iamserio.us

The entire contents of the zine I made this week could have been poured into this website. How boring would that have been. Now I have something tangible. 47 somethings, actually. It was supposed to be 50 but there was one instance of me flipping out and tearing a zine into pieces and two more instances of me screwing up enough to throw away the one I was working on.

The zine is called Wish you were here. I made the contents entirely in notepad.exe which was probably a terrible idea considering notepad has no formatting options whatsoever. Its saving grace is that it prints in monospaced font so I could (not so) easily make a half-page design (two pages per each side of an 8.5×11 sheet of paper).

The cover is heavy cardstock that I bought in bulk at the store months ago for a different project. Each cover has a Polaroid picture attached to the front, on to which I fed through an old typewriter and printed the title of the zine. I had to buy a long-arm stapler so that I could bind the zine down the middle with two staples.

Each copy has a CDR in the back which relates to one of the entries. I fed the paper cases through the typewriter as well so that I could print the zine title on them.

All told, I probably spent almost two hundred dollars making these things. Between the Polaroid film, the stapler, the copies at Kinkos, the typewriter, the paper CD cases and the CDRs… it got sort of expensive. Oh well. If I wanted to recoup expenses I’d probably have to charge about four dollars a piece for them but I don’t really care about all that.

I’m not sure how I’m going to distribute it yet. I was thinking of dropping some of them off at Sonic Boom Records in Ballard and Fremont and maybe seeing if the news stand next to the Fremont location would consign the zine (just to see what kind of interest there is this sort of thing in Seattle). If you think you want one, email me with your name and address and I’ll send you one.

And if you just want to look at it and don’t want to deal with me mailing you a copy, then here you go:

Wish You Were Here Issue #01: wishyouwerehere-01.zip
Wish You Were Here Audio CD: wishyouwerehere-01-audio.zip

I’ll definitely do more issues of this zine. It was fun to make and I like it a lot more than a blog. It’s like a magazine that I have full control over which is very exciting for me. I plan to schedule some interviews with bands and maybe do some record and concert reviews for the next issue. I have some ideas for the design and since the next one won’t require Polaroids (nor will I have to buy the stapler or typewriter again), it will cost a lot less.

This was a pretty great show. A band I’d seen before redeemed themselves, a band I’d never heard but heard good things about impressed me, and a band I’d never heard of at all made a damn good showing.

Nachmystium is a black/thrash metal band that I’d never heard of before in my life. The vocals are evil sounding and the drumming is non-stop. The lead singer looks like Josh Homme cross-bred with Dave Mustaine and he has a voice like a demon. There was epic hair swinging and growling and grunting. Color me impressed as hell.

Daughters is a band that I’d heard about a lot from the Internet Kids but I never got a chance to really listen to. I liked a few songs on their Myspace page but couldn’t find their albums online or in stores (thought I didn’t look too hard) so I just went to the show hoping they’d impress me and they did. The lead guitarist played some of the most intriguing angular riffs I’d ever heard and so damn fast too. Also: the lead singer reminds me of pre-fat Meatloaf.

I saw Pelican back in June and they didn’t impress me then. This time around they rocked some new jams that I really liked so I would probably go see them again. I think it hurt them last time playing after Mono. This time, playing after Daughters, they had a better mood set up for them and the audience wasn’t as subdued.

All in all, a good show. If you know Nachmystium or Daughters song titles, then post them in the comments after you listen to the sets because I’m at a loss for the setlists.

Nachmystium – 2006-09-30 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: nachmystium2006-09-30.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: nachmystium2006-09-30sample.mp3

Daughters – 2006-09-30 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: daughters2006-09-30.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: daughters2006-09-30sample.mp3

Pelican – 2006-09-30 Neumo’s – Seattle, WA
Download: pelican2006-09-30.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: pelican2006-09-30sample.mp3

Went to the Sunset Tavern last night to see Stars Of Track And Field. Was a pretty good show with a decent turnout. The crowd was pretty chatty but the Sunset is a bar, not a true venue.

Openers were another band from Portland called Heroes And Villains. They were ok but sort of generic and not really anything interesting. I guess I don’t really have much to say about this show.

