Biking

I too am very excited for the Small Brown Bike show. It should rock the house! Dredg should be very cool. Don't forget about Mike Watt! I'm forcing everyone I know to see the myth and legend of punk bass play.

I'm very sore and tired today. I played some major ball (basket) last night. Ouch!

Pricey

Can you believe it? Small Brown Bike is next Wednesday...I'm already getting excited. It should be a good show, especially considering that the venue has changed to Modified. And of course, we've got some other good bands coming up: Dredge (I'm sure I spelt that wrong), Reggie and the Full Effect, and Pedro the Lion. I do know that we'll probably skip out on the Year of the Rabbit show. "Why Brock, why?!!?!?!" Well, for a number of reasons, one being the fact that the Rabbit will only be the opening act, and the other being that the actual show costs around 30 bucks. Pricey! I'll get my Ken Andrews fix though, just you wait...

How about the clips of that new Radiohead music video, There, There? I think it looks pretty neat. I love the grainy, stilted filming. It feels like a cheesy B-grade horror film, or even an outake reel from Army of Darkness. Thom York's facial expression when he peaks around the trees is priceless.

Today...

Today I'll blog...just lemme wake up here, eh?

DVD Day

Well, I bought two DVDs today. Can I consider that DVD day? Maybe, since I rarely buy more than one DVD in one day. If I had the dough, I'd buy more. Anyway, I picked up Catch Me If You Can and Say Anything. Say Anything is a special edition! It's one of the 80s classics. It has commentary with Cameron Crowe, John Cusak and Ione Sky. Pretty sweet, huh? Oh yeah! Can't wait to watch them.

Xpressive

I think it’s safe to say that the new X-Men movie was pretty enjoyable. I definitely liked it more then I thought I would, which, is always a good thing. Heck, I even saw it twice…my friend Marco and I saw it on Saturday night. Stacked up against the other Marvel Comics movies I can honestly say that I like this one enough to place it second only to Spider-Man. The characters were interesting, well developed and accurately played. Still, the best part of the whole movie is in my opinion Magneto. Talk about priceless villainy. With both Gandalf and Magneto under his hat Ian McKellen has easily grown to be one of my favorite "geek-actors". Of course, I do have a few grips to mention, one being Rogue’s accent. The second time I saw the film I was trying to guess where Anna Paquin was trying to pull off the Southern accent and in which scenes she simply neglected to even bother. Fine, accent or no accent, just stop switching between.

Black X-pectations

So I'm sitting here listening to Frank Black's album, Black Letter Days and I'm not sure if I dig it yet. It's definately unique, but a bit more polished then his other stuff. Why am I listening to this album you ask? Well, a week ago or something I was riding along with Gabe and he was playing a mix CD from Bob Nanna, and the CD had a song from Frank Black on it. I thought it was a wicked song and I liked it almost as much as the Pixies. With that in mind, I walked into Best Buy today looking for something new, and low and behold, I just snagged Mr. Black. I didn't know what album to pick up, so I just went for the newest looking one.

X-Men 2 eh? Yes, I'm excited, but really only because of one character that's appearing in the movie. Still, maybe it'll be cool.

X Marks the Spot?

I don't know what it is, but I haven't been able to get excited about this new X-Men movie. Maybe it's because most of the comic book movies lately have been pretty "flashy", Spider-Man included. I wasn't really excited for the first one, though. Don't get me wrong, I still want to see it. One review thought it was better than the first. We'll see if it is.

Gabe Ellis?

Don't let Brock fool you. He's a master writer and will probably never get anything below a 'B' or even 'A' on his papers in college. He's a smarty pants!

What's with Gabe Ellis? Well, I had a dream that I went to the Small Brown Bike show that's yet to be. There the lead singer asked if anyone knew Nathan Ellis' (of The Casket Lottery) parts to the songs they did together on their EP. Of course, I did, so I shouted out that fact. So, he asked me to come up on stage and they would do a couple of those songs if I sang Nathan's parts. Sweet, huh? Unfortunately this was all a daydream. Yes, pretty pathetic.

Big Ideas

(I won't get any...)

First of all, I should mention that I didn't do as badly on my test and paper as I initially thought. In fact, I did rather well.
Now that we've gotten that little nugget out of the way I can begin to worry about my next English paper. Oh yes, I'm sure I crapped out on that one.

The new X-Men movie is coming out this Friday, so come one, come all. I'm sure I'll see a few pictures of costumed fans on opening night. Already people have been trying to relate to me how I can comb my hair in order to get Wolverine's hair-do. Personally, I'm not interested in combing my hair like Wolverine's, but thanks for the knowledge.

