adrian is rad

Just a quick reminder that the the cover for covers contest #11, continuous hit music is due next Monday at midnight.

Get yours done now, or get psyched to hear a new set of covers.

I’m going to do a radio show of good Christmas music for my last show before Christmas, December 22, 6-9am.

I’m looking for suggestions for songs or albums. Requirements: Christmas songs, mentions Christmas, otherwise appropriately themed. Genre’s not as important, but it’ll mostly be rock.

So far, my list looks something like:

• “Christmas Card” Jimmy Eat World
• Sufjan Steven Christmas EPs
• the Motown Christmas album
• the Phil Spector Christmas Album
• the Low Christmas EP
• the Pedro the Lion Christmas 7″’s (I have one and I’ll hopefully get the new one at the David Bazan concert on Sunday)
• “Brick” by Ben Folds Five
• “Happy Xmas (The War is Over)” Polyphonic Spree version
• Alfred Reed’s Russian Christmas Music (likely the recording by USC HS, ha!)
• “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Death Cab for Cutie
• “Christmas Song” by Mogwai
• the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas Music (like just “Skating”)
• “Run Away with Me” Jens Lekman

Any other suggestions? In this case it’s equally important that it be “good” and “Christmas.”

I did an awesome Thanksgiving day show with my mom. The playlist had a ton of Motown and oldies music and we talked about our thanksgiving and read some of our recipes that we always use.

This week I’m back to normal—the Lunch Special with a guest (George Houle from the Music Dept.) Tuesday noon-1 and indie rock on Thursday morning.

[Update:] Jesse’s nice and has offered to host the mp3 of the Thanksgiving show. It is here. I’ll only leave it up for about a week or two. It’s a big file, approx 218 MB.

So I changed the theme around a bit so now it has a picture I took and says “adrian is rad” now.

I’m going to change the stuff around on the left side to be more user-friendly and sometime when I have time I might make it so that the “polaroid” is different every time you load the page.

Yeah, so I upgraded to wordpress version 1.5.x today. Turns out that my nice fence stylesheet thing doesn’t immediately work with the new ‘theme’ thing WP has and my attempts to convert it have thusfar failed.

So I have this theme that I like in general but of course the specifics won’t work at all. I’ll probably be changing and redoing it over the next few days. Does it totally suck?

In other news, users of WP 1.5, what are good/ necessary plug ins?

In Pittsburgh, Eat ‘n Park is a family restaurant chain. They have and are well-known for their Smiley Cookies. These things have been around for years and years. People will quite often buy them to go or get one after they finish their meal.

My friend Dave was at another Pittsburgh family restaurant chain, King’s and he tells me they’ve introduced the Frownie which you may guess is a brownie with a frowning face on it.

He also tells me that they have Frownie shirts for sale. I am definitely going to have to pick one of those up while I’m in Pittsburgh because that item is so very Pittsburgh it’s rediculous. People are going to ask what the shirt is about and it’s going to take 10 minutes for me to explain!

I went amish style for a bit. I shaved shortly after taking this picture last night:

That is all.

There was this girl I had a crush on for most of Spring 2003. We went to concerts together. I made her a mixtape, because we all know that mixtape=love (these guys think so too).

I found a copy I’d made yesterday while organizing my CDs. I’d forgotten about it completely but now I’m listening to it at work. I probably made this early May 2003.

The tracklist:

1. Lion’s Mane - Iron and Wine
2. Ohio - Damien Jurado
3. New Partner - Palace Brothers
4. Accident - Clem Snide
5. I See a Darkness - Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
6. Most of October, All of November - P:ano
7. Silvery Light of a Dream, Pt II - the Apples in stereo
8. If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart - Beulah
9. Hideaway - Olivia Tremor Control
10. A Duel Will Settle This - Mates of State
11. Sleep the Clock Around - Belle & Sebastian
12. Summer is Coming - Matt Pond PA
13. Away, Into the Light - One AM Radio
14. Who Am I? - Seldom
15. Bad Diary Days - Pedro the Lion
16. No Solid Ground - ms. john soda
17. This Place is a Prison - The Postal Service
18. Consequence - The Notwist
19. Ruby’s Wishes - Unwed Sailor
20. Stanley Kubrick - Mogwai

It’s a nice mix of songs. I still listen to and like most of these songs and bands quite a bit.

I made it on a friend’s computer because I didn’t have a laptop yet so I copied all the songs to the computer individually and then made the CD from that. She loved it; she bought three CDs of bands on the CD within a week because she liked them so much.

She was not smitten with me, though.

I watched Raging Bull from Netflix on Friday and Jarhead yesterday.

