Scent Weakly 2.0

Monday, March 31, 2008

RA To Open For Oasis


Kinda weird.

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals will support Oasis on select tour dates this summer. Here are the details:

August 26th – Seattle, WA – WaMu Theater
August 27th – Vancouver, BC – General Motors Place
August 29th – Edmonton, AB – Rexall Place
August 30th – Calgary, AB – Pengrowth Saddledome


Presales for all shows start tomorrow, April 1st at 10am local venue time here: http://www.ticketmaster.com/artist/766720

Password: SPACEWOLF

Tickets for all shows go on sale to the public this Friday, April 4th here: http://www.ticketmaster.com/artist/766720

On sale times are 10am local venue time, except Seattle which goes on sale at Noon PST

Sunday, March 30, 2008

M Ward With Jim James (My Morning Jacket)

M Ward did a showcase at SXSW a couple weeks ago with special guest Jim James.


Jim James & M. Ward at St. David's Church from Texas Music Matters at KUT on Vimeo.

Field Trip: The Avett Brothers



We had a group of eight head to the BellyUp to see one of my favorites, The Avett Brothers, perform. They didn't disappoint. Their hyper-kinetic version of modern bluegrass is very entertaining.

It's clear the Avett Brothers fan base is growing in Southern California. We saw the AB about 6 months ago and last night audience was significantly larger and more enthusiastic.

For your listening pleasure: The Weight of Lies (They can do slow and pretty, too.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Muxtape


There are hundreds of online music services on the internet each with a different approach of delivering music. The latest site to generate some buzz is Muxtape. The concept is very simple. Muxtape provides space for users to upload as many 12 songs to the site. Then Muxtape provides a unique url, so anyone with access to the internet can listen to your playlist.

Apparently, this is the work of one guy, so I'm not sure he'll be able to withstand an onslaught of users or a legal assault by the music industry.

My Muxtape

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Internet Craze

Internet Craze

An explanation upon request.

Outside Lands


If I was about 30 years younger and liked being packed into tight spaces with 1000s of my closest friends, I'd be in San Francisco in late August for The Outside Lands Music Festival. The lineup reads like my iPod artist list.

Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival

Radiohead
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Jack Johnson
Beck
Wilco
Manu Chao
Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
Widespread Panic
Primus
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Steve Winwood
Café Tacvba
Broken Social Scene
Regina Spektor
Devendra Banhart
Cold War Kids
Galactic’s Crescent City Soul Krewe
Lyrics Born
Andrew Bird
Steel Pulse
Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings
M. Ward
Drive-By Truckers ALO
Matt Nathanson
The Cool Kids
Two Gallants
Dredg
Little Brother
Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
Donavon Frankenreiter
The Mother Hips
Black Mountain
Sidestepper
Nellie McKay
The Coup
Goapele
Bon Iver
Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk
Sean Hayes
The Felice Brothers
Rupa & the April Fishes
Back Door Slam
K’NAAN

More Artists to be Announced

My Morning Jacket

MMJ, one of the six bands I'd follow around the country in a VW van, has a new record coming out in June. Hopefully they'll tour extensively to support the record.

I mention this only as an excuse to post this video of their first appearance on Conan O'Brien. You gotta love the hair.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Tumblr + Ryan Adams


Tumblr is a site that provides some very easy to use tools for posting pictures, videos, links etc. onto a personal "Tumblelog". It's kind of an online scrapbook.

Well, Ryan Adams has discovered Tumblr and his Tumblelog is as weird and interesting and ADD-esque as you thought it would be.

Monday, March 24, 2008

TV On Your Computer


Here are a couple of relatively new places for watching some of your favorite TV programs (and movies) on your computer.

The Southpark guys are streaming clips and full episodes on their new site, Southpark Studios.

Fox and NBC have joined forces and created Hulu. Hulu has a pretty extensive catalog of clips, full TV episodes (The Office), and movies. But, what makes it noteworthy is that it has all three seasons of Arrested Development for your viewing pleasure.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

SW Recommends: Langhorne Slim



Langhorne Slim has been working the music biz for awhile and all his hard work is starting to pay off. He's going to be on Letterman on Wednesday, he has an album coming out in April, and will be appearing on a stage near you in the next couple of months.

I have seen LS in concert a couple of times and he doesn't disappoint. He's a maximum effort performer whose shows are always worth the price of admission.

California Dates:

May 13 2008 8:00P The Casbah San Diego, California
May 14 2008 9:00P Troubadour Los Angeles, California
May 15 2008 7:30P The Independant San Francisco, California

For your listening pleasure:
Restless

Diamonds and Gold

Bobby and David's Excellent Adventure: More Pix



I stole a bunch of pictures that Bobby posted on his Facebook page and added them to the Flickr set. You can find them here.

