John’s Crawlspace

So last Saturday, I stopped by the beer store to pick up a case for the Phillies game (which wasn’t until later on that day). I don’t go to this distributor too often, but I was in the area, and they usually have a decent variety. There were two older ladies working there, and since they saw me looking around (as opposed to knowing what I wanted to buy as soon as I walked in) they started talking to me, and making all kinds of recommendations. It was immediately obvious to me that they didn’t really have the slightest idea what they were talking about, but I entertained the conversation anyway. One of the ladies was raving about the “new” Saranac Pomegranate Wheat, and before I knew it she had gone to the walk-in freezer and brought one out for me to try. I had this beer last year while I was in Vermont, but I wasn’t gonna turn down a free beer, so I acted like I had never heard of it before. The funny part about this was, she didn’t call it pomegranate - She stumbled over the word when she hit that third syllable, and she actually ended up saying pomeranian. Saranac Pomeranian Wheat - It’s delicious… You need to watch out for the hairs though. Anyway, I didn’t want to chug this beer, so I continued to talk to them while I drank it, and before I knew it, they were handing me another beer. I had already tried both of these beers before, but I’m not one to turn down free beer, even if it was 10:30 on a Saturday morning. Anyway, I ended up hanging out in the beer store for almost half an hour, talking to two ladies (both of whom were old enough to be my momz, yo) about beer, college, and sex. I made that last part up. Anyway, I ended up leaving with a case of Troegs Sunshine Pils (and a 30 of High Life for good measure). Definitely much better than the garbage I left with last time. That made my Saturday a little bit more interesting.

I wrote before about how I was having knee problems that were getting in the way of my running. I stopped running completely for a little bit, and I’ve gotta say, I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed running until I wasn’t able to do it. Anyway, I figured it probably had something to do with the fact that I was running in somewhat crappy shoes. They were Nikes that ran me about $50, but I bought them at Kohls or something. I decided to go to a real shoe store and talk to someone that might know what they were talking about. So I did that, and a dude at The Finish Line suggested the Asic GT 2130s. They felt comfy, so I bought them. About 2 miles into my first run, my feet started to hurt… In the same place on each foot. After 5 miles, I felt like my feet were cut open. So those shoes sucked. I returned them and got a pair of Nike Air Max Moto 5+ instead. These shoes are much better. I ran 3 days in a row this week with no problems whatsoever. I realize this probably isn’t very interesting to most of you, but I’m pretty damn happy to be running again.

These photos of Antelope Canyon in Arizona are absolutely amazing. I can’t imagine there are many other places in the US that can match the sheer beauty of that place… Although I’ve never seen it with my own two eyes. Then again, 11 people died there in 1997, so maybe it’s better that way?

I don’t know if any of you were fans of Kids in the Hall, but I loved that show. If you’re a fan, check out their new sketch, it’s pretty funny. This, on the other hand, isn’t so much funny as it is just downright disturbing. That’s definitely a dude.

The “metal mashups” on this site are pretty interesting, although they’re definitely hit or miss. “Whole Lotta Sabbath” was pretty damn cool. Metallica’s “Eye of the Beholder” mixed together with Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” was actually difficult to listen to, to the point where it was almost disorienting, if that makes any sense. I liked the Iron Maiden/Public Enemy mashup (”Hallowed Be Thy Enemy”), and hearing the Ghostbusters theme mixed together with AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” was pretty cool. Oddly enough, “Stayin Alive” vs “Another Brick in the Wall” also worked out very well. I would have never thought of combining The Bee Gees and Pink Floyd, but its actually a very logical pairing. The guy is no Girl Talk, but it’s worth checking out if you enjoy mashups.

I’m a national shark rodeo champion… Although I’m currently suspended due to my refusal to wear that cowardly chainmail suit. And this dude is a little bitch.

I don’t post music on here nearly as much as I’d like to. I’ll hear a new album and tell myself that I’m gonna post it on my site… But by the time I actually have some free time, the album has been out for a month already, and most people who would potentially be interested in hearing it probably already have a copy. I’m a big fan of MP3 blogs, and if I had more time I’d like to have one of my own. Unfortunately, I can tell you right now that will never happen. Hell, if I had more time, I’d probably start off by revamping the site, as half the stuff on here doesn’t even work, and the layout looks like crap. Anyway, getting back on topic here… Here’s a bunch of random MP3s for you that I had on my computer at work. I’m not gonna bother with descriptions or anything, check them out if you feel like it, maybe you’ll find something you like. Don’t get caught downloading them though, or the RIAA might take away your home.

