adrian is rad

Only marginally late with this one.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008may playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one was pretty easy to put together–just sort of made sense. There’s a number of soul tracks I’ve been enjoying by people like Sam Cooke and Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd St. Band. There’s also a handful of indie tunes from old favorites (Low, Mogwai), newish favorites (Fanfarlo, the Morning Benders) and a few that are pretty new to me (Lykke Li). Enjoy!

Adrian’s May 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”

Apparently, my mixtapes come out every month. This is what I’m told, at least. Oops. I’m finding it hard to get these together in a month.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008march-april playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one was a long one in coming. I’ve listened to it a lot of times and I like it. There’s a mix of local (the Dodos, the Botticellis, Speakers), national (Deer Tick, Unwed Sailor) and international (Adem, the Rational Academy) bands.

Adrian’s March-April 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

1. Coronado, a beach near the Hotel Del. Mid-afternoon. Walking across that area of sand that’s firm because water has run over it recently and dipping my fingers into the chilly Pacific and pondering aloud if the military planes roaring overhead on their way to the base were Harriers. I don’t think they are.

2. A bar in South Park. Night time. Between local bands giving it their all on a small stage in the dark club and packed in among the local young hipster population, discussing merits of a variety of many recent bands on the scene with a new friend.

3. Balboa Park, near the Moreton Bay Fig. Late afternoon. Lying on my back on the slightly damp grass, staring up at the deeply saturated sky, talking about finances and how it’s strange to be an adult with an old friend.

Here’s my show today if you want to listen.

I Once was Canadian - 4-15-08(mp3)

And here’s the playlist.

My radio show has now been scheduled for Tuesdays 3-5pm PST, that’s 6-8pm Eastern.

You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

Also of note: those streams have been updated so that you should be able to listen from behind firewalls and the such. Try them again if you haven’t in a while.

I just got back from “South by” as some (silly) people call it.

I saw around 38 bands in 5 days. It was pretty crazy. Some amazing stuff (like J Tillman (listen in, Tarky!), Two Sheds, and Fanfarlo) and some not so great stuff, but overall I was pretty thrilled with the stuff I saw.

But it got me thinking about music. I mean, even moreso than normal. After all, I had five days to basically only think about music. Here are some thoughts:

• label: seeing so many great bands that are unsigned or not signed in America got me thinking that maybe I should start a label. I don’t know the second thing about starting a label, though–I know the first thing, the first thing is that it’s a time and money sink–so I’ll need to talk to some people and get a better idea of what’s involved if I’m serious about it.
• self: I want to start recording and playing more music. I was even thinking about trying to get enough tracks together for a demo and maybe try to play a show sometimes. I don’t know what instrument I’d use. Maybe Wurly or banjo? I’m not sure. I need to get better at instruments as well.
• self, pt 2: I think I ought to get decent at trumpet again and ply my trade to the bands of SF to play for them.
• blog: I spend a whole lot of time on that thing. Is it worth it?
• presents: I should present more shows, I think. I was even thinking it’d be cool to be involved in a party/ showcase at SxSW next year. I’ll need to talk to some people about how to go about this.

I’m in Austin for SxSW. You can follow along at my other blog or my other blog’s corresponding twitter feed.

David Bazan recommended some nachos to me tonight. This is the sort of life I lead.

This is the February 2008 mixtape. It’s even almost on time!

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008february playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one is really making me smile. I’m pretty happy with it. Great local stuff by bands like Two Sheds, Geographer and the Ian Fays plus some new and old stuff by (inter)national bands like Chris Walla, Basia Bulat, Pedro the Lion and Cat Power.

Adrian’s February 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

This is the January 2008 mixtape; yup, it’s late. I took a bit of a break–there was no December 2007 one, the first one I missed since I started these in July 2006. I’m going to try to get back on track for this one.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007Jan playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. I’m liking this one. A wide range of new stuff, some oldies and some old favorites.

Adrian’s January 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

I thought I’d continue this reviewing everything while I still think it’s fun.

