been a bust. However, we persevered for a bit while it started to fill up and J. Boogie started to spin some reggae, downtempo & hip hop material. The now sold out crowd was already getting hectic as Bassnectar took the stage with his big breaky beats, and then it got nuts - everyone was dancing and the vibe was infectious. Mr. Nectar sure knew how to work the crowd, and boy did he have some crazy long hair. Later on after the sound stopped briefly for whatever reason, he remarked how the other night something similar had happened because his hair got caught in the crossfader. Good thing he was using cdjs. After the show we headed back to my place and attempted to watch reuben & ed but everyone fell asleep.


(bassnectar is the guy on stage in red with hair covering his face)

Sunday was a lazy day, jacq & dylan dropped by after a hike then had some dinner back over at the evergreens. managed to watch the second half of the SNL in the 90's special. I wonder if they put that on to drum up interest in the show's extremely lackluster performances of late? Party on wayne. Party on garth.

den master

picture pages

Sally was in town this weekend visiting her boyfriend, and we had the pleasure of syncing up down on pearl early saturday afternoon. Later that evening we found ourselves in the denver highlands at gw's going away bbq kegger. Lawn games included, but were not necessarily limited to, bocce, 4-square, and cornhole.







The next morning we found ourselves back in denver for a family brunch at le central for j&d's b-days before an encore meet up at the rockies v. braves game. Highlights included an unassisted triple play and a walk off homer in the 11th inning, both courtesy of the home team.







Went for a run monday then steph came over to watch heroes since their cable was not up at th enew pad yet. Tuesday was a veg day. Went for a hilly bike ride wednesday then checked out the former edgewood ladies' new hut at the evergreens. Tonight I veg.

fatboy dynamite

It just dawned on me that the napolean dynamite character is immensely inspired by, if not straight up lifted from, spike jonze's character from the fatboy slim video he did for praise you. See for yourself: