Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Friday, August 22, 2008

Jaga Jazzist Live Concert Video

Here's a video link of a great Jaga Jazzist concert in Paradiso, Amsterdam. Jaga Jazzist is a 10 piece band from Oslo, Norway. I hate using the word "favorite" but if I had to choose a favorite band, it'd probably be Jaga Jazzist. I could write about them all day...but for now, I'll just leave y'all with this link:

http://www.fabchannel.com/jaga_jazzist_concert/

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Peritonsillar Abscess

The past couple of days I developed a very sharp pain in my throat. A visit to Student Health was unsuccessful, they did nothing. Then the next day (yesterday) it got much worse, to the point that I couldn't speak well or swallow. So, I went to the ER. 6 hours later, they did a computed tomographical scan of my neck and determined that I had a peritonsillar abscess. Then at 2:30am, they performed the surgery to remove it and then I went home feeling much, much better. And, they gave me a bottle of vicodin. To drink. Yeah, it's pretty good stuff.

In other news, I've recently discovered one of the funniest blogs I've seen. FAIL Blog. If you've never seen it before, definitely check it out. There's enough posts on there to combat hours of boredom. Enjoy.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Air Max 95


Nike has just re-released the Air Max 95 in chili red at select retailers nationwide. These take me back. Way back. To 1995. When I was 9.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Visvim

Visvim: shoes and clothes.

Opening Ceremony


Some photos from the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Make sure to scroll down to view the last image.

Friday, August 8, 2008

The Reactable


Multi-touch y'all! The reactable consists of little discs and cubes that represent some classic synths (I think). You can rotate, translate and combine them with others to create a visually unique musical performance. I heard about this some time when the instrument was featured during Bjork's last tour.




Breastfeeding...at 8

Well...yeah. I do think this is real.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

jacob fred jazz odyssey


A few months back I found this record by the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey called "Lil' Tae Rides Again." If you haven't heard it, do so immediately. The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey is a band that I knew previously as a sort of outside piano trio, maybe something like The Bad Plus. I never took too much interest in their music until I stumbled upon Lil' Tae, their most recent studio release. This was something altogether different than any kind of piano trio I had heard, and while I hate using genre terminology to describe music, it was closer to that Chicago post rock sound that Tortoise has. Partly because there was no acoustic piano, or at least very little acoustic piano. Anyway, I loved it. The whole record. Then they came to Iowa City maybe a month or so ago and played a great show at the Yacht Club. They played all the tracks from the record, and in the order of the record (if I remember correctly), but it sounded completely different from the record. Initially I was a little disappointed. The album has a lot of portions which I only found out recently were taken from a studio recording deconstructed and remixed into an altogether new blend of soundscapes. This album would be very difficult for a band having a history as a piano trio to recreate perfectly. The bands most recent live release, "Lil' Tae Rides Again/Live" (now as a quartet) is a compilation of some of the better takes of recent live recordings and is also definitely worth checking out.

I'm definitely hooked on this band now. They took a chance on their most recent work. They let producer Tae Meyulks completely reinvent their sound for the studio record, then embarked upon the major challenge of transcribing a bunch of heavily spliced and remixed tracks for live performance by an electro-acoustic ensemble of four musicians. The end result, to me, is this band becoming a lot more than another out-there piano trio. Good music for MORE people. Keep it comin'.

the beginning

alright y'all, i've created myself a blog. and i'd prefer you say pee-pee soaked heck-hole instead of urine soaked hell-hole.

cheerfully withdrawn.

a few months back i stumbled upon matthew waldman's work. he's the one responsible for the incredibly innovative nooka watch designs. a much more linear (although not binary) method of time-keeping. their line was relatively small then but they're keepin' the interest high with a ton of new designs, colors, materials and collaborations. check out this one they created as a gift to kanye west at the conclusion of his glow-in-the-dark tour.


unfortunately, it looks as if these won't be available to the public...i'd love to add this one to the collection along side my black zub zenv.