I’m heading to another small festival this weekend (the last one was a blast), so naturally its pouring down rain, and there are flood warnings… In retrospect, I probably should have gone to visit some friends at Shippensburg or Penn State for graduation, since most of the people that I know who are still in college are graduating now. Oh well - Hopefully the weather will improve a little bit tomorrow. This guy’s got the right idea. Have a great weekend everyone!

From time to time I make mix CDs for my friends. More often than not, they like them - Not to “toot my own horn” here, but I think I’m pretty good at it, as far as determining songs/artists that a person might like based on what they currently listen to, and their personality in general. Pretty deep, I know - What can I say?

Anyway, I made a mix for a friend of mine that I see once every 2 months or so. It’s been in my car for a few weeks now, so whenever Howard Stern is on vacation (which seems like it’s more often than not) I’ve been listening to it, and I think it’s pretty decent. I’ve made tons of mix CDs in the past, but never thought to post them on here for other people to check out. Oh yeah, and if you’re expecting metal, you might want to steer clear of this one, although maybe you’ll find something new that you like. You can download the mix here.

I might have gone a little overboard with the electronic/dancy type stuff on here, but you can’t tell me that these songs aren’t catchy. Hopefully, the presence of Chromeo on this CD doesn’t put my sexuality at stake. And to compensate, I’m gonna go ahead and mention that the new Arsis CD, “We Are The Nightmare”, is pretty spectacular.

Getting back on track here, remember that song “Still Fly” by Big Tymers? Classic. Anyway, The Devil Wears Prada did a cover of it for the “Punk Goes Crunk” compilation, which, as a whole, is overwhelmingly lame. However, I like the cover that they did. It’s funny to hear this type of music done in “metalcore” (or whatever) style. I’ve actually seen these guys before (at Sounds of the Underground last year) and I’m not really into their music, although I do get a kick out of the fact that they have a song called “HTML Rulez d00d“. Anyway, if you like that Big Tymers song, check out their cover of it, it’s entertaining as a novelty if nothing else.

How badly do you want a customized mouse pad? Probably not all that much, really. It’s nothing to get excited over. But this site has them for $2.99 each (with discount code MSPD99). I dunno about you guys, but for $2.99, I think a lemonparty mouse pad is a great deal. Hurry up though, the offer only lasts until 12/31/2099. Shit, I’ll be 126 by then… I hope to have enough money saved up to retire by the time I hit 125.

I love Pantera (I doubt I’ll ever “outgrow” them), so naturally I thought that this video was pretty entertaining. I could have gone without the ‘manky nuts’ parts though.

I’ve been seeing a lot of live music lately, which is awesome. My brother’s band, Still Motion, played at the Trocadero on Wednesday night. I feel like they get better everytime I see them. Last weekend, I saw Umphrey’s McGee at Rams Head Live in Baltimore. They put on a great show. The last song that they played was a sort of “mashup” between “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails and “Come Together” by The Beatles. It was pretty interesting…

The next day, they played a free show at the Green Apple Music Festival in DC. It started to rain about halfway through their set, and it turned into torrential downpour. People came on stage to speak between each band’s set - Chevy Chase came out after Umphrey’s, but before he had a chance to say anything, a cop came on stage and grabbed the mic, and told everyone to seek shelter immediately due to electrical storms. A huge crowd of people all running in different directions in the pouring rain was pretty chaotic, but it was funny. I was completely soaked at that point and didn’t really care about the rain, so I was just running around screaming. We ended up going to the Air & Space Museum while we waited for the rain to stop… Which it never really did. Apparently Warren Haynes played for a little when the rain slowed down, but we didn’t catch that.

This weekend, I’m going to a small festival that’s about an hour from here. It’s called Some Kind Of Jam, and I’m only familiar with 2 of the bands that are gonna be there. It’s only $30 though - I’d spend more than that in one night in the city, and I probably wouldn’t have as much fun either. Believe it or not, I’m really not all that into most “jam bands”, but I love camping out and live music, and festivals are always a good time. I’ve never been to one this small, where I wasn’t familiar with the majority of the bands, so we’ll see how it goes, but I’m sure it will be fun. I can’t wait for my tent to flood when it rains… I actually just ordered a new one, but I’m sure I won’t have it until next week. Anyway, that’s all for now, have a great weekend.