I like trying new candies and compact discs.

Hershey’s Kisses New York Cheesecake Flavored Creme Wrapped in Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate Wow. This is strange. Not great. Very sweet. Not enough of either flavor, really. It just ends up tasting really sweet and rather tasteless otherwise.

Snickers Dark Pretty good. Not as silky smooth as the milk chocolate version, but tastes good and has a sort of sweetness/ bite contrast to it.

Iron & Wine’s the Shepherd’s Dog Not good. Not even a shadow of his best work on Creek Drank the Cradle and Our Endless Numbered Days. Get Fionn Regan or any number of other artists instead.

Rivers Cuomo Alone I could hardly make it through this disc of demos from 1992-1997 (I think that’s the dates). Just buy the Blue Album or Pinkerton again…

I’ll be on the radio at KZSU on Tuesday mornings 6-9am (Pacific), doing my show “I Once was Canadian”, starting tomorrow.

You can listen at 90.1FM or online.

Number of days: 112

Number of days or parts thereof spent traveling: 47 (3 to/ from, 7 intra-Taiwan (3 Kaohsiung, 2 Taroko, 2 Kinmen), 37 intra-Asia (7 Indonesia, 5 Thailand; 15 Hong Kong, Macau, China; 10 Japan)

Number of countries visited (since moving): 6 (Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, U.S.) + 2 special administrative regions with separate border controls (Hong Kong, Macau)

Number of countries visited (year to date): 8 (above + South Africa, Swaziland) + 2 S.A.R.s

Number of flights (since moving): 14 (SFO-> TPE-> CKG-> DPS-> CKG-> TPE-> BKK-> TPE-> HKG-> TPE-> NRT-> TPE, TSA-> KNH-> TSA, TPE-> SFO)

Number of flights (2007): 31 (SFO-> CVG-> IAD-> JNB, DUR-> CPT-> JNB-> JFK, BOS-> JFK-> SFO-> BOS-> DFW-> SFO-> HNL-> LIH-> HNL-> SFO + above + SFO-> CLT-> DCA)

Miles flown (since moving): 27,406 miles (44,106 km)

Miles flown (2007): 63,569 miles (102,304 km)

Number of high speed train journeys: 4 (Taipei->Kaohsiung->Taipei, Tokyo->Kyoto->Tokyo)

Number of train journeys: 6 (above + Taipei->Hualien->Taipei)

Approximate number of km ridden on scooters: 225

Best hotel (overall): Kamandalu Resort, Ubud, Bali. A connection to the cousin of the owner opened the door for staying in this swanky place. Gorgeous surroundings and really nice rooms. Private verandas looking over rice paddies. The service was also excellent. We went out riding bikes around the rice paddies one day and came back sweating. Pretty soon after we entered the lobby we had cool moist towels to wipe our faces with. Perhaps the only nicer place I’ve stayed is the ridiculous Schlosshotel Veir Jahrezeiten (Four Seasons Palace Hotel) in Berlin. (They had a Ferrari convention while we were there and it didn’t seem out of place.)

Best hotel (value): Hirano Guesthouse, Kyoto. 3500 yen a night in Kyoto is very cheap and besides a nice place to stay, the owner was very friendly, helpful and accommodating, making us tea when we came home for a break in the afternoons. She also made us breakfast every morning, let us use her bicycles and computer/ internet. Oh and there was a candy bowl and after we ate an unreasonable amount of it, she didn’t complain, she just refilled it.

Number of American chain stores patronized (not counting convenience stores, exact): 3 (2 Subways-Taipei, 1 Denny’s-Kyoto)

Number of American chain stores patronized (counting convenience stores[1], approximate): 22.2 (the above + Circle K’s in Taiwan, Bali, Thailand, ampm’s in Japan, plus 0.2 for a Mister Donut in Japan[2])

Oddest food obsession: Harbo’s Happy Cola gummy candies

Most common food eaten: rice (~ >1.5 servings a day)

Most common food product eaten: Kinder Chocolate (~ 0.6 a day)

Most “exotic” foods eaten: crickets, silk worms, frog

Number of Dr. Peppers consumed: 2 (one in Japan, one in Thailand)

Foods most missed: good bread, good cheese, Dr. Pepper, good beef, shelled shrimp, deboned fish.