Now that school is all done with for the day (and it was a long day at that) I'm spending a little time cleaning out my iPod. New iPod software is available (hurrah), but I'm updating mostly because I want to clean out all of the old songs from my library. For the longest time all I ever listened to was bootlegged Radiohead concerts. In fact, I must have nearly 20 Radiohead shows on my computer. After a while I got anal and began downloading different concerts because one show had a better sounding "Morning Bell" then the previous show, or this version of "Creep" has different lyrics than the album version. Of course there would be those rare instances in which I would download an entire show because it had a very rare performance song like "Big Ideas" or "Follow Me Around".
Well, I'm cleanin' it all out!

...

I'll probably burn the songs to some disks though...just because.

Atmospheric

There's always somebody in the audience who's bouncing incessantly. I honestly don't know why they bounce to the music, and I don't think they know that they look like a blind-idiot reject for a cereal commercial, all I know is that the bouncer at this show just felt the need to stand next to me. Bob your head, tap your foot, do whatever you like bud, but stop bouncing...you're stepping on my toes.
Aside from our hyper-friend it was pretty cool; Appleseed is awesome live. I have a hard time trying to describe what they sounded like right then and there, so the only thing I can suggest is that they were "atmospheric".

Today I find out how I did on my big test (and my big paper) in cinema. I'm sure I crashed and burrrrned. Well, I dunno...we'll see. Also, I just finished a big paper for my writing class. I'm sure I screwed up royally on that one as well. See you.

-Brock

Johnny Appleseed Cast

Well, Brock, Alex and my wife, Rebekah, all made it out last night to see The Appleseed Cast. They put on a great live show. I only have one of their albums and they only played a couple songs off of it, but every song was completely enjoyable. Unfortunately we didn't stay for Cursive. They sound like a very interesting group. Their fan base was surprisingly young, though. It scared me like the Saves the Day fan boys and girls. However, they were much better and actually were able to enjoy the opening bands without complaining and being utterly annoying. There were a couple of annoying people, but isn't there always?

Appleseed Fast

Well, the Appleseed/Cursive show wasn't tonight; it got bumped to tomorrow night. I guess they decided to add a date in Tucson. So, looks like I'll have to fast until tomorrow night, and then we shall have our show. In the meantime I'm listening to Moby's song We Are All Made of Stars. You can catch this great song on shampoo commercials, Federal Express ads, fast food promotions, and telecommunications software.

Until tomorrow...tomorrow we shall start fresh, I promise.

Kansas' other prodigy

I'm very excited to see Cursive and The Appleseed Cast tomorrow night. The Appleseed Cast, like The Casket Lottery, is another one of those rock groups that emerged from the state of Kansas, which further contributes to a standing theory between Gabe and I that people in Kansas know how to make music.

Today I'm just sort of hanging around and doing homework. I decided it was time to change the pace a bit and maybe blog a little, so here I am. Oh yes, I'm also trying to put together a mix CD for my friend Alex, who recently has gotten into mix CD's like gangbusters. So far I've decided upon the first two tracks:

• 2+2=5 ~ Radiohead


• Chain ~ The Fire Theft

Of course, I'm going to have to put something from The Casket Lottery and Small Brown Bike on the mix CD...it's a giddy anticipation of mine. I'll probably also put something from Beck on it.

Enjoy your Saturday ladies and gents!

-Brock

Dark City

Watched Dark City last night for the fourth(?) time. Today I watched it with Roger Ebert's commentary. It was very insightful. An incredible movie. One of my favorites.

Today I was off from work. Yeah!!! Hopefully I'll get that Modest Mouse song done.

Sunday night: Cursive, with The Appleseed Cast!

Transplanted

Long time, no see...

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, I had a very busy weekend. That very busy weekend seems to have transcended Saturday and Sunday and now continues to haunt me throughout the week itself. I suppose I don't really mind being busy, but the major downside to that chaos is that I don't blog as much as I could...or would.
Well anyway, here I am, better late then never.

Over the weekend I did manage to obtain Gabe's copy of the Transplants CD so I could listen to it at my own comfort. Thanks to Alex for his contributions to my leisure.
First of all, I must say that I both love and hate the Transplant CD. Yes, love and hate, and for one very specific good reason and for one very specific bad reason. The good reason is of course none other then Tim Armstrong and his work on the album. Let's face it; punk rock isn't a very experimental genre. While it's easily one of the more established underground genres it leaves little room for innovation and improvement upon its musical structure. Well, that is purely in my opinion. But, operating on my own opinion, I always felt that punk could take a step forward and continue to expand its horizons to provide for a vastly more unique musical structure. Transplants sort of accounts for my wish, and Tim Armstrong's work on the album serves to lay down the blueprints for the next step in punk rock, and I personally liked the idea. Mixing hip-hop and punk is cool, and although it's been done before, Tim introduces a unique approach to the formula. It's a rejuvenation of the genre, and it has potential to grow beyond the Transplants.