So I got back from Langerado (a music festival in Florida) on Monday night around 9 pm. I had a pretty awesome time there. The festival started on Thursday (March 6th) at 6pm, so I figured that a flight scheduled to arrive at 2pm in Fort Lauderdale (an hour from the festival grounds) would give us plenty of time to get there and set up our campsite. Unfortunately, there were electrical storms in the Fort Lauderdale area, so our flight was forced to land in Orlando. We sat there for awhile and refueled, and by the time we got to Fort Lauderdale, it was about 5:00 pm.

It took us a bit to get our rental car situation figured out, and then we headed to Big Cypress Indian Reservation, where the festival was taking place. There was a huge line of cars outside of the festival (this has come to be expected, however) and it was pretty frustrating to be sitting in the car, knowing that bands you really wanted to see (like Les Claypool) were playing a mile or two away. But we tried to make the best of a bad situation. So we started drinking, and this of course leads to peeing on the side of the road. It was dark out at this point, so this wasn’t really a problem. I got out of the car and walked away from the car, down a little hill on the side of the road about 50 yards. It was marshy on either side of the road, and people were jokingly (or so I thought) yelling stuff like “watch out for alligators!” I laughed, and started to do my thing, when I heard some crazy noises followed by movement about 5 feet away from me. I immediately zipped up and ran back to the car like a little bitch. Sure enough, about a mile down the road, there was a sign posted saying “caution: crocodiles” or something along those lines.

When we finally got into the festival it was between 12:30 and 1. We rolled right through security, they didn’t even ask if we had anything illegal in the car… Which we didn’t, but I know sometimes those searches can take a long time. We parked and setup our campsite in the dark. It was a raining a little bit, but nothing ridiculous. We managed to catch the end of Perpetual Groove, and then if I remember correctly we walked around for a while exploring the campgrounds. I got bit by a few fire ants and we probably called it a night around 3 am.

The next day we got up around 9 or so. We hung out for a bit and drank, and enjoyed our canopy tent (which wouldn’t be around for much longer). We headed into the main festival area around 12:30 to see The Dynamites. They were cool to watch for a little bit, but matt pond PA started at 1:30, so I left the show early to check them out, and I’m glad I did. They put on a really good show, although I don’t know if I would have enjoyed them as much had I not known some of the songs.

After matt pond PA, we went back to the campsite to drink a little, and then headed back to the festival area in time to catch The Wailers. They were pretty cool, I’m not crazy about reggae, but if I’m gonna listen to some, it obviously doesn’t get much better than the music of Bob Marley. So that was kinda cool, but I got distracted after an hour or so of it. We checked out a little bit of G Love’s set, but I’m not too crazy about them.

311 put on a pretty good show. I don’t listen to them that often anymore, but they were my first “favorite band”, I remember listening to them non stop starting in like 6th grade, so it was cool to finally see them. It sucked that I missed !!! (who I also heard put on a good show), but I am definitely glad that I saw 311.

After 311, we checked out a little bit of The Roots (which were okay, but I’m not crazy about them) until The Beastie Boys played. I really enjoyed the Beastie Boys set. I knew that they had some instrumental stuff (their new album, The Mix Up, is all instrumental) but I didn’t expect them to play a lot of it. The set turned out to be about 50/50 and I was impressed by how good they were at playing their respective instruments. Their set was a lot of fun.

After that was Umphrey’s McGee. I was pretty excited to see them, and they played an awesome set, it was definitely in my top 5 for the weekend. After Umphreys we headed over to catch the end of Sound Tribe Sector 9’s set. I like these guys as well, but I couldn’t really get into them that night for whatever reason. So many people were out of their minds at that point, there were people in “zombie mode” all over the place. It got really windy and cold, so as soon as Sound Tribe stopped playing we headed back to the campsite. On our way back, it started to rain really hard. I have had this same tent leak before during rain, so I moved what I could of my stuff into the car. At that point the rain was coming down so hard, it was just ridiculous. So the four of us were just sitting in the car while the torrential downpour continued outside. We had a few beers, and I ended up sleeping in the car that night. My tent did flood, but I’m glad I moved my stuff so none of my clothes got soaked.