Number of Hello Kitty products seen: in the thousands

Number of Hello Kitty products purchased: 1 (alarm clock, convenience store, Japan)

America: so quiet, so dark, so many English speakers, so many whites/ latinos/as, blacks. big supermarkets. low population density.

Least useful piece of clothing: dress shirt (the greenish one, never worn, given away at the end)

Most useful piece of clothing: shoes (the brown Adidas, nearly daily)

Most useful piece of clothing out of its original purpose (and new use): board shorts-style swimsuit (exercise shorts)

Piece of clothing I most immediately realized I’d forgotten: navy blue cotton boxers (that I use as warm weather pajama bottoms)

Number of books read: 5.75 (2nd 0.5 of Slow Man by Coeztee, Love is a Mixtape by Sheffield, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation by Chang, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Klosterman, Born on a Blue Day By Tammet, You Don’t Love Me Yet by Lethem, first 0.25 of About a Boy by Hornsby)

Number of concerts attended: 3 (Emily the Band @ Underworld, Apples in Stereo @ the Wall, Sugar Plum Ferry @ the Wall)

Number of CDs purchased: 19 (5 in Hong Kong (Monitor), 5 @ WWR (1st trip), 5 @ WWR (2nd trip), 2 @ IMPO, 1 @ FINAC, 1 @ Roses(?))

Number of pieces of mail received: 6 (3 packages of promo CD(s); 1 each from Ian, Lauren, Gumbeaux)

[1] This is tricky because things are confusing. 7-11 is Japanese for instance.

[2] Mr. Donut is an American brand but the Asian stores are run by Duskin Co out of Japan under a licensing agreement.

This is the November 2007 mixtape. Yup, it’s December. I’m a bit late with it.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007oct playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. It’s a pretty good ones. Some indie pop, some acoustic stuff, some post rock, some glitchy stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of these songs a lot.

Adrian’s November 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

I learned on Friday about the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. Pretty much immediately after I found that some of the movies I most wanted to see (”Darjeeling Limited”, I’m Not There, Persepolis) were either sold out or at times that I couldn’t go to. Doh!

Another one that I was psyched to see (Ki-Duk Kim made the amazing “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring”) is only showing in Korean with Chinese subtitles.

However! Not all is lost. I did go to see Steve Buscemi’s Interview last night and I bought a ticket for the Sigur Ros movie. I’m still undecided about whether to see This is England or not.

I wasn’t actually expecting a ton from Interview, as it seemed like a pretentious indie two-person character piece, but it turned out to be alright. It was pretty engaging and well-written and the ending wasn’t quite what I expected.

I also found out that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is showing in at least one regular theater here (not as part of the film festival, that is) so maybe I’ll go see that in the next few weeks.

dear or, the whale t shirt,

sorry I dribbled cola on you. I am sometimes careless at ensuring all the soda goes into my mouth; this was one instance like that. I also hate to inform you of the following: you’re going to stay besmirched like that for a while. I just did laundry last night so the next cycle is probably 10, 14 days off. I’d love to wash just you, but you know how these things are: all the others would claim I’m playing favorites.

I’d like to thank you for being comfortable despite all of this.

thanks,
adrian

I will talk about things that are Japan-related and things that are not Japan related. I had dreams of more well organized posts with photos and everything, but I’ll post now with possibly expanding on some of these topics later.

My ear is feeling (ie hearing) a bit better. I’ve started listening to ear buds again in limited (very quiet) contexts. First song back: “King of Pain”.

The rest of the Japan trip was pretty good.

I mean, it was great. It’s a crazy place. One coworker said something like it’s a very odd combination of a repressed/ conservative culture and a wild/ unashamed culture. Very strange.

