Vinyl to mp3

Record

I’ve been meaning to do this for two years, but I’m finally starting to convert my vinyl records to mp3. It’s kinda fun because I get to listen to the album pretty much straight through. Tonight I’ve converted Eli “Paperboy” Reed & The True Loves – Roll With Me and The Thermals – The Body The Blood The Machine. Two great records.

I plan on giving my dad a copy of Roll With Me. I think he’ll really like it.

By |July 14th, 2010|Music, Photo|Comments Off on Vinyl to mp3

Tapes!

Whenever I go to a thrift store, I look through their records and tapes.  There’s usually something pretty interesting or funny.  I started making uniform inserts for the tapes because I like how it looks on my shelf, and it’s something to do at work when I’m bored.  Here are some of the tapes I’ve found:

The Liberty Boys is a group that sings terrible country about Jesus and the army and semi-patriotic songs. I guess my cover for the tape tends to editorialize.

Songs You Should Hear is a mixtape I’m making for Sara with a bunch of pop punk (I used the sign language for “deaf” on the sleeve [clever, I know]).

Songs To Make Love To is a mixtape someone made full of Journey and the like.  I can’t imagine anyone made love to that music.  Whoever made it actually wrote “SONGS TO MAKE LOVE TO” on the tape, so there’s that.

Don’t Blame Me is a recording of some standup that a guy named Tom Drake did on a cruise ship in 1998.  It’s horrid, but it’s sorta fun to listen to.  I used a picture of Bush ducking from that shoe.

Living in A Difficult Marriage is some religious self help tape for women who deal with abusive husbands.  There are insane stories about pregnant women being shoved out of speeding cars and then people saying that they should stick with their husbands.  It’s hilarious. And pretty awful.

Do You Think They Know What A Longduck Is? is the second mixtape I’ve made lately.

Plone Taps is the holy grail of thrift shop tape finds.  It’s a tape that some dude made for a girl that used to like him. It’s basically him talking into a microphone about his life and how much he misses her and then he starts reading his poetry and then he talks about how he faked his death to hurt another girl he used to like and then he tries to get the girl he’s talking to to cue up a VHS tape of some movie at the same time so they can watch it “together.”  This is the funniest thing ever.  It’s called Plone Taps because he has awful handwriting and he meant to write Phone Taps on the cassette.  He meant to write that because at the start of side one he pretends to be some detective and says something to the effect of “these are the recorded phone conversations of John Doe (I’ve forgotten the dude’s name), if you have any information about him, please contact me.” This guy is insane.  Sample lines from his poetry:  “Hear the Shadows”, “Cries of the Nightbirds”, “Slicked Back Polyester Underhandedness”, “Chemical Prisoners”, and “Dig the Rays”.  Oh also at one point he calls people “insects on the tiles of life”.  This is the greatest tape ever.

Hopefully I’ll stop being so lazy and convert these to mp3 soon. Also some people have asked for copies of Plone Taps, but I feel a tiny bit selfish when I think about sending any out.

By |January 1st, 2010|Design, Music, Photo|Comments Off on Tapes!

Bitter

Last night on the national news, someone said they would probably vote for Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama because he said people are bitter.

What?

Yeah, you know, I decide who should run the most powerful country in the world by one fucking statement that they made on one day.  Seriously, if he had said “upset” instead of “bitter” would have made any goddamn difference to anyone?  No.

And hey, I’ll admit, I’m bitter as Campari.

Last weekend The Jerks, had a show with two great bands The Copyrights and Teenage Bottlerocket in Dalton, Ga.  I drove 5 hours to get there and the fucking show was canceled 2 hours before we played.  Of course, the woman that ran the venue knew about the problem for days before the show, but we never heard about it.

Last night I drove to Asheville to see a band called Dead Mechanical.  The show didn’t happen.  Not much fun.

By |April 15th, 2008|Music|Comments Off on Bitter

Nice nice nice, one prediction

I woke up with a song in my head. Well, a certain part of a Cobra Skulls song “Charming the Cobra” that goes “I wanna know what makes you wake up! wake up!” It was pretty funny waking up with that in my head.

