Thursday, June 19, 2003

Hulk Smash box office competition!

Tomorrow's the Hulk ladies and gents...hurrah hurrah! Sorry for the lack of posts today, I was busy with some stuff.

Tomorrow we will start fresh, I promise.

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Insert Witty Title Here

I have a friend who loves Taking Back Sunday. Needless to say, he has no knowledge that this poll exists. Oh wait, I gave him a link to this blog once...maybe he does know! Well, anyway, vote for Hey Mercedes.

Vote Hey Mercedes

Yes, do what Brock says! The other bands pretty much suck; take my word for it if you don't already know. Taking Back Sunday is a pretty popular band on there, however. The masses of teenie bopper pop-punks may overtake us. Please, nooooo!

Hulk getting good reviews. Hulk happy.

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Mission: do what Brock says

Ok Eyes Like Static fans (both of you), I've got a mission for ya. You see, there's this AMP Band Brawl going on, and in this brawl several bands go head to head to win a chance to have their own music video recorded free of charge. One of the groups entered in this contest is Hey Mercedes. (They are in the link on your right, under the Wire) I want you to go to the Brawl site and vote for Mercedes so they can get a free music video. Hey Mercedes has never done a music video before, and I think if they got the chance, it'd be great. All of their Vargrant friends have music videos...Saves the Day, Reggie and the Full Effect, the Get Up Kids, Face to Face...let's let Bob Nanna and his crew to take a crack at it.

In other news, looks like Gabe and I are going tour crazy over the Radiohead news. Hopefully, we'll both get a chance to see them in California, and maybe Gabe will get to see them in his home state of Colorado. It also seems that The Casket Lottery is going to be playing in California in July, so it's a given that we'll be going there as well. Unfortunately it looks like I'll be missing the Reggie and the Full Effect show here in Phoenix due to me being out of town. Oh well...between The Casket Lottery and Radiohead, I'm happy.

I can't wait to see the free shirt Gabe got from Nathan; it sounds like they had an awesome time in Chicago. I agree with the fact that Nathan is a great guitarist...I think that often goes unnoticed. Speaking of Rocky Votolato, I'm really into the song that Gabe stuck on that mix CD. I'll have to shell out some cash for some of Rocky's albums.

Well, that's all from me for today. Remember to vote in the band brawl kiddies!

-Brock

Monday, June 16, 2003

Gracious

Good restaurant review Gabe! It sounds tasty...

Beckah is over here hanging out, she says your posts are too long. Heh heh.

Intensity

Well, I made it back alive from Chicago, the “Windy City!” The hotel I stayed at had a computer with Internet access, but it was $15.00 for an hour or $5.00 for 15 minutes. Screw that! So I had to wait until I got back to blog.

First of all, good review on Hail to the Thief by Brock. Maybe mine should be something to the affect of: “what Brock said.” No, I’ll post a little something.

Let me start off on my post of Chicago with a restaurant review. The place – Sal & Carvao. This was a random pick from the local area guide that’s placed in hotel rooms. It was described as a “Brazilian Steakhouse”. That alone perked my curiosity. They have a fixed price for dining, then there’s drinks and dessert. It was meat heaven! You get a salad bar that is loaded with many different vegetables, including a few that may have been native to Brazil (all I know is that I’ve never seen them before). The place slow cooks fourteen different meats on skewers, all flavored with delicious spices. Each diner gets a coin with a green and red side. You flip it to green when you’re ready to gorge and to red when you need a break. Waiters dressed in authentic Brazilian garb come around with meat and carve it right on the table. I’m guessing I had twelve of the fourteen meats they had! My favorite was the garlic steak – tender, juicy, and full of flavor! I ate until I was ready to burst. You have to at $38 a plate. I guess that’s the only restaurant, so if you want to go, you’ll have to make a trip to Chicago.

The next day we visited the downtown area. What a cool city! We did the Sears Tower, going up the 103rd floor! I took some pictures from there. If they come out, I’ll post them.

Saturday night was the Small Brown Bike/Casket Lottery show. First off was Charlevoix, whom we happened to see here in Phoenix when Brock and I saw Small Brown Bike here. Then Rocky Votolato went on. He’s good friends with The Casket Lottery and also opened for them when we saw TCL here in Phoenix. He did a very good set, despite being very tired from having just flown in from L.A.

The Casket Lottery did an awesome set also, though it was a bit short. They did a new song, which sounds very awesome, and a couple classics. They seemed very into it and sounded the best I’ve heard them. I think they play too loud, though, as it gets very distorted at times. When they were doing quiet parts, you could hear how good of a guitarist Nathan is. They also played a couple from the SBB/TCL EP on their own.

Small Brown Bike was intense. The crowd was big and energetic for both bands. It was nice to finally be part of a crowd like that. Phoenix is lame in that category, though they did have a decent crowd size for SBB. They also played a song from the EP and then did “Wrong Hometown” with Nathan and Stacey from TCL. The crowd loved it! Nathan had that nervous look – “I hope I don’t screw up the lyrics because I haven’t sung in it in a while.” He did mess up a bit on the last line but no one noticed and all was happy.

I spoke with Nathan before the show and he was ultra-impressed that my wife and I came all the way up from Phoenix to see them. So much so that he gave us both free shirts! We tried to pay for them (knowing they don’t make much money) but he wouldn’t have it. Also, apparently they were going to do “Under Pressure” with SBB but SBB arrived too late for them to practice it. Dang nabit!! Oh, well.

I think this post got too long. I taped the show and think it came out good. Perhaps I’ll post an mp3 or two from it. It was also cool to be at the The Fireside Bowl, knowing Braid had played many a show there, including one of their last. A piece of history.

Woo hoo!



Radiohead just confirmed more American tour dates, and they're hitting California...several times over. I'm going, for sure.

woo hoo!