Some of the stranger places included the hot bath that had a mildly electrified pool, the sushi place that required you to eat at least 7 dishes (of 2 pieces a piece) of mostly sushimi in less than 20 minutes, the Diago-ji temple that had a painting that I thought was a garden; either that, or it had a garden that was completely unreal in how beautiful and archetypal it was. They were also chanting in the part of the temple that’s at the top of the hill when we got there and I could hear it from maybe half a mile off. A strange beacon.

I’m not missing Thanksgiving. I mean, I’m not attending Thanksgiving and thus am missing it but Thanksgiving is such a non-event here that the only time I even think about it is when I talk to people in America. Also, I knew from May that I wouldn’t be doing Thanksgiving this year. I love Thanksgiving, but I’m prepared.

(Did you miss the Moon Festival this year? I didn’t; I participated.)

On the other hand, the prevalence of Christmas decorations, music and colder weather in Japan made it feel like mid-December, much close to when I would be leaving for the U.S. That caused many more pangs of homesickness.

During bouts of longing for America, it seems that any culture representing that will do, possibly with even the less sophisticated being better. No, I’m not talking about fast food; I’m talking about movies. Last night, I watched Must Love Dogs without shame; tonight may be 40 Days and 40 Nights. In Germany, I remember watching (possibly multiple) Freddie Prinze Jr movies. It’s crap.

I finished Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation last week. I’m not sure, but I think it’s racist. The book draws some distinction in various situations between pro-black and anti-white, but I think this book was possibly anti-white. For instance, the nomenclature was: Black, Latino, Asian, Korean (etc etc) and white.

Now I’m on to Chuck Klosterman’s Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, which is a book of Klosterman’s ridiculous pronouncements about culture, on everything from internet pornography to NBA basketball to Billy Joel. It’s entertaining, but I think I prefer his travel narrative, Killing Yourself to Live.

Sufjan’s having a contest in which you can win rights to one if his songs if you write the best original christmas song (which he then gets the rights to). I am thinking of something along the lines of a response song to a classic 1963 Christmas song. We’ll see if I can churn something out–I need to figure out how to do the instrumentation on this–maybe FruityLoops or something. My guitar through a built-in mic isn’t going to cut it.

The Steelers loss today was almost funny. It’s almost expected, the way the Steelers manage to botch the “easy” games. None of their three losses is even marginally excusable and if some columnist says otherwise, question his ability to analyze their games. On the other hand, they’ve been great in pretty much the rest of their games.

There is a baby crying down the hall. I hope this doesn’t continue. I don’t like crying babies.

On strange candies and confectionaries. Good: the two different Chocolate Pocky’s and Men’s Pocky, those weird mushroom-shaped chocolates that are sort of like Pocky, some Mentos (Fuji Apple, particularly and the Berry Blast and Sour mixes), mint Kit Kats, all Kinder chocolates. Interesting, but not great: Green Tea Meltykiss, those white + green tea chocolates, that incompressible Mentos that might have been cherry and also the strawberry and green apple ones, the mini-hamburger chocolates. Bad: apple Kit Kats.

A couple weeks ago I went swimming. The next day my left ear felt a bit weird and my hearing felt muffled. I thought there was some water still in it. After a few days it still felt weird so I had assumed it had developed into a minor ear infection, “swimmer’s ear”.

After two weeks, I decided I should have it checked out. I’m going to be place next week where it’ll be even harder to go to a doctor, so with the help of some coworkers I went to a doctor this evening and he checked me out.

There’s no water, ear wax or ear infection in there. The doctor things it’s noise trauma. Basically (hopefully) short term partial hearing loss. (Ironically, I’d light-heartedly talked about thinking I was going deaf in my left ear because my ear buds were breaking about 3 weeks ago.) His instructions: no ear buds/ headphones and try to limit limit noise for a few days.