I finished sanding the office walls and washed my bike yesterday. I’m hoping to get at least one coat of primer up today.

It’s getting prettier and prettier here. Most of the trees still haven’t put out leaves, but a few are. This tree is right outside of my office door, and grew these leaves in the last few days:

And these guys are taking up residence right outside of my door. Not a good thing.

I’m cooking dinner for a few people tonight. No idea what, though. It’s supposed to rain this weekend. Lame. I applied for a job in Laramie (which I think I’m really well suited for) and am applying for one in NYC (which, again, I’m well qualified for, but I’m sure there will be a lot of applicants). Wish me luck.

I predict I will eat a burrito for lunch! I CAN SEE THE FUTURE.

EDIT (2:14pm): I was right!!  It was a fish burrito!

By |April 11th, 2008|Music, Photo|2 Comments

Bluegrass Question

I enjoy bluegrass music. It doesn’t get played nearly as much as the pop punk that I normally listen to, but it has a regular spot in my rotation. One thing that has always bothered me (at least from the age of, I dunno, 13 or so) is that these bands, either in keeping with tradition or because they really like religion, tend to record about one religious song per album. When I first get the album, I’ll listen to the song out of some weird sense of duty or pure musical curiosity, but after that initial listening, I will unfailingly skip over that track. These songs annoy me to no end. I really don’t understand them. Three tracks earlier the band was singing a song about being a ramblin’ man or about laying as many girls as possible. The fact that it doesn’t fit just seems to bother me even more.

The other day I skipped another one of these songs (I think it was about Moses, you know the guy that talked to a burning plant while builing an ark and sailed it over the red sea with jewish couples onboard in some sort of ancient getaway cruise), and then wondered to myself whether there were any bluegrass bands that consider themselves an atheist band, or at least one or two that have recorded or played a song that could be considered atheist.  I don’t know.  I wish more people read this so I could possibly get an answer back.  I’m going to look into this.

By |February 28th, 2008|Music|Comments Off on Bluegrass Question

I’m famous, and other news

A few things for you today.

Evan and I went to a Teenage Bottlerocket show in Laramie while I was out there for Christmas with the family. During the show, they filmed part of their new music video for In The Basement off of their new album, Warning Device. When they show the crowd shots, I’m on the far left and Evan is behind me (he has a beard and glasses).

In other news, I’ve finished the artwork for the new Jerks CD EP. I really like it and think it’s some of the best album artwork I’ve done. I tried to keep it really simple, and I think it worked.

CD cover, Insert, Back

We’re having them printed professionally, and we should also have our t-shirts made by the end of the week. We’ll have stuff to sell at our show in Georgia on the 16th. Also, there’s a chance (which I’ve been told is about 98% confirmed) that we’re going to play a show with Teenage Bottlerocket and the Copyrights. They’re two amazing bands and basically what I’ve been listening to nonstop for the last few months.

It’s supposed to get up to 70 degrees here today. I can’t wait to go on a run.

Last of all, I’m capturing all of the video from my drive last Tuesday. I should hopefully have this edited and up for you to watch by this weekend.

By |February 5th, 2008|Family, Friends, Music|Comments Off on I’m famous, and other news

Teenage Bottlerocket – Warning Device

A long time ago (and by that I mean a few years ago) my brother in law told me about this band in Laramie, Wyoming that he thought I might like. I’d never heard of them and thought their name was interesting enough to warrant a listen. Since that day I’ve loved Teenage Bottlerocket’s music. When I got Another Way, I played it over and over and over. It had these super stripped down, but still rocking songs. Then Total came out and with it brought Kody from the Lillingtons to the mix. It didn’t leave my cd player for months.

Just recently Teenage Bottlerocket put out their third full length record, Warning Device, and with it, they’ve topped their other albums. Now, I don’t mean to say that I don’t love every song off of Another Way or Total, but this new album is just done so damn well that I have to say it’s their best effort yet.