I don’t quite remember why I put Raging Bull on my netflix queue. It’s apparently one of the best sports movies and best all around movies ever. Robert De Niro plays real life boxer Jack La Motta and Martin Scorsese directs. It was well-acted and directed well, but it just never engaged me.

Jarhead, on the other hand, I found engaging from just about minute one. It’s about a kid of 20, “Swoff”, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who has entered the Marine, trains as a sniper and goes to the Middle East in the first Gulf War conflict. There’s something about the characters that one can relate to.* In a way it’s not that political, echoing what one character says: “Fuck politics. We’re here [at war]. All the rest is bullshit.” It’s not the best movie ever, but I thought the direction (by Sam Mendes, who did American Beauty and Road to Perdition) was good, some great visuals. The acting by the principles was solid across the board and Peter Sargaard, I thought, put in a stand out perforamance as the guy who takes Jake’s character under his wing. Some war movies are all about the plot, the mission (the Great Escape, Saving Private Ryan), and some more about the psyche and the aftermath of war (Apocalyspe Now, for example). This one was more toward the later, but had enough of the former that it kept moving.

*I should note that I’ve always had a slight thing for the military. I even briefly thought about going to the Naval Academy… I certainly don’t like all or even most war movies, though.

I still buy lots of CDs, despite the fact that it’s soooo 90s. I bought one of those 128 CD cases today and transfered all the CDs I’ve bought since I moved out here into it (plus a couple from before when I moved). Turns out it almostly exactly filled the booklet.

There were a number of CDs I’d forgotten that I had and at least a few that I know I have but can’t find:

• Ghost of Great Highway by Sun Kil Moon found it!
• Emblems by Matt Pond PA
• Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens (the case is here but the CD is not!)

Can anyone take a picture or tell me what is on the CD itself for Seven Swans?

Steelers lost to the 2-7 Ravens to drop to 7-3 (which is still tied for lead in their division).

Interestingly, all of their losses have come in overtime.

Maddox, their 3rd string QB, actually did okay—for a while there he seemed to missing every receiver he threw to, but he and the team seemed to refocus in the 4th quarter to tie the game.

I have a little bit of a pit in my stomach when I think about the Colts (10-0) game next week on Monday Night Football. The Steelers haven’t really come up big in the tough games since last year’s regular season victory over the Patriots.

sunday to saturday:

• 1x 2.6 mile run
• 2x 2.1 mile run
• 2x 1.9 mile walks (to, from work)
• 2x 0.5 mile swim

also: lots of heavy lifting and moving at work.

I am finally having the opportunity to write up the John Vanderslice (the nicest guy in indie rock) at the Independent a week and a half ago.

When JV was on my radio show in August, he said he’d put me on the guestlist (plus a guest nogal!) if I emailed him about a week before the show. I did and he did. (He also sent me Pixel Revolt following the show, so I figure I owe him at least $30 for the tickets and that.)

I went down with Bokoch and Tom-I-guess-his-name was (a friend of Mike’s). We drove around for a while looking for parking (which always happens when I go to the Independent). We wanted to have some dinner right near the club and we found Brother-in-Law’s BBQ #2. They were out of brisket and some other stuff, but we got the ribs and they turned out to be good. It’s a very no-nonsense type of place, which I liked. I’d recommend it if you’re down in that area. I gave Gumbeaux a call as we headed over to the Independent and he met us there. We met a couple nice people in line because we had some extra tickets (Gums and Bokoch both bought tickets (Bokoch three) and I had my extra) so we gave our tickets to them and they bought us beers. Not a bad trade…

I’m not going to waste any writing on the openers, just to say that they were something to bare rather than enjoy. I had seen John Vanderslice before, but only as an opener for Pedro the Lion and, of course, solo on my radio show. This was my first time seeing him for his band and since I bought albums and became familiar with some of his music.

(Before JV even came on, I saw that Ian Bjornstad would be playing a converted Wurlitzer 206A with the top removed from the base. After the show I saw him outside of the club and as I was walking past I pointed to him and said “Nice 206A!” He laughed.)

JV and co. (they were calling themselves John Vanderslice and the Photographs for this tour) went only pretty late, I guess close to 11:40. I was a bit restless by then, but the music settled me down pretty quickly. One thing that I noticed immediately was how good it sounded, which other people have noted. He toured with his own sound engineer and religiously does sound checks at every venue. They were also finishing up a 20-some date tour so they were really tight. JV and the rest seemed to be just so happy to be home. Dave Broecker, the bass player, sang harmonies and was spot on in both pitch and matching JV’s voice. It basically sounded like JV was doing his own harmonies. Matt Cunitz who plays a lot of the crazy keyboards like mellotron and celeste on JV’s records was not touring with the band, but brought a few keyboards and played with them for the night.