The short term is unpleasant: no ear buds at work (at night I can play music softly on speakers that I have) means no music and I don’t like being without music. It makes me antsy. I’m going to be on planes and trains for most of Friday, alone and that would be a particularly nice time to listen to some tunes. More than it being nice, at times I almost find it necessary. After a bad or long day, after a frustrating decision, when I need to drown out this foreign world or mitigate loneliness, music is often my first resort. It may not be the best thing to turn to but it’s certainly better than turning to the bottle. This is a bit distressing.

The longer term, the prospects, the possibilities, at least, are traumatizing. That there’s even a possibility of longer term hearing loss is scary. Music is a big part of my life and between being a college radio DJ and having a music blog it’s more like a vocation. That that might be endangered or altered permanently is not a prospect I look forward to.

Just to note, I’ve always been very careful about the volume of my music on earphones and other people who try my headphones often think I listen to music too softly. I wear ear plugs at concerts, even advocating them publicly. If there’s one probable culprit here it’s listening to music on the bus and/ or while walking along streets here. Both are quite noisy and can encourage a louder-than-healthy volume on ear buds.

I’m trying to transcribe an interview and I can’t get this right. Maybe someone can help: I’m looking for a car make or model that sounds like prevos, prevost, prebos, frebos or something like that. It’s most likely fast and expensive and probably glamorous. It would fit into this sentence:

You want to be in a Prebos* driving 150 miles per hour while people are shooting heroin.

I don’t think it’s “Enzo”–that’s too far from what it sounds like on the recording, though it does fit the description. Prevost make car carriers but not cars, from what I can tell. Anyone?

update: mp3. Listen for yourselves.

double update: from the source: Prevost, as in a motorcoach or band tour bus. I was wrong in thinking it was a fast car–just a fast tour bus I guess!

You’re probably confused. I just posted another mixtape. Originally, the September mixtape was going to be delayed and the I was going to go right to October, skipping the Sept mix entirely. Well, when I was putting together October, I had too much music, by about a factor of 2, so the September mix was back on the table, albeit ridiculously delayed.

This is the October (October.2) 2007 mixtape. It’s more toward the acoustic side of things. For the straight up indie pop, make sure you get the September mixtape.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007oct playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. I am really surprised sometimes that there is so much good music out there. It’s a mix of local and national, old favorites (Damien Jurado, Mark Eitzel) and new finds (N.Lannon, Seabear).

Adrian’s October (October.2) 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it.)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

This movie look great[1].

Here’s the soundtrack listing. Lots of Kimya Dawson and also Sonic Youth, Cat Power, and Belle & Sebastian as well as the old favorites Buddy Holly and Velvet Underground.

The song at the end of the trailer, if you were wondering, is All the Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople. Classic!

You can also check out four more clips from the movie.

[1] Hopefully it won’t be a Garden State-like great trailer, great trailer, okay movie situation.

You’re probably confused. This isn’t September. Originally, the September mixtape was going to be delayed and the I was going to go right to October, skipping the Sept mix entirely. Well, when I was putting together October, I had too much music, by about a factor of 2 [1], so the September mix was back on the table, albeit ridiculously delayed.

The October (October.2) 2007 mixtape will be posted probably Wednesday, so start listening to this one already! This one is more toward indie pop and October is more towards the acoustic.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007sept playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. I am really surprised sometimes that there is so much good music out there. Great tracks from old favs Jose Gonzalez and Jens Lekman, new tracks from relative unknowns and up-and-comers like Caves, the Cave Singers and Octopus Project.

Adrian’s September (October.1) 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it.)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] My online mixtapes are always between 60-76 minutes long so they can be burnt onto a single mix CD if you choose.

[2] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson are strange.

Chuck Klosterman is strange.

I slept late, later than I’ve slept in months probably. I was quite proud of myself.

Breakfast was cereal with “drinking yogurt”. That stuff is weird. I like cereal with milk or with yogurt. This was…okay..

Blue skies came out, albeit, not Palo Alto style–there were still a few clouds.

I left to seek out a few things I’d only read out online: taipei’s indie record stores and a store selling traditional chinese instruments.