The next day, the first band we checked out was The Bad Plus. I was excited to see them (they do some awesome covers) but I wasn’t really able to get into their music that day. We walked around for awhile, checked out some of State Radio’s set, and then headed to the stage where The Avett Brothers were supposed to play. They didn’t end up showing up though, which was kinda lame.

We went back to the campsite to drink for a while, and then came back for some of Thievery Corporation’s set, which was pretty cool. We watched a little bit of Medeski, Scofield, Martin & Wood’s set, but made sure we left in time to get to the stage where Ghostland Observatory would be playing. The frontman (?) is so ridiculously strange, and the light show was just awesome.
They put on one of the best shows of the weekend, in my opinion.

After Ghostland played, R.E.M. came on the main stage. I stayed for maybe 2 songs, and then 2 of us headed back to the campsite to drink some more. We came back in time to catch the last 3-4 songs that R.E.M. played, and it was definitely cool to see them, but I’d be lying if I said I really cared about them. I wanted to hear them play “Man on the Moon”, and they did, so that was cool.

Pelican was up next. I like these guys a lot, and they definitely didn’t disappoint. Before the show, some cute little hippie girl (covered in glitter and wearing fairy wings) was talking to me. She asked me “what kind of music do these guys play?” They’re definitely not a “jam band” by any means, and I think they’d tend to appeal to metalheads more than anyone else. I told her they were a rock band, which I realize is a ridiculously vague description. She said “oh, like REM?” I told her yeah, and then made my way up to the front of the stage. I doubt that chick stayed around for more than 30 seconds of Pelican’s set. Regardless though, it was awesome. After Pelican played, I didn’t really care where we ended up. The Disco Biscuits were playing, but I’m not too crazy about them, so we just wandered around for awhile. There was so much to see there, and I’m sure I still didn’t see 25% of it.

We ended up checking out the Yard Dogs Road Show before we went back to our campsite for the night, and I’m glad we did. They are a traveling cabaret act with sword swallowers and stuff. I didn’t think I’d like them but it was actually very entertaining; I was surprised. Definitely check these guys out if you ever have a chance, I feel like they do a good variety of different things, so there’s something for everyone… And their music is good, too.

Sunday (the last day of the festival) was a lot of fun. I was pretty burnt by this point (the sun was brutal during the day there) and I decided Sunday would be my booze day. That’s not to say that we weren’t drinking the entire festival, but I decided to just concentrate on drinking. We headed into the main festival area at around 2:30 to see The Funky Meters, then checked out a bit of Keller Williams and Grace Potter. I wasn’t excited to see Grace Potter, but I was pleasantly surprised, she can really, uh… Rock? I don’t know what else to say.

The way they had the main festival area setup, you had to pass through security in order to get to the area where the stages were. Security wasn’t letting people bring in anything other than one sealed water bottle, and they were patting people down, so bringing anything other than a flask was pretty tough. There was a “taxi” service (people driving golf carts around) and we learned that when you took a taxi into the festival area, you didn’t have to pass through security. So we started bringing in bookbags full of beer this way, which was pretty awesome, especially since beers were like $6 each inside the festival.

Minus the Bear started at 5:30, and we took a “taxi” - I asked the driver to take us right to that stage, since we were cutting it pretty close. She took us down some access road and dropped us off behind the stage, an area that we otherwise wouldn’t have had access to. So we walked out from behind the stage and entered into the media section, where all the photographers and people with press passes watch the shows. We watched most of Minus the Bear’s set from there, which was pretty awesome. I got some half decent (or at least close up) pictures too, though I was a little drunk at this point. Minus the Bear played an awesome set, and I really enjoyed being super close to the stage.

After that, we saw Blind Melon, who put on a ridiculously good show. Shannon Hoon, the original frontman, died in 1995 from a cocaine overdose, and I wasn’t sure how much I’d like the band with the new lead singer. I gotta give him credit though, he did a great job, and really did an amazing job with the old songs.