Friday, March 21, 2008

*** Over Tea Kettles

Being on TV can be hazardous to your health.


Reporter Owned By Sled - Watch more free videos

Dennen, Higgins, and Jennings


Three of my favorite singer songwriters, Brett Dennen, Missy Higgins, and Mason Jennings, are touring together in May. Alas, there is no San Diego date. Bummer.

May
1 - Indianapolis, Ind. @ The Vogue
2 - New Orleans, La. @ Jazzfest
3 - Asheville, N.C. @ The Orange Peel
4 - Nashville, Tenn. @ City Hall
6 - Atlanta, Ga. @ Variety Playhouse
7 - Birmingham, Ala. @ WorkPlay Theatre
8 - New Orleans, La. @ House of Blues
9 - Austin, Texas @ La Zona Rosa
10 - Santa Fe, N.M. @ Santa Fe Brewing Patio
11 - Tucson, Ariz. @ Rialto Theatre (*Brett and Missy only)
13 - Santa Monica, Calif. @ Barnum Hall at Santa Monica High
14 - Santa Monica, Calif. @ Barnum Hall at Santa Monica High
15 - Berkeley, Calif. @ Zellerbach Auditorium
16 - Portland, Ore. @ Roseland Theater
17 - Seattle, Wash. @ Showbox at the Market
18 - Eugene, Ore. @ Indigo District
21 - Salt Lake City, Utah @ The Paladium
22 - Denver, Colo. @ Ogden Theatre
23 - Aspen, Colo. @ Belly Up

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Field Trip: Vampire Weekend


'
Eth and I are headed to The Casbah to see this months flavor of the month, Vampire Weekend.

Update: I caught VW a few months ago on a really bad night. Several of the band members were sick, and they had to quit early when the lead singer lost his voice.

Last night was much better. The place was packed (I sold some extra $10 tickets for $50) and the crowd knew the words of all the songs. They blew through their entire catalog of catchy songs with great energy, and therein lies the problem with their show, the set only lasted about 45 minutes. They'd be wise to add a couple covers from some of their influences -- Paul Simon, The Police etc.

For your listening pleasure: Oxford Comma

Did Someone Drop Some Acid In My Orange Juice??

The Leningrad Cowboys from Finland backed by the Russian Red Army Choir rock some Skynard.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Por Carlita

Some new Death Cab for Cutie:

An Awareness Test



Evidently, not me.

Perez Hilton Likes the Avett Brothers??


Evidently the reigning king (queen) of celebrity gossip blogs, Perez Hilton, has good taste in music. Last year he created a buzz for Jenny Owen Youngs and today he pumped The Avett Brothers. Perez Hilton on The Avett Brothers

BTW, The Avetts will be in California at the end of March and early April... Go see them.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

David and Bobby's Excellent Adventure: Pix



David and Bobby arrived safely back home on Thursday night. Dave's primary desires were sleeping in his own bed, a long hot shower, and meals that didn't include tubular shaped meat products.

I have slowly been uploading some of his pictures here: David and Bobby's Excellent Adventure

Uncanny

This has been floating around the kids' Facebook universe, but the image on the cover of a video game is such an uncanny likeness of Bobby that I had to post it here.



Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Bobby and David's Excellent Adventure: Coming Home


A quick email before we head home tomorrow.

Today is Bobby's birthday, so we celebrated the best way we know how... by visiting a place of mass genocide. We went to Dachau today and fittingly it was the 1st day of rain we have had all trip. Luckily the storm was very fast moving, and it only rained for 15 minute periods.

After that we went to the Hofbrauhaus for some delicious food, and more importantly a liter of dark beer "ein maß dunkel bitte." We had a couple of those with a Canadian and an Aussie we met in the hostel, and now its time to go to the hostel bar to pound back a few before we head home tomorrow.

Well, I better make this short as we dont have much celebration time left.

Cheers!

David

Monday, March 10, 2008

David and Bobby's Excellent Adventure: Munchen



Our Munich stay has only reinforced the fact that on a Eurotrip, the sights are interesting, but it's really all about the people you meet. We have met some amazing people on this trip, but our new Munich friends are potentially the best.

Our first night here wasn't anything special, but yesterday we went on the free tour and had a blast. We returned to the hostel around 2 pm and found 3 kids passed out. We left them sleeping, hung out, returned to the room at about 8 pm, and found them just waking up. It turns out they are a couple and the girl's younger brother, and they had just arrived from Toronto. We immediately became best friends. They were planning on heading to Slovenia today, but after a couple hours in the pub we convinced them to spend the day in Munich and take the night train out.