(I’m abandoning capitalization except for I, because I am important. Okay, maybe I’ll still capitalize some.)

IMPO records is a small place on the 8th floor in the Ximen district. You couldn’t find this place unless you knew exactly where to look. Between that and their 2-6pm hours (closed Wednesdays and Sundays) and their out-of-the-way location, I’m not sure how they make money. They don’t have the newest stuff either and their prices are closer to the import prices in America for the most part, with a few deals. I liked the store and the owner, though. I got the Morr Music Japan Tour 2005 EP and an album by the Lodger out of the UK. We’ll see how they are.

I then went in search of a Chinese musical instrument store. The people on forumosa mentioned 3 locations that happen to be in a three block radius around the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial.. None turned out to be right. Literally right after I gave up on finding it, I found one at 9-2 Xinyi Rd., 1F, across from the CKS Memorial. I immediately saw the erhus and asked, in Chinese, how much they were. The proprietor proceed to presumably explain, in Chinese, how they were priced different based on material and quality of material. My blank stares led him to explain this in English. What I was more interested in were the double reed suonas, which I asked about. They had one and while it wasn’t expensive, it wasn’t cheap enough for me to buy it on the spot. Those things are possibly louder and shriller than their double reed cousins from Scotland. I want one.

I was walking back to the MRT and learn some sounds from Renai Rd. I went over there to discover a parade of sorts. I should note that this parade was going through the ZhongShen round-about, a very big intersection, but they hadn’t closed it to traffic. The parade would proceed whenever they had the green light and then stop when they had the red.

Anyway, this wasn’t any traditional parade or anything, more like a multicultural parade. Everyone had handmade costumes, everything from kids on stilts to storm troopers and jedis to flowers or angels to an African drummer and dancer (she was really good) to people simply walking with their flag and face paint of their country of nationality. It was very odd.

Looking down Renai Rd, lined in palm trees, I could see the blue sky and Taipei 101, which, I’ve mentioned, is not only the current tallest building, but a very attractive design, and all these weirdly costumed individuals.

Life is very weird. It makes me happy.

I continued on. White Wabbit Records was my next stop. It’s primarily a record label, but they also have a record store with records from other indie labels. As soon as I got there I knew I was somewhere I wanted to be. They had a indie good selection even by American standards, which compared to everything else I’d seen in my travels was an amazing selection. There were two taiwanese hipsters girls working behind the country. (I may have a crush on one or both now). Most of their prices were decent. They also exclusively license some foreign releases from their primarily labels/ the artists. Things like Giardini di Miro, Mum, Mice Parade and Explosions in the Sky are now produced for WWR in Taiwan. On these discs and on records by bands singed to WWR, their prices were great–a little under $12 new. They even had signed records from Saxon Shore and American Analog Set on the wall. I’m definitely going back there.

While I was there I was able to buy a ticket for the Apples in stereo, who inexplicably are playing in Taipei a week from Monday at the Wall (in the same building as WWR). Should be good. I saw the Apples for the first time over 7 years ago, as a freshman in college, and who I haven’t seen in probably five years.

It is/ was World Toy Camera Day, so while I was out and about, I shot a roll of Velvia 100 with my Lomo Fisheye camera, which, while it isn’t traditionally a toy camera (it’s not a holga or diana, basically), it’s not much above that. I think I got some decent shots. I miss shooting with film. I think I’m going to start carrying my N70/ 20mm f2.8 / Tri-x 400 around instead of my D80 sometimes.

I wasn’t able to get the mixtape done before I went traveling and now I don’t have the tools (e.g. my laptop) to get it done. Unless I figure out some technological work-around I may be severely delayed or I may have to simply skip the September 2007 mixtape.

Last week I got to see the Legong of Mahabrata @ the Ubud Palace, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. The group performing was Sekaa Gong Jaya Swara Ubud. It was balinese dance accompanied by gamelan. Gamelan is an Indonesian (Balinese and Javanese) music with tuned percussion instruments, instruments like (but not exactly) xylophones (metallophones), tuned gongs, cymbals, barrel drums (kendhang). Sometimes, like in the gamelan I saw, they also have fipple flutes and a two-stringed spike fiddle called a rebab. (It should be noted: gamelan is a set of instruments, not the players/ history. The Berlin Philharmonic is the people, not the particular instruments they play.)