They played a marathon set. Not Bruce Springsteen-marathon, but 24 or so songs and 1.5 hours. JV announced quite a bit through the set that he didn’t like encores so he was just going to play every song the band new and then stop playing. They played a wide range of songs, but a lot from the last two, so I was familiar with most of them. I’m having a hard time at this point recalling which were my favorites of the night. He didn’t play what are quite possibly my two favorites from Pixel Revolt, which are “Peacocks in a Video Rain” and “Dead Slate Pacific.” That might be the only negative point of the whole night.

Besides the concert being awesome the big bonus for the night was that they were recording the show that night and that it’d be up on JV’s site sometime in December. I’ll link to it once it’s posted.

My friend Jon is looking at buying some NYC subway memorabilia in the near future. There are some neat signs. Apparently there are high minimums and processing fees, however. If you’re interested in some stuff I can put you in touch with him.

I was struck today by how Zulu has the best greetings of any language.

Particularly (and their translations):
Sowubona - I see you (used as “hello”)
Hamba kahle - Go well (as “goodbye”)
Sala kahle - Stay well (as “goodbye”)

I guess “God be with ye” which is what “goodbye” came from is alright, but there’s some thing so simple and elegant, yet personal about the Zulu greetings.

I’m pretty amused that there’s a wikipedia entry for “Pittsburgh left”.

Unfortunately it’s not particularly well-explained exactly what it is. This is a particularity of Pittsburgh driving when there’s an intersection with no left-turn arrow. After the lights turn green, the car going straight yields as (usually just) the first car turns left.

There’s one particular intersection I remember where the Pittsburgh left is absolutely critical. It’s when one is turning from Washington Ave. onto Station St. in Bridgeville. There’s always a steady stream of cars down Washington Ave. and no left turn arrow so you’ll just sit there forever if you don’t execute the Pittsburgh left.

As I announced a couple weeks ago, we are restarting the covers contest. Today the first entries are in.

This week’s cover was Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson (Original).

The entries:

• Adrian
• Dave

(Andy’s may come later.)

I found this a pretty challenging song to do a cover of. Basically what I found I had to do was listen to it a few times and then not think about it for about a week and a half and then record my version.

After you’ve listened, please vote for the best and most original cover versions.

Update: Andy’s announced the next song, for cover’s contest #11. It’s Continuous Hit Music by American Analog Set (Original). Because of the Thanksgiving holiday, we’ll have three weeks for this so entries will be due December 6, 2005.

I noticed on John Vanderslice’s tour schedule that he was playing at the “Kraftbrau Brewery” in Michigan. This is funny. It’s is obviously trying to be a clever reference to craft brews and German beer. It fails on a couple accounts. Kraft means “power,” “force” or “potency.” Brau means nothing, but braeu, usually spelled bräu means brew. (To their defense it does say Kraftbräu on their frontpage.) So Kraftbräu Brewery means something like Power Brew Brewery.

The funniest thing I ever heard of in terms of misusing words was a place my friend Colin saw in Wisconsin called das Gifthaus (he had a picture to prove it.) Gift means “poison” so this was a “poison house.” Not exactly what they meant, I would assume.

Sometimes it is made obvious that my daily trials and tribulations are trivial.

Some days the sunset is just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

From Saturday to Saturday here is how I accelerated my heartbeat:

• 3x 2.6 mile runs
• 2x 2.0 mile runs
• 1x 0.5 mile swim (freestyle)
• 2x 2.0 mile walks (to, from walk)
• 1x 15 mile bike (with ~1500ft elevation gain)

I really hate running.

I also got stung by a bee on my finger on Thursday. It is still swollen.

I shaved my week-old scruff into a chin strap or, as I like to call it, a moses (or amish) beard.

I’ll likely keep it for a day (as part of the beard for a day program) or maybe maybe a week. There’s talk and negotiations involving andyl paying me the sum of $20 to keep it for a week, but we’ve currently stalled at $18.

The first hot Thursday was a rousing success. Absolutely fantastic!

We got it baking up to like 74 degrees. I think we’re going to start heating in the morning next week, but this was still luxurious.

I’m on the radio. I have a playlist and a link for you with which you may listen to the radio station on the internet.