Stars Of Track And Field – 2006-09-29 Sunset Tavern – Seattle, WA
Download: sotaf2006-09-29.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: sotaf2006-09-29sample.mp3

Here are the DVDs for the Ratatat and Panther recordings from 2006-09-15 that I promised. If you want to preview them, you can go to Youtube and check out either of these playlists for the full sets:

Ratatat on Youtube
Panther on Youtube

Here are the torrent links:

Panther – 2006-09-15 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: panther2006-09-15.vx1000.akgc1000s.dvdf.torrent

Ratatat – 2006-09-15 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: ratatat2006-09-15.vx1000.akgc1000s.dvdf.torrent

Oh hey, a hardcore show. I haven’t been to one of these in a long long long time. There was a time in my college years when all I listened to was Lamb of God and The Hope Conspiracy. Those were the days when I would go to all sorts of shitty hardcore shows just to get beat up by a bunch of scrawny, black-haired, angry teenagers in the pit. Those were the days.

So, anyway. I went to see Zao and Evergreen Terrace at El Corazon last night with an old roommate of mine. All in all, a good time. I forgot the spectacle of a hardcore show; how there are a few dozen people going insane as they flail their limbs and there are a few hundred other people doing their best not to get hit in the face by these people.

I guess I don’t have anything to say about these sets other than “Here ya go”. It’s hardcore music, it speaks for itself.

Evergreen Terrace – 2006-09-17 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: et2006-09-17.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: et2006-09-17sample.mp3

Zao – 2006-09-17 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: zao2006-09-17.at943.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: zao2006-09-17sample.mp3

Imagine you’re in a room that’s about 95� F and you have two tasks.

The first task requires you to hold a 4 lb. telescope up to your face and keep it lined up with a square on the wall on the other side of the room. You’re required to keep the telescope steadily focused on the square 90% of the time.

The second task involves an 8′ tall aluminum pole that has about 5 lb. of weight at the top. The pole, which is taped to a half-wall using four pieces of gaffers tape, must remain upright. Due to the heat of the room, the adhesive on the tape is not working as well as it should. Also, about every three minutes, a person walks by the pole and uses it to balance himself. You’re required to keep the pole upright the entire time.

You have to maintain both of these objectives for an hour. This is what it’s like to run audio and video by yourself at a sold-out concert.

At tonight’s show I ran audio for all three bands and I did video for Panther and Ratatat. It’s a good thing I didn’t attempt video for Envelopes because a) I would have run out of tape and b) I would have run out of battery power.

All of the bands were great. Panther was great, Envelopes was a surprisingly good Swedish band, and Ratatat… well, they’re just face-meltingly good. It’s always neat to see a crowd go from bobbing their heads to completely losing their shit throughout a band’s set. By the time Ratatat busted out Seventeen Years for the encore, the entire place was jumping up and down. I think that was their goal.

I’ll post a link to the DVD torrent when I have it up later this week. I’m going to put Panther and Ratatat on the same disc since Panther’s set was only twenty minutes. I’ll probably end up putting them on Youtube as well if time permits.

Panther – 2006-09-15 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: panther2006-09-15.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: panther2006-09-15sample.mp3

Envelopes – 2006-09-15 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: envelopes2006-09-15.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: envelopes2006-09-15sample.mp3

Ratatat – 2006-09-15 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
Download: ratatat2006-09-15.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: ratatat2006-09-15sample.mp3

Took me a little while longer to get around to this one, but I did it. This is from the same show as the 2006-08-05 This Will Destroy You DVD.

I was going to put it on Youtube but the songs are split up too awkwardly to make it worth my time. If Youtube didn’t have that ridiculous 100MB filesize limit then it wouldn’t be a problem (or if I was better with wielding XViD encodes, which I’m not).

So, here is the torrent:

Download: sss2006-08-05.vx1000.zr60.akgc1000s.dvdf.torrent

Well, I haven’t taped anything all month and it’s already a quarter of the way through. I only taped four shows in August. I know, I’m a failure.

So I went to this show last night at The Paradox because S is on Suicide Squeeze Records (or she was back when her first album came out) and my boss got me on the guest list. I’m not going to turn down some free concert action. I’m no fool.

I had just been introduced to the music of Wet Confetti the day of the show. I ambled down to Sonic Boom and bought the new volume of Burn To Shine and they had a song on it that I liked a good deal. They’re music is very Dischord-esque in tone and structure. I think that’s why I like it so much. Also, the singer is cute as a button.