The venue, the Ubud Palace, is a courtyard of a 16th century palace. Not to be flippant, but it’s sort of like making the Great American Music Hall a lot more historic and even more beautiful.

The group came in, some dancers and the gamelan players shaking these tuned bamboo rattles called anklung in addition to the barrel drums mentioned above. The players went to their seats and there was a pause before the music began.

Gamelan itself means hammer. That’s because most of the main instruments are struck with hammers of various sorts. The music often starts fairly simple and slow. One line on the metallophones and one on the cradled gongs. More lines come in. People with hammers are hitting the instruments with one hand and selectively damping them with the other. All this while amazing and tremendously precise dance was going on in in the middle of the U made by the instruments.

I was completely enthralled from beginning to end. I have to say, I’ve been to some great shows this year, some that I might even call “better” but quite possibly none that kept my attention as singularly as this one.

Gamelan “Gender” Wayang - Krepetan (mp3)

(I searched for a while I’m really not sure where you can get this CD other than in Bali. Amazon has other Balinese gamelan CDs, though.)

Gamelan Gong Kebjar - Hudjan mas (mp3) (buy)

My other music experience while on Bali was marching ensembles in a Balinese death parade and ceremony (amazing for many reasons, but I’ll just stick to the one here.)

They played similar instruments to the gamelan: tuned gongs, hanging gones, cymbals and barrel drums, but they also used whistles and their voices, even breaking into the ketjak rhythm for a moment. Here I was able to get right up up next to them and be almost surrounded by the sound. The tuned gongs were doing a slower rhythm while the cymbals were being hit together at a very fast pace, only to suddenly stop and all by thrust into the air. It was great.

It’s a bit late, but here’s the August mixtape. My excuses include moving to a new continent. Also, I did offer up a short mix earlier.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007august playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock and some oldies, including a lot of new finds (of new and old bands), CDs I’ve had forever and new purchases. Bands include Oh No! Oh My!, Bottom of the Hudson, Ted Leo, and Superchunk.

Adrian’s August 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1] with zip file, alternate link)
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it.)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”

Barely barely into August, here’s July’s mixtape.

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007july playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock and some oldies, including a lot of new finds (of new and old bands), CDs I’ve had forever and new purchases. Bands include Or, the Whale, Bishop Allen, John Vanderslice, Dr. Dog, Carissa’s Wierd and more.

Adrian’s July 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link with zip file)
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it. I switched from zupload to rapidshare because of reader feedback from last month.)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.

I did a radio show for the first time in three weeks last night.

Here’s the playlist.

I played it pretty loose and I was pretty happy with the results. I’ve found a lot of great music in the last few weeks and I got to share that.

Now for the musak:

I Once Was Canadian - KZSU - 7.11.07 (mp3)

Menlo Park is dead at 10pm on a Sunday.

[personal thoughts, ramblings after the jump]

(more…)

Here’s my playlist from this week.

here’s the mp3 of the show which you can download and listen to if you wish (mp3).

Local folksy band Beatbeat Whisper appeared on the show and play a live set.

Old Joy (wikipedia, trailer) is a minimalist story of two old friends who go camping for a weekend.

Kurt (Oldham’s character) is a free-floating and free-thinking friend who comes back into town and calls up Mark (Daniel London’s character) asking if he wants to check out some hot springs in the woods outside of town. Mark “asks” his pregnant wife(?)/ girlfriend (?) if he can go and then sets off. Kurt is that unreliable asshole friend that you have, the one that you love but you don’t count on for anything. Kurt gets them lost on the way to hot springs and delays the whole plan.

Friends change; that’s what this movie’s about. Mark is on the verge of fatherhood while Kurt has gone, it seems, from one hot spring and wild forest adventure to another. At the same time, it sort of shows you why those friends are still important even if the two don’t have that much in common.