So I finally put a new head (Remo Renaissance) on my strange-sized banjo (11 1/8″ medium crown, a 11 3/16″ would probably have fit slightly better). I put the bridge and strings on and tuned it up and it sounds pretty good. It’s not all that loud though and the bridge looks like it’s sagging in the middle a bit. I’m thinking I haven’t tensioned the head enough. How do I know how much to tension the head? Tarky? Andy? Jesse? Anyone else? Also, is it safe to just tune the strings down a bunch and then tension the head more or should I take the strings and bridge off first?

Charlie Batch, the Steeler’s 3rd string quarterback, was 9/16 for 65 yards. Brett Favre was 20/35 for 214 yards. The Steelers won.

Oh snap, Brett Favre!

Me and the roomies have decided we’re going to try not heating our house in order to save money on the utilities and to just be badass like that.

But, in order to give us a break and something to look forward to, we’re going to heat one day a week. Behold Hot Thursdays.

I can’t wait till Hot Thursday. It’s freezing in here.

Now that I’m catching up on all these posts, I’ll write about a couple movies I’ve seen in the last couple weeks that I had things to say about.

Rize is a documentary chronicling an inner city art (reminding me of Freestyle: the Art of Rhyme in that matter). This documents the rise of the “clowning” and “krumping” dance styles. These are amazingly fast moving dance styles. They’re hard to describe. The filming was mostly of pretty low production value, but in sort of an intimate way. There’s one section that filmed in gorgeous and very vivid color that’s just breathtaking for that but the rest is amazing for this dancing. It’s definitely worthwhile.

I saw The Weather Man last night with Andy. It’s a story of a weather man trying to juggle his career and family—his separated wife/ divorced (?) and kids. It’s about more than that as well. He’s a weather man; not a meterologist, just a weather man. This is the sort of movie I would expect to see in art house movie theaters, but it’s in major theaters and getting a good amount of promotion. It’s a subtle movie in some ways; it’s fairly slow paced and it’s not spelled out how you should feel for all the characters. Even the characters you like have visible flaws. It’s also funny in parts. Nicholas Cage is good in the lead and indie stalwart Hope Davis plays his ex. I’m not divorced or forty or a weather man but I related to Cage’s character some in the ways he is frustrated with life and figuring out how to live it.

In overly personal news, I noticed today on someone-that-I-don’t-talk-to-much’s away message that the first girl I had a crush on got married today.

I didn’t really have a crush on a girl until into high school. So if you’re keeping track, crush 1 is now married. I think I heard that crush 2 is married/ engaged. Crush 3 has a 3 year old daughter but isn’t married and crush four was engaged as of around this time last year, so she’s probably married by now. It’s harder to keep track to the crushes (the numbers) after that.

After the “Cog” Honda commercial, I thought the brits had the upper hand in the CGI-free commercial realm, but now I’m convinced.

Sony Europe recently filmed a commercial on the streets of San Francisco which involved dropping 250,000 rubber balls down Filbert and Leavenworth streets. You can gorgeous commercial or you can watch various videos about the making of the video.

If you’re curious about the music, it’s a cover of the song “Heartbeats,” by Jose Gonzalez, originally by Swedish duo The Knife.

Over the weekend I went to two concerts in as many days. I was going to make it three concerts (at three venues) in four days by going to see the Rachel’s at Great American Tuesday night, but I am sick so I gave it a skip.

Saturday was Jens Lekman at The Rickshaw Stop. It was my first trip to the Rickshaw Stop. Right around the corner from the Opera House, the facade is not marked as the Rickshaw Stop and if I had not known where to look, I probably wouldn’t have found it. Inside it’s a fairly small space with high ceilings and a two-level balacony/ mezzanine level in the back. There are, aptly, three or four rickshaws which you can sit in around the place in addition to a number of chairs and couches.

Nedelle from Oakland, was touring with and opened for Jens. She plays nylon-string (classical) guitar and sings. The guitar style is fingerpicked, mostly folky or poppy but sometimes with some pretty jazzy chord changes. Because of the very clear sound of her guitar and her voice, I was reminded a bit of Joanna Newsome, but without the annoying. Her songs were pleasant enough, but what really won me over was when she introduced Smokey Robinson song—”The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game”, recorded by the Marvelettes—and invited us to clap along rhythmically (not just on the downbeats) during the chorus.

Jens and his band played/ sang on a few of Nedelle’s songs. After about a fifteen minute break, they came on for their own set. Jens played mostly guitar and his band added cello, violin, bass guitar, drums and keyboard. Nedelle also added guitar and harmony to some songs. Jens is a Swede and apparently he’s been to #2 on the Swedish pop charts, so he’s a genuine pop star over there. He’s got a wonderful baritone voice (that often gets him compared to Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields) and an often-over-the-top pop songwriting style that just makes me smile. He often samples obscure records that he finds at rummage sales.