After Blind Melon, we apparently saw of Montreal, but I don’t really remember that. I do know that we were at the very front for Phil Lesh & Friends, though. I’d be lying if I said I was a huge fan of The Grateful Dead, but I really enjoyed watching these guys play, it was a great way to end the weekend. After Phil Lesh, Nick and I walked around for awhile and drank, and probably ended up getting to bed around 2 am or so. We weren’t in a huge hurry to leave the next day since our flight wasn’t until 5 or so. It was nice to be able to take our time while taking the tents down and packing up the car. I apologize if my recap of the festival wasn’t overly cohesive, but I’m pretty exhausted right now. You can check out the majority of the pictures I took at Langerado here. I took a lot of video as well, so maybe some day it will end up on YouTube? Probably not.

I started a new job (doing SEO) this past Wednesday. I mentioned before that I got pretty burnt while in Florida. By Wednesday, my entire face (and neck, and back) was peeling. I’ve never had it happen that badly before. I’m pretty sure everyone at my new job thinks I was in a chemical fire. It’s Sunday night right now and I’m still peeling, though it isn’t nearly as bad as it was before. Anyway, this recent lack of posts has been brought to you by corporate America. I don’t get out of work until 6:15, and I get home around 7 or so. After sitting at a computer the whole day, the last thing I find myself wanting to do is get back on the computer when I get home. But hopefully I will get used to this new routine soon enough, and I’ll be able to find more time for the site again.

I can’t believe that the world’s first MP3 player was released ten years ago. I only say that because I owned the world’s second MP3 player, the Rio PMP300. I thought it was the first until I read this article. It definitely doesn’t seem like ten years ago when I was walking to school in the morning, listening to the 5 Limp Bizkit mp3s that would fit on its whopping 32 MB of memory. I guess that really was ten years ago… Shit, I’m getting old.

So someone came out with a website that, in my opinion, is way overdue. It’s called RateMyCop.com, and I guess it’s pretty self-explanatory. For those of you that are complete idiots, it is basically an online police officer database where users can rate cops on things like authority, fairness, and satisfaction. Of course a bunch of cops have their panties in a bundle about this, and the domains registrar (GoDaddy) actually had the nerve to pull the plug on the site (article here). It’s back up on a different host, and you can check it out here.

This past weekend was pretty exhausting… We did the Erin Express thing again this year, and then saw Grimace Federation at the TLA. I also hit a girl with a french fry, and she told me that her boyfriend is in the mob, and that he’s going to kill me. So I have that going for me. Anyway, I’m gonna watch Breaking Bad and try and get some sleep, hope you all had a nice weekend.

This summer, I’ve been to more shows than I usually go to in an entire year. And that’s awesome, but my checking account probably wouldn’t agree. Two weeks ago, I ended up going to the Warped Tour. Yeah I know, that’s pretty lame considering the fact that I’m 23 years old, but I didn’t feel too bad buying a ticket since it’s was around $25 (before Ticketmaster bent me over and had it their way). And now that I think about it… I feel worse about having purchased a ticket to Sounds of the Underground, since a portion of that money definitely went straight to Hot Topic, who I believe was the main sponsor of that tour… Ugh. Anyway, Warped Tour was pretty cool musically - since that’s what it’s all about… I think? Anyway, I got to see Coheed & Cambria and Killswitch Engage (I’ve seen both of them twice before), Tiger Army, and Bad Religion. They all put on great shows, and it was definitely awesome to see Bad Religion, who I’ve liked for probably 7-8 years now, but never had a chance to see live before. I also saw some of Pepper’s set, and the last bit of MC Chris’s set. I totally forgot he was gonna be there - For those of you who don’t know, he does the voices for some of the characters on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, notably MC Pee Pants. Judging by what I saw his set wasn’t incredible or anything, but at the very least it was entertaining.

Two days after the Warped Tour, I went to see Between the Buried and Me at the Chameleon Club in Lancaster. They played with The Red Chord and Cephalic Carnage. Last time I saw BTBAM they were with The Red Chord too. The Red Chord put on a pretty good show - I like these guys a lot, but we were up on the balcony for their set, because that’s where the bar was. I actually drove to the show alone and met up with two friends, one of whom (Brian) was already hammered when he got there. He got kicked out of the club within 15 minutes of arriving. Anyway, when the Red Chord finished up their set, Kyle and I headed down to the stage. Somehow I managed to make it to the front row. This was great, because not only did I avoid the scene kids in the mosh pit doing their karate kicks and windmill moves that they spend hours practicing in the mirror before the show, I also got to yell into the mic at one point, like a 14 year old girl at a Fall Out Boy show. Tommy, the lead singer, was no more than 2 feet from me for the majority of the performance. Anyway, their performance was nothing short of amazing. Most of you probably aren’t into these guys at all, so I’ll wrap this up and stop wasting your time, but if you are a fan and have yet to see them live, do yourself a favor and check them out.