And then on the other hand we have the bad. Tim Armstrong's vocals alone are more then satisfactory. In fact, they're legendary. So why am I spending my time (and Gabe's CD) to hear a product of Tim Armstrong that's fronted by a man who clearly serves as a conditioned result of the Mountain Dew/ X-Games generation? I want Tim's slurred vocals to go along with the music. Yes, his vocals are on the album, but nowhere near as much as our MTV byproduct's vocals. For some songs he's downsized to "backup" duties...backup duties!!! Ok, I'm done...sorry for the rant. I just had to get that out of my system.

Anyone see the new Incredible Hulk trailer? It looks (for lack of a better word) incredible. I like Hulk's bounding across the desert, he looks like a gigantic frog on steroids. And how about that Jennifer Connelly...she's all three Marvel comics expressions in one (Amazing, Uncanny, Incredible).

All righty, I'm done for the day. I'll see you folks later,

-Brock

Ever Busy

Well, there's always so much going that I don't know why I try and start new projects. Believe me, I'm still going to complete the Modest Mouse song. I want to put more emphasis on my musical projects. That being said, I may end the The Study of Leonard Hughes blog. I don't have the time to work on it. It's very sad. Perhaps I'll come back to it in the future.

Korgan

Yes indeedy, it was a good show. Personally, I liked it very much, especially since I never got to see the Pumpkins live. It was a new experience, and the guitar playing was pretty great. Like Gabe mentioned though, a whole lot of distortion. You could heard the vocals pretty well and the drums went off without too much of a hitch, (which, made it better to hear Jimmy's fantastic bashin'). Yet, the sound wasn't the best. I hope they improve the Marquee. But it was a good show, and the Marquee is enclosed, so it was an intimate set too.

Yes indeedy, I have seen the new Radiohead cover. I liked it, but it'll take time to earn the same standard of honor beheld by the Kid A and Amnesiac covers. It's cool though, basically it's just a cut-off from a map of the world. The artist, Stanley Donwood, laid those words and statements over the land and geography and then added a bunch of black ink that leads off into the ocean. I guess it's sort of supposed to be a statement on how people's ideals leak into the world like oil from an oil-rig. *shrug*

It's colorful, I'll give it that much.

Zwanified

Nothing rocks the house like Billy Corgan and friends. It had been quite a while since I last saw him with the Pumpkins. It sure was sweet to see him go off on those Corgan-ish solos. The venue, Marquee Theater, is a newly renovated joint that used to cater to mostly country music. I think it's still in the process. It'd better be! There were no acoustic treatment on the walls, which were brick! That made the acoustics very horrible. Whenever they got loud, everything got pretty distorted. Despite that, though, you could still hear the three different guitars intertwining and it still rocked.

Brock, have you seen Radiohead's album cover? The There, There single artwork pretty much came from it. Not bad. I thought it could be better, but, it's probably Yorke's way of making a statement (all the words and such).

Mary Star and the Infinite Sadness

So I heard the finished version of the single "There, There" a little while ago. I lost the link however, but they are playing the track frequently on most British rock stations. If you live in England, chances are you've heard it too. Perhaps I will upload it and put the link up later on, like say...tomorrow? That way you can all hear how fantastic it is. I really hope they go to either Phoenix or California, because like Gabe said, we haven't seen them yet. Personally, that's my life goal. No worries on marriage or kids or owning my own business...my life goal reads: See Radiohead live.

Anyway, let's talk about Zwan for a sec. I've been listening to their CD quite extensively in order to get revved up for the show tonight. The venue holds around 900 people, so it should be fairly intimate. I suppose I should say it would be as intimate as you can get when regarding Billy Corgan, a dude who's usually hanging around large arenas and concerts. Now, like I said, I've been listening to the new CD, Mary, Star of the Sea quite frequently, and I'm trying like no tomorrow to get into it. It's not a bad CD per say...it's just not a particularly interesting one. It has an even flow and a smooth pace, and all of the songs, even the sad ones, are innately happy. No more anger, no more sorrow, no more bitterness, these days, Billy Corgan is a happy fellow. Which, unfortunately, leads me to believe that perhaps something is wrong with me and not the album. Am I so darkened to only find enjoyment in the dark and foreboding tunes of Corgan's older days? Do I really have a hard time relating to such happy music? Nah, it's the record. Still, it should be a good show. Zwan may not be one of my favorite groups, but I'm sure they'll be worth it.

2+2='What You Want'

I was just listening to Radiohead when I read Brock's post on the artwork for the There, There single. In fact, I was almost to that song. Freaky. Yes, I'm listening to the "album-to-be". I like it. Can't wait. I read today at radiohead.org about possible plans for them to tour more extensively in large arenas. Will we actually get to see them finally? Brock and I have yet to see them live. An experience that has been denied to us for far too long.

Zwan tomorrow night. Should be pretty good. How can you go wrong with David Pajo, Matt Sweeney, and Billy Corgan all playing guitar? And then Jimmy on drums? Get out of town!