“Bottlerocket” starts the album off with a loud, fast, simple in-your-face 51 seconds of awesome, and I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but it could definitely be a one song description of their live shows; light the fuse and watch the bottle rocket go.

This album is about as strong an album as could be made. I had trouble deciding which songs stood out from the rest because there really aren’t any disappointing songs. It’s one whole, solid piece of work. There are so many standout songs.

“Pacemaker” is possibly my favorite on the album. It’s a little break from the normal Teenage Bottlerocket song. It’s a little easy going at first and you really notice the bass line and how it bounces it’s way around behind the vocals. Then the guitars really kick in and it slaps you in the face. Instead of just being another song about another ex girlfriend, but it’s a fucking great song about an ex girlfriend, and I have to say I think the lyrics are really really well written.

Another standout is “Social Life” with Kody singing. Another great song, and with references to First Blood part 2, it’s got a nice side of humor as well.

On My Own and In the Nuthouse are also great songs.  Really though, it’s tough to just pick a few and say they’re better than the rest because this whole album is so solid.  And speaking of solid, Red Scare made another song available for digital download only: I Know You Know.  It’s from the same recording session as Warning Device, and I think it really speaks to the quality of the album that a song as good as I Know You Know gets left off.

Go buy this album.   You’re going to love it.  And if you don’t, then fuck, what are you doing reading this review?

By |February 3rd, 2008|Friends, Music|Comments Off on Teenage Bottlerocket – Warning Device

Going to Miami

I got roped into driving to Miami for work and doing some recruitment fairs for the camp. I am really really not happy about this whole thing, but I basically couldn’t say no. Added bonus: I’m staying at a coworker’s (a coworker that I really know know all that well) sister’s house. Awkwardness awaits!

The one small good thing is that I’ll be passing through Savannah, so I’ll get to see Jeff and Liz.

So today I’m getting everything together and ready for a way-too-long drive. I think I’m going to set up my video camera (and bring a lot of tapes), record the drive down, and then put it all together so the two of you that read this can watch a very short version of me slowly going crazy over 12 hours in a car by myself. At least that’ll give me something to do, even if it’s pretty pointless. Maybe I’ll find a truck stop and get some west coast turnarounds. No. No, I won’t.

In other news, I’m wearing hats again. I decided it was a good idea. Also, my hair is getting long again. Last time it got really long I had a glorified mullet. It was pretty awesome and yet I hated it. So, we’ll see how long it gets this time. I’m sure I’ll end up shaving it again like I always do and then every girl I know will ask “Why’d you do that?” and I’ll say “Because I wanted to.”

If you can’t tell from the last.fm (it’s a plugin for my iTunes that displays to all of you what I’ve been listening to. click on that link and see my profile) deal I put up on the sidebar of this site, I’ve been listening to a lot of Treephort. They have some great, funny songs.

Ok. I need to get stuff organized for tomorrow. Great.

By |January 28th, 2008|Music, Travel|Comments Off on Going to Miami

i’d rather be dreamless

I hate dreams.

I hate dreaming. I never sleep well when I dream. Last night I got back from Rome, had a few beers and then went to sleep semi early, hoping that I’d be well rested in the morning. But all night I was dreaming and when I dream it’s like I’m barely even asleep. That coupled with the fact that the heater went crazy in the middle of the night and didn’t shut off, waking me up at about 1:30 because I was sweating, didn’t help my sleep.

I really miss the sound of crickets at night.

So I’ve seen quite a few shows, but Saturday was the first that was stopped because of a possibly life threatening injury.

I went to see Attractive Eighties Women and a couple of other bands at the Earl in East Altnata. The opening “band” was called Bases Loaded and they called themselves a Rollie Fingers tribute band. They were hilarious. It’s two guys, who apparently do improv/standup type stuff, on bass doing covers (and one or two originals) of classic rock somewhat badly while wearing Oakland A’s shirts, hats and Rollie Fingers-esque fake moustaches. They were great.