Yeah, I’m not done talking about music yet. After Bonnaroo this year, I told myself I had to make it to another music festival before the “season” ended… “Season” meaning the warm weather that allows for camping and basically being a filthy hippie for 3-4 days. There have been a ton of good music festivals since Bonnaroo, but the majority of them are nowhere near me, and I’m not at all in a position to be buying plane tickets right now, the tickets to the festivals are usually expensive enough as it is. So we eventually decided on Camp Bisco. This is Camp Bisco’s sixth year, but from what I’ve read it’s usually at a different venue every year because they are never welcomed back by the property owners. Anyway, the festival was started by The Disco Biscuits. I’m actually not too crazy about this band. I’ve tried to get into them before (they were at Bonnaroo in 2006, but I didn’t end up seeing them) but nothing about the music really grabs me. I’ve heard nothing but good things about their live shows though, so I thought I’d give it a shot anyway.

The Disco Biscuits ended up playing four seperate sets (all three nights, plus one unscheduled afternoon set to make up for some scheduling conflicts). And I’ll be honest, I was bored during the majority of those sets. I thought I’d be able to get into them, but I really couldn’t.

That’s not to say I didn’t have a good time though. Umphrey’s McGee played an awesome set. They played for around 2 hours or so, and I definitely would have rather seen them play more sets over the weekend than the Biscuits.

There was an abundance of electronic music there. When I hear “techno”, I lose interest right away… But some of this stuff is cool. Shpongle is some of the most out-there music ever (I just couldn’t bring myself to call it “trippy”, that’s so lame). Unfortunately, Shpongle’s set was during a Disco Biscuits “setbreak”, so it was only about 3 songs, and it wasn’t really that great either.

I was really excited to see Hallucinogen in Dub. Unfortunately, Hurricane Bisco was at it’s most intense during their slot. The wind and rain was so ridiculous at this point that I actually stayed in my tent just to hold it down - I honestly thought that if I wasn’t inside it to anchor it down, it would have blown away - And it most likely would have. I saw the damage the next day, and even people’s E-Z Up shelter things were destroyed, and those things are sturdy as hell. There was tent shrapnel all over the place, bent poles and stakes all over the ground. It was some of the most ridiculous weather ever, and we camped through it. I ended up sleeping in my friend’s truck that night though, because my tent got flooded. This was the second night in a row that it happened, too. The first time (Thursday night) I definitely wasn’t in the right state of mind to come back to my tent late at night and find all of my clothes and stuff completely soaked. I won’t get into that here, but let’s just say it sucked.

I missed Girl Talk’s set at Bonnaroo, so I was determined to catch it at Camp Bisco, and it was pretty cool. He had like 25 people up on the stage dancing with him. It might sound lame, but I enjoyed it. And speaking of lame, I thought Slick Rick had one of the shittiest sets of the weekend. His backing band was cool, but he just didn’t really do anything for me.

Anyway, the venue is owned and operated by bikers (some people say they’re Hell’s Angels) and they couldn’t have been nicer. I’d love to go to another festival there. There was no unnecessary searching or anything - They checked cars upon entry, and that was it. At Bonnaroo, everytime you wanted to enter the stage area, you got searched. At Camp Bisco, not only do they not search you, but you’re actually allowed to bring beer with you to the stages, as opposed to breaking the bank on six dollar beers all weekend.

I’m not going to touch on every band I saw there, but Sound Tribe was awesome, Bustle in Your Hedgerow was cool, and Holy Fuck put on one of the best sets of the weekend, in my opinion. Anyway, I’m sure most of you don’t care about this, so I’m not gonna keep going with it, but I feel obligated to let you know what I’ve been up to… Minus the incriminating details, of course. Hi mom!