Jenn Ghetto (of now-defunct Carissa’s Wierd) is S. She plays with Josh Wackerly (bass) and Zaun Zehner (drums) of Panda & Angel in order to flesh out her solo effort. I really like her 2004 album Puking and Crying but she only played one song off of that album (which wasn’t even completed). Even so, the new songs are pretty great and Jenn is still getting back on her feet. I’m hoping in coming months that the band will get tighter and be able to pull off some great shows.

Panda & Angel, a band I’d never heard of, headlined. They create a layered brand of powerful pop music that is, at times, driven by some pretty funky electronic drums. Overall, I dug the tunes. Track 8 is probably the best song of the show. Also, the bass player (who, I’m told, is the drummer’s girlfriend) is really hot. Just sayin’.

Wet Confetti – 2006-09-09 The Paradox Theatre – Seattle, WA
Download: wc2006-09-09.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: wc2006-09-09sample.mp3

S – 2006-09-09 The Paradox Theatre – Seattle, WA
Download: s2006-09-09.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: s2006-09-09sample.mp3

Panda & Angel – 2006-09-09 The Paradox Theatre – Seattle, WA
Download: pa2006-09-09.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: pa2006-09-09sample.mp3

The thing about an artist who is personable and charismatic is that every fan wants to be his friend. Everyone wants to make that special connection and be remembered by him. I understand. Everyone wants to be loved.

John Darnielle did an in-store performance last night at Easy Street Records to kick off the release of The Mountain Goats’ latest album Get Lonely. In between every song he would treat the crowd to a little story or anecdote about the song or something completely unrelated to music and in between every song it seemed like someone in the crowd would shout something out to him. He didn’t seem to mind that people wanted to participate in his performance but I got tired of it fairly quickly. It got kinda bad when this one guy in the front wouldn’t stop trying to converse with him and the people in the crowd told him, in no uncertain terms, to “shut the fuck up”. I also had one of the giddiest fanboys next to my mics so every time John made any kind of joke you will hear this high pitched giggle as he bursts out in lady-like laughter. Seriously, this guy thought John Darnielle was the funniest man alive.

And, to be fair, he’s pretty funny. He paces his sentences in the same manner that Mitch Hedberg did; sort of oddly accentuating certain phrases or words. He gets more excited and boisterous than Hedberg ever did, though.

In addition to being funny, he’s a damn fine songwriter. I’ve never really listened to The Mountain Goats before but now that I’ve seen John play live, I’m more inclined to check them out than I was before. His songs are sincere and straight-forward and sort of remind me of Ben Gibbard (and I know Mountain Goats fans would crucify me for saying that but whatever).

The recording itself turned out nice. It’s very hard to tape in-stores at Easy Street because they usually book acoustic acts and it’s never very loud. In the case of John Darnielle, he would go from near-silent to really-fucking-loud within one song so it was hard to guage the levels. The audience cheers clip like hell but I don’t care. The actual music sounds fine and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

John Darnielle – 2006-08-21 Easy Street Records – Seattle, WA
Download: jdarnielle2006-08-21.akgc1000s.flac16.zip
MP3 Sample: jdarnielle2006-08-21sample.mp3

I did it. I didn’t think I’d be able to do it this quickly but I authored both DVDs with menus and all that jazz. The multi-cam wasn’t nearly as hard as I had anticipated.

I actually had to build a new computer in order to do this project since Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 wouldn’t even install on my Athlon XP 1800+ system. The new system didn’t actually run my too much money (only about 700 bucks) and it outperforms my old system in so many ways it’s ridiculous. I encoded the m2v stream from the DV AVI in less than an hour; a task which would have taken my old PC all night to finish.

This Will Destroy You – 2006-08-04 Camp Nowhere – Seattle, WA
This Will Destroy You @ Camp Nowhere

SD MP4 (419 MB): twdy2006-08-04.mp4

This Will Destroy You – 2006-08-05 The Paradox Theater – Seattle, WA
This Will Destroy You @ The Paradox Theater

SD MP4 (419 MB): twdy2006-08-05.mp4

So anyway… here are the torrent links (hosted on TheTradersDen, free registration):

2006-08-04 Camp Nowhere – Seattle, WA
Torrent: twdy2006-08-04.vx1000.akgc1000s.dvdf.torrent

2006-08-05 The Paradox Theatre – Seattle, WA
Torrent: twdy2006-08-05.vx1000.zr60.akgc1000s.dvdf.torrent