Yo La Tengo’s soundtrack is great and works really well in the film. I must say, though, it didn’t quite floor me like their soundtrack to Junebug.

[1] “subtle” in critic-speak means the same thing as boring, but in a positive sense.

Here’s the playlist. Here’s the mp3 NEWSPECIALFUN.

I was listening again to NPR’s story about Brinkley, AR and the Ivory Billed Woodpecker (and the associated “Lord God Bird” song by Sufjan, I’ve posted about it before) tonight. It got me thinking (and I’ve thought before…

The SF Peninsula isn’t changing. I mean, it is, but it isn’t really. What am I doing here? There are places like Brinkley, serious small town America, that are changing irreparably and getting closer to extinction. Maybe I should plan a week next year (or in the fall) to drive around small town America, staying in small inn’s and talking to locals. Hopefully even catching some local music. It wouldn’t be exciting or crazy like vising NYC is, but it’d be pretty cool. It’s not like I Cache River National Wildlife Refuge and the Big Woods has been called America’s Amazon.

I’m serious about this. Let me know (here or offline) if you’re interested.

Last night I saw Jonathan Richman perform live accompaniment to the 1921 Swedish silent movie Phantom Carriage at the Castro Theatre.

I haven’t been to the Castro Theatre in a couple years and as I went in and saw the beautiful molding and ornamentation in the theater, I remembered how amazing that place is. There was an interesting mix of people milling around and finding their seats: Jonathan Richman fans, silent movie aficionados, indie movie people, etc.

If you’ve never seen a silent film with live musical accompaniment, I’d recommend it. It’s usually a pretty good experience. The semi-improvisational nature of the music adds a lot of excitement to the movie.

The movie itself is pretty complex for the time. The plot’s based around a Swedish folktale. The idea goes that the last to die in a year that has bad things has to spend the rest of the year being Death’s carriage driver. It employed a few techniques that I was surprised were employed then, including non-linear story telling and some fairly good special effects techniques for the ghosts.

On now onto the music. I’d seen Jonathan Richman before. He’s really quirky live and has a lot of charisma and stage presence, so I was really curious how it’d end up when these things were taken away. The set up was Jonathan on (nylon string) guitar and pump organ. Other players were two hand bell players, a trumpet/ baritone player, a bass clarinet/ saxophone/ flute player, a violinist and a cellist. I thought their accompaniment was really good and all the players were very talented. It worked really well with the movie. The main characters had motifs and there were parts were these two motifs were almost colliding when two characters were talking or arguing. A daring move was during certain particularly intense moments in the movie there they left it completely silent; I think it paid off.

View the full photo album.

Update: I’ve noticed the bad justification to the text next to the photos. I have tried to fix it, but it’s stubborn. Sorry!

Here’s the playlist of tonight’s show. I am a bit sick and loopy, but I think the music, at least, didn’t suffer.

There’s just so much good music out there right now. I’ve been picking about 1.5 hours too much music for my show pretty regularly.

I got multiple calls asking about the One AM Radio track, “Lest We Forget”. It’s a good track. (And it’s streamable at his myspace.)

I Once was Canadian, KZSU - 4/25/07 (mp3)

I forgot to post my playlist from this week’s show.

Also, here’s the mp3
I Once was Canadian (KZSU) - 4-18-07 (mp3)

I really liked the last set: Andrew Bird->Sigur Ros->Adem.

Here’s my latest mixtape. It’s a tad bit late, as usual. I hope you enjoy it. I like these songs a lot!

You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)

(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007april playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).

If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock plus one soul number. There are great local bands like the Finches, the Dodos (what’s with SF bird bands?), and Beatbeat Whisper. I also have national acts like Andrew Bird (ah! more birds!) and Ted Leo. There are a few interesting quirky songs in there too.

Adrian’s April 2007 mix tape (zip file, right click and ’save as…’)

As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.

If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.