After that it was some boring indie type band called Pistolero.

Then Attractive Eighties Women came on (it was their CD release show at the Earl in east Atlanta, by the way) and were a ton of fun. They play rock & roll/punk but they keep everything funny.

So they’re 1/4 or so into their set, everyone’s singing along and having fun, and then this girl runs up to the stage, just to my left, and throws a glass toward the lead singer. In half a second it hits the mic stand, shatters, and hits the lead singer’s arm. She’s gone before anyone realized what happened, and all of a sudden the singer is sitting on the ground holding his wrist and there’s blood all down his arm. He tells someone to call an ambulance, suddenly there’s a cop in the room, he calls for an ambulance on his radio, the show’s over and the singer’s out the back door on the way to the hospital. The guy’s arm was sliced from his wrist almost to his elbow.

Update: it wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d thought. Check out what the guy wrote about it here.

It was a big letdown to what was turning out to be a really fun show, and it was really unexpected.

I’m trying to stay positive about everything. I think if I didn’t run, I’d be feeling a lot worse lately.

By |January 14th, 2008|Music|2 Comments

Warning Device, Cold, Skiing

I got into Laramie after two days of driving. It wasn’t terrible, but who wants to drive two days straight? Truckers, I guess. Anyhow, we got into town and relaxed for a while. All of us went out to a pizza place (I think Grand Ave. Pizza) that had a good Thai pizza. I started reading for a little bit when we got home and fell asleep at about 7:30. Luckily Evan saved me from my boringness and woke me up asking if I wanted to go out for a beer.

Thoroughly bundled up (after all it was about 5 or 10 degrees out when we left), we headed to Altitude. It’s a nice microbrewery and it’s more of a restaurant with a bar attached. There wasn’t too much going on there, so Evan suggested we go to the Buckhorn bar. It was pretty busy there and they had a “dj” of sorts that was blaring the most treble-high songs way too loud. I saw Ray from Teenage Bottlerocket walk in and so I said hi and his brother Brandon came over and I talked to him for a while. I’m trying to find flight out of Denver so I can stay here and see them play/record a music video for In the Basement, a song off of their new album, Warning Device. Brandon actually had a few copies with him so, I bought one and last night before I went to sleep I gave it a listen.

It’s a great album. Kody’s songs are always good, and everything was recorded damn near perfectly. But to me the best parts of the album were the songs Ray sang. For some reason, I just really like them more and even though they can be really simple and not have a whole lot of lyrics in them (like Go Away, etc.), I think there’s almost more to them. On Warning Device, it’s apparent they’re written even better songs. The most standout song I think is probably Pacemaker. Ray sings, it has an awesome bass line and it’s just great. I suppose I could really do it justice by describing it a lot better, but I’ll leave that for another time. I’ll just say that it’s a great album, and they’re getting better and better with each album they put out. I remember when Evan told me about them, when they hadn’t put Total out yet, and Jeff and I were emailing them. We had some stupid idea that maybe we could hang with them musically, but damn, that’s proven to be impossible, not just because of our lack of talent, but these guys are some great musicians, and great song writers.

Like I said earlier, it was cold out last night. But when I woke up this morning at 5 a.m., thanks to my sister’s dog, Duncan, it was -8 outside. I had left my laptop charger in the car, so I threw on a coat and went to get it, and the cold just stabbed at me. It was a sharp, sharp cold. The charger had frozen and the cords were stiff. The high today is supposed to be 18. Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Evan and I are going to rent some skis for the week and go up to Happy Jack outside of town and attempt some cross country skiing. I’m excited to do something new and to get out in the snow. Here’s what weather.com said about today’s weather: “Mostly sunny. Cold. Wind chills approaching -10F. High 18F. Winds W at 10 to 20 mph.”

Should be fun. And cold. More to come later today.

By |December 22nd, 2007|Family, Friends, Music, Travel|Comments Off on Warning Device, Cold, Skiing