Jens Lekman - Black Cab
Jens Lekman - Maple Leaves
Jens Lekman - The Opposite of Hallelujah [I’m hosting this one so I’ll probably only leave it up for a week or so. Download now if you want it.]

I’ve linked mostly upbeat over-the-top pop numbers here but he has his share of softer/ sadder songs too.

Anyway back to the show. They started out with a song that had the lyrics “We’re all going to die/ We’re all going to die/ Don’t know how/ Don’t know why” repeated. Rather than be some dirge or sad song The whole group was singing this joyfully and Jens was marching around the stage and blowing a whistle between songs. There were points when Jens would unplug his ukulele and walk out to the edge of the stage to sing without amplification, accompaniment or a microphone. He did this for “Julia” and “A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill.” During the encore he was playing a song on just uke and walked through the audience to one of the couches in the back and stood on it while continuing his song. He stopped right before one of the verses and asked if he could stand on the table in front of the couch. When someone shouted yes, he got onto the table and finished his song. He told funny stories, for example about he and a friend wanting to buy a small Swedish village. I really liked “The Opposite of Hallelujah.” They could sing the chorus from that all night long, for all I am concerned. The encore closed with an amazingly tender version of “Cold Swedish Winter” with Jens playing what he called a kalimba (but what looked more like an mbira to me) accompanied by bass, cello and violin.

Jens is swell. This new collection of songs he put out You’re So Silent Jens has a few EPs on it plus some of the album tracks. I’d recommend it.

On Sunday I saw American Analog Set at the Bottom of the Hill. This is apparently their last tour.

Gumbeaux and I got there in time for the first opening band. They were fine, but I really wish we hadn’t; my back hurt a ton by 12:30am or whenever the concert finished. The second opening band was sort of boring. In the mean time I picked up the new AmAnSet CD and another poster by Jason at The Small Stakes (it’s currently the first on the page— the safety pin holding the two hearts together).

I’d seen AmAnSet a couple years ago at TT the Bears but had forgotten most of the details of the performance. The set was really solid of course, with a nice selection of songs. They did nice versions of “The Postman”, “Hard to Find” and (as an encore) “Punk as Fuck.” Andrew Kenney seemed really nice, responding to people shouting out from the audience and making a point of telling the first opening band that they did a good set and that they should find him after the show.

American Analog Set - Hard to Find

I was called for jury duty so a sub is filling in for my radio show tomorrow (Thursday). You may listen anyway, but it won’t be me.

That’s right, it’s a return of the cover’s contest, with some slight changes.

A reminder of the rules and the changes thereto:

1. Andy, Dave or I are the lead for the week. The lead picks the song to cover for the week. The lead rotates every week.
2. Anyone may submit covers. They are due two weeks after the start of the contest. (Note the change!)
3. There will be voting each week on the best cover and most original covers for the week.

The idea behind having two weeks to do covers isn’t, in my mind, really to spend more time on the cover, but to have more time for other things.

I also want to have a little bit each week about why the lead has chosen that song.

And now, the cover for contest #10
This week’s song is Smooth Criminal by Michael Jackson (Original).

What Adrian has to say about Smooth Criminal:

I know this song so well and I’ve heard it so many times and yet I don’t know it at all. My understanding of the lyrics is completely wrong.

Submissions for this contest will be due by midnight (local time) Monday, Nov. 14.

I was in the City yesterday hanging with Gumbeaux near the Haight so I went to Amoeba and got a few CDs:

• Iron & Wine and Calexico In the Reins
• Stubbs the Zombie [Soundtrack] bunch of indie and mainstream bands doing covers of 50s songs for a video game soundtrack
• Low and the Dirty Three In the Fishtank
• Sigur Ros Takk
• Matt Pond PA Several Arrows Later

I should probably not buy any more CDs for a while…

I’m a bit sick. Both of my roommates were sick last week and now I am. I thought I could squeeze by without getting what they had but the late night/ early morning today was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m going to go to sleep in a minute here.

The Steelers just squeeked out a win over the Ravens. They really need to stop taking these games to the final minute/ seconds like that. It’s not good for my heart.

I went to two concerts this weekend: Jens Lekman at the Rickshaw Stop on Saturday and the American Analog Set at Bottom of the Hill. Both really quite good shows. I’m going to write a post about them when I don’t really need to get some sleep and get not-sick.

You may leave your comments proclaiming your undying love for me. Also (if you’re female) you may leave your email address or other contact information. (If you’re male) you may leave contact information of available female friends.