Today we didn't do anything eventful other than hang out in the lounge and doze off in the hammocks. But, for dinner we went to the infamous Hofbrauhaus. The food was amazing, the beers were gigantic, and best of all the Canadians joined us. It was a blast. They begged us to come to Slovenia with them and if it was week 2 of our trip we would have. We do have a couple days left, but it would have been very difficult to return in time for our flight. So, we sent them on their way.

Thank goodness we live in the Facebook era, because these are people we want to stay in touch with. Hopefully we will meet up again. It was sad to see them off tonight, and it really made me miss home. I am ready to go, and sleep in my own bed

We have hit all the major sights in Munich (aka drinking too much beer). Oh, I forgot to mention that we went to the soccer game! On the train we met a guy who said it would be impossible to get tickets, but we found a scalper and haggled him down to 10 euro below face value. After paying 40 euro each we found our seats in the upper deck at what would have been the 50 yard line. The home team won. It was a good time.

Tomorrow we are going to Dachau, and since Wednesday is Bobby's birthday we will most likely head back to the beer hall.

I can't wait to see you all.

Cheers!

David

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Field Trip: Volleyball



Eth and I spent a pleasant (if but a bit uncomfortable) couple of hours watching our niece, Amanda, play volleyball. I gotta say that I was impressed with the skills of the girls.

We might be invited back as good luck charms because Amanda's team won two, three game, nail biters.

There are a few more pictures in my Flickr account.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

David and Bobby's Excellent Adventure: Munich



We arrived in Munich this morning for the final leg of our journey.

Vienna was nice, but we are churched and museumed out, so there wasn't a whole lot to do.

We spent most of the day yesterday lounging around and eating schnitzel. We also ran into a friendly face. Elana, one of the girls we stayed with in Florence, was in Vienna for the weekend, and was staying in our hostel. We hung out with her, went to our Chinese food hotspot for dinner, and had a couple beers while watching PTI and Around the Horn on ESPN! ) We also caught the tail end of a spring training game.

Today as we were checking out the hostel in Munich (it's the same hostel chain as the one we stayed in Vienna) the bartender asked us if we liked beer. Seeing as our puritan beliefs don't allow us to sip such blasphemous beverages, the answer was no. Not! Anyways, they have live music at the hostel bar on Saturdays and the band had just arrived. They needed help unloading the truck, so in exchange for our brute strength, we get a free pitcher when we go to the bar tonight. Munich is awesome!

Tonight we are trying to go to a soccer game, something I could care less about, but Bobby really wants to go. So, I'll make the sacrifice.

We also discovered that they have trains that go directly to the Frankfurt airport, so we reserved some seats. Our Thursday travel day should go smoothly.

'Til the next time,

David

Friday, March 07, 2008

SW Recommends: The National



The National are a bit of an acquired taste, but it didn't take many listens before their albums, Alligator and The Boxer, were on heavy rotation on my iPod.

Fake Empire

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Bobby and David's Excellent Adventure: Vienna


So, we are in Vienna for 3 days. thats about 2.5 days too many.

After my last email we walked around Vienna in some light snow flurries, but it wasn't cold enough for it to stick. It was fun other than the fact that it was cold as hell. Today we slept in (kinda). We met middle aged snoring man #2 of the trip, so it is kinda hard to sleep. I really miss my own room. Today we walked around the palace and its famous gardens (it has a zoo and a hedge maze!) Unfortunately, the maze is closed for the winter and there are no living plants in the gardens. We did walk up a giant hill to get a great view of Vienna.

Last night we had the best meal of our trip.... It was a Chinese food place in Vienna, go figure. Tonight we had a delicious meal as well. Picture a pasta version of Chipotle. You order and they whip it up right in front of you.

Well, we have one more day here but we have no idea what to do. Luckily it is supposed to rain (for the 1st time all trip) so we may just lounge around. Then its off to Munich for lots of beer and maybe some sights.

All the hostels are full in Frankfurt so we decided to stay in Munich for 5 days, leave at 8 am, and catch a 3 hour train to Frankfurt arriving in time for our flight back. Hopefully, we make it.

David

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Bobby and David's Excellent Adventure: Sistine Chapel



Sistine Crappel

I suppose if I was an art history major or even remotely religious it would have been different. But I'm not, so it was crap. Spending 14 euro to stare at a ceiling was a huge waste of money. If my calculations are correct I could have gone to In 'n Out 3.48 times with that money. But no, we spent spent it on a whole lot of Jesus paintings, and a fancy ceiling. OK, my rant is done.

Other than that, The Vatican was good. St Peters is gigantic and pretty interesting, but I am tired of churches. On Monday night we wandered downstairs to the bar in our hostel. The bar had a special below ground section for hostel people that had a beer pong and a foosball table. Bobby and I were lured in to play some flip cup (we dominated) and then we beat an Aussie team and an English team to take the Foosball World Cup!

