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August Develops
Continue reading "August Develops"
One Week on the Love Boat
As promised, here are the photos from the fantastic cruise Sarah and I took last week (via Flickr):
Caribbean to Cambridge
Halfway through spring break, this is already the most fun I've ever had packed into one vacation. I have almost 200 pictures to sort through / touch up / arrange from week Sarah and I spent navigating the Caribbean. There's way too much to write about right now, but a recap and a ton of those pictures should be up before break ends.
As if that weren't enough, the very day I came back, I got to see my favorite band of all time perform live at the Middle East in Cambridge. That's right, the Silver Jews are touring for the first time ever, so Robbie and I made sure to check out the live act. Other reviews online sum it up just fine, so you can simply view a few pictures of David and Cassie Berman and all their friends:
Continue reading "Caribbean to Cambridge"
My Suite
My suitemates and I had a little too much fun at the South Park Studio. If you can't tell, I'm in the middle and Sarah is to my immediate right with the teddy bear:
The Top 25 Independent Albums of 2005
With the tremendous popular and critical success of the Arcade Fire in 2004, music critics were pretty desperate for new indie superstars in 2005. Wolf Parade had the Montreal cred, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were a hip NYC band with a self-released debut, Bloc Party had the British press drooling, and Animal Collective were as messed up as ever. Despite the overzealous acclaim, some of the best music came from the most unexpected channels: Okkervil River became a full-fledged rock band, Sufjan Stevens stepped up his 50 states project, and the Silver Jews bounced back after a troubling three-year hiatus. The following are the most impressive 25 albums in independent music of 2005. Feel free to vehemently disagree with me or simply fall in love with these records.
Check out the top 25 albums of 2005
Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers
Silver Jews
Tanglewood Numbers
[Drag City, 2005]
After his acclaimed poetry collection Actual Air and his 2001 effort Bright Flight, David Berman seemed to be doing pretty well as a mainstay in the indie rock world. His music had a small but faithful following, his poetry was lauded by the literary establishment, and he even had time to get married. Unfortunately, none of that prevented him from intentionally over-dosing on Zanax in 2003. How does the eccentric frontman bounce back? He gets back together with all his friends and makes an astounding, bizarre, and heartfelt album, that's how.
Stephen Malkmus, Will Oldham (Bonnie "Prince" Billy), and his wife Cassie are all featured on the album, and over a dozen others round out the band. Despite the large numbers, Berman took even more control of the production of the album. It's very clean and it sounds like a roundup of professional session players. No other Silver Jews record has as much going on in the mix as this one does.
Continue reading "Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers"
Uncle Chris
Following in the footsteps of my Uncle Cris, I'm officially Uncle Chris:
Her name is Isabella!
Senior Year So Far
Hey! I'm back at Hamilton after a year in France! So far it's the most fun I've ever had in upstate New York. Sarah and I are on the same continent, I finally have some friends I can hang out with, and my living situation is as comfortable as it's ever been. Here are the broad strokes of the semester:
Out Hud, Supersystem, Bling Kong
The IMF's first show of the year kicked so much ass. It was one of the earliest events we've had ever had, and over 270 of the 300 (300!) people there were on-campus.
Out Hud performed great despite a lot of sound problems, and Supersystem was fun to see live. The best part was it was the most alive I've ever seen a Hamilton crowd. Bling Kong's raunchy, hypersexual act probably helped everyone loosen up (the band includes 4 drummers, cheerleaders, and a slideshow of retrosexual film clips). The IMF is only getting cooler.
Ithaca
For our second anniversary (woo!), Sarah and I took a day trip to Ithaca, New York to explore hills, gorges, and the lefty college town. We enjoyed walking around the Common, one of the country's top-rated public spaces, where we perused book stores and trinket shops. Afterward, we took an amazing walk up and down the Cascadilla Gorge (right next to downtown! pictures inside). It's really a surreal experience to see these enormous carved out parts of the town with so many waterfalls. Once at the top, we looked down into the chasm over a bridge. It's barely a three foot guard rail that separates one between life and death. We got pretty creeped out thinking about how many people must have just hopped that, but that just added to the sense of awe. Our walk down through a nature path was just as fulfilling, even though squirrels were bombarding us with acorns.
We had an excellent dinner at the ABC Café, a vegetarian restaurant where we were probably the only two people not stoned senseless. The night life seemed very cool, but we had a long drive back, so we got lost for about 45 minutes before finally making it out of Ithaca. Seriously though, check out the pictures inside the post-- Sarah and I both got some great nature shots.
CMJ 2005
Danny Klag, Alan Clark, Adam Hobson, and I ventured to New York City on WHCL's dime to experience the CMJ Music Fest. I saw the following acts, from life-changing to lifeless:
Continue reading "Senior Year So Far"
Hyper Enough
There's so much I want to do right this very instant:
- Listen to the rest of Xoc's Super Mario World cover album, SMW chock full of wacky instrumentals.
- And, by extension, play through Super Mario World in one sitting.
- Finish the captions in my year-abroad scrapbook.
- Finish up the new design for the IMF website.
- Think up some questions for this upcoming interview for Matter Magazine.
- Look up and memorize some useful Scrabble words.
- Start packing for my last year at Hamilton!
But right, I have work tomorrow. In fact, I'm working two shifts-- one at each job. Here we go!
If Hitler Didn't Like My Record I'd Be Hurt
Pitchfork today has been rather boring except for an interview with my favorite Jew, David Berman.
The interview includes memories of his beer with twins Tim and Kim, a complete breakdown of how he's made living wage the past few years, and most interestingly his ideas on art and how he doesn't want to glorify himself by performing live under the big lights. One of his "shows" involved him and Stephen Malkmus noodling over a Grateful Dead tape in front of a live crowd:
Berman: It was awesome. I had us practicing for American Water by jamming with John Oswald's Grayfolded CDs. Since any one moment on those CDs might have 50 different Jerry Garcias playing 50 guitar lines, we just became 51 and 52. We turned ourselves up a little louder than the stereo and practiced wandering amidst the tumult.
Aside from the interesting details and stories Berman tells in the interview, he tells them (as usual) with such awesome language, it's like reading a lyrics sheet. On how he manages to stay afloat financially, Berman says, "It probably goes without saying that I've got a credit card rotisserie system that would dazzle the ancients."
Tanglewood Numbers comes out in October, which is obviously too far away.