Tuesday we woke up, checked out, and headed to the Coliseum! This only cost us 9 euro. We didn't even have to wait it the gigantic line thanks to a good tip. It turns out that tickets to the Coliseum are also good for Palantine Hill which has a ticket office about 2 minutes away. We arrived at the Palantine Hill ticket office and saw that there wasn't anybody in line buying tickets. We got our ticket, walked past the hundreds of jealous people, and walked right in. We roamed around the coliseum for a couple hours yelling, "Maximus!" at random intervals. After pretending we were gladiators, we went to the train station and waited for the night train to Vienna.

We weren't so lucky with our roommates this time. We shared a room with an Austrian couple, a German speaking man from Bangladesh, and a man from Jamaica who was more out of place than we were. There was little conversation, and Bobby and I tried to sleep most of the time. We woke up to falling snow, but it turned to rain in Vienna. We have 3 days here and we have just realzed there isn't a whole lot going on in Vienna other than checking out the scenery.

8 days till we finally come home!!!!!

Peace out,

David

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Field Trip: Rufus Wainwright



Eth and I are heading to the BellyUp this evening to see Loudon's son Rufus sing some tunes.

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Geronimo!

Travis Pastrama (the double backflip motorcycle guy) jumps out of an airplane without a parachute,

David and Bobby's Excellent Adventure: Firenze y Roma


Well, the theme of our trip is that Bobby and I f*** up, but everything works in the end.

Let's see, I last wrote from Florence where we were staying with friends. To sum it up, I will never share an apt. with 6 sorority girls ever again. The girls were nuts. They go out every single night at like 1 in the morning, get up the next day and do it all over again. Bobby and I barely survived one night out with them. They also do not possess inside voices, so our hearing will be a little out of whack for a while.

The guys we were with were all very cool and it was an enjoyable time. We ate some delicious food (and some not so delicious food) and had some great gelato. The downside was we didn't do very much sightseeing. Yes, we skipped seeing the DAVID. Gasp! Now, settle down people. First of all, I get to see myself naked everyday, and that is much more impressive. Second, I saw the few fake David statues scattered about, and I'm pretty sure they all look the same.

OK, that's it for Florence, we probably spent one too many days there (4). This left us with 2 days in both Rome and Venice. With our schedule set, we got the bright idea to book the rest of our hostels all at once. Well, except for Venice, but more on that later.

We arrived in Rome and after wandering around, we realized we need more days here. And, being the religious zealots we are, it didnt cross our minds that the Vatican is closed Sundays (something about being a holy day). That was one extra day right there. After much debate (10 seconds) we decide to skip Venice, and spend 2 more nights in Rome. We now plan to head to Vienna on Wed. morning. Luckily the hostel in Rome has room and we book the next 2 nights. This morning (Sunday) we discover that it is a 15 hour train ride to Vienna and is only done at night. So, we head to the train station, reserve a seat for Tues. night and kick ourselves for paying 24 euro each on a wasted hostel night. Well, it turns out the hostel is very nice and refunds our money minus a 5 euro surcharge. So, it all works out in the end.

As for Rome itself, it is very cool. We met 2 girls who are staying in our room, and we went out for dinner and drinks with them. When we got back to our room we met the other 2 roommates who were from New York and surprisingly well educated. Despite the fact that one of them is voting for Hilary, we spent an enjoyable night discussing everything from sports to the primaries. A good night all around.

The next day we decided to do a tour, so we knew what the hell we were looking at. It ended up being just the 2 of us (OK, I'll wait for you to finish singing the Will Smith song) who show up for it. Private Tour! It was a little awkward, but it was fun. He showed us all the sights, we talked about how bad ass Russell Crowe was, and ate at a delicious place next to the Pantheon.

Tomorrow is the Vatican, and then on Tuesday we will go into the Coliseum and reenact the Russell Crowe vs. Joaquin Phoenix battle before heading to Austria.

Bobby and David's Excellent Adventure: Pictures



We haven't received any new emails from the boys, they're currently in Rome, but I did steal some pictures from one of their new Facebook friends.

More pictures here: Pictures

Saturday, March 01, 2008

SW Recommends: The Wire



Thanks to world traveler Roberto Cafe I've been watching the first season of The Wire on DVD. After watching the first six episodes, I just might have to reconsider my ranking of Battlestar Galactica as the best show on TV.

Advantage Obama

Hillary fired this torpedo at Obama yesterday.




Obama comes back with this ad in less than 24 hours.



Then someone found this clip of Bill Clinton.



Ouch!

Quit While You're Ahead

I liked Will.i.am's first Obama video. This one makes me want to hurl.