When I have kids, I will teach them to read using this book. Every child should probably own a copy, right?

Not feeling very creative? Depending on what you’re trying to come up with, the Idea Generator just may be able to help you. It’s pretty simple: it just gives you 3 random words, but if I was trying to come up with an idea for a drawing or something, this thing would definitely help me out.

Dammit… Seeing stuff like this makes me wish I had time to learn to play guitar. I used to listen to In Flames constantly, not so much anymore, but I still love their older stuff, and that video is awesome.

I take my iPod Nano with me when I go running, and I have the Nike+ thing - That’s how I track my runs, and it’s also how I keep my ‘running stats’ thing on the right side of the site updated. I just realized today that it hasn’t updated the last couple runs, though, and then my iPod stopped working. I’m pretty sure if I do a ‘factory restore’ through iTunes it will start working again, but that means I’ll lose all my run data, as well as all my music and playlists. What a pain in the ass. But I guess it’s been way too long since something electronic of mine has malfunctioned or broken. Actually, that’s not true… My digital camera is all screwed up, the memory card got corrupted or something and I lost like 200 pictures. So that’s good. Anyway, that’s all I have time for right now. Have a great weekend everybody.

I’m pretty sure I brought at least an acre of Tennessee home with me in my nose. No, that was not a poor attempt at a drug reference - This year’s Bonnaroo was incredibly dry. With all the cars and human traffic on the dry earth, heavy clouds of dust were ever present throughout the farm. It is obvious that I wasn’t the only one bothered by this, as tons of people donned bandanas that covered the lower half of their faces. I ended up buying a bandana from some dude for a dollar, and it was pretty lame looking - It had a pot-leaf pattern on it, and I felt like a total douche. Normally I would refuse to wear something like that, but the dust really did suck. I wasn’t prepared for it at all (since it wasn’t like that last year) and I actually missed some shows because of it… I think I would have rathered a rainy, muddy Bonnaroo, at least that way I would have been able to breathe. Anyway, that’s pretty much my only gripe with the whole thing, so now that I got the bitching out of the way…

Our little entourage of 5 cars met up in Shippensburg around 11pm Thursday evening, and hit the road soon after. I thought that five cars trying to stay together would be hard, because if one person has to stop to go to the bathroom, all five cars would have to stop, but it actually worked out pretty nicely… Well, four out of five cars arrived there together. I’d say we got to Manchester, TN around 10-ish the next morning, but don’t quote me on that. We were using my GPS duder and I don’t think it gave us the most efficient route, as we were on a lot of backroads, getting stuck behing trucks doing 15 mph and etc. We sat in line for probably 2 and a half hours, which is way longer than it took us to get in last year, but not bad. Since traffic was barely moving, people were laying on top of their cars and walking around outside, so it wasn’t all that bad. We hadn’t even entered the farm yet, and the fun had already started.

Once we finally got in, they checked our tickets and peeked in the car, but didn’t do a thorough search at all - Though it wouldn’t have mattered if they did, we didn’t have anything ‘illegal’, save a few glass bottles that they might have confiscated had they found them at the bottom of our coolers. I was worried that we wouldn’t all get to park together, and therefore our camp sites would be all over the place, but we ended up all parking right next to each other, so we had one big campsite with plenty of room. The car that got seperated ended up being parked about 10 minutes from us which wasn’t bad either. We were about a 15 minute walk from Centeroo, which is where all the bands play - The walk got a little annoying after awhile, since I found myself going to and from Centeroo 2-3 times a day, but it could have been much worse.

It didn’t take us too long to set up our tents and canopy things, and within half an hour or so we were all setup. We had a few beers and headed to Centeroo. The first band we checked out was The Little Ones. They were one of the first bands to be “announced” for this year’s Bonnaroo, so I knew all of the songs pretty well. We were pretty close to the front for this set, which was cool. They weren’t incredible or anything, but they were fun to see live, and it was a pretty good start to the festival. I also didn’t know they were Asian, not that it makes a difference or anything, it’s just not what I pictured.

Next we saw The Black Angels. They were also announced early, before the ‘official’ lineup was released, but I had only listened to them maybe five times. They put on an awesome show though, it was ‘darker’ than I thought it would be, if that makes any sense. Everyone seemed to enjoy it though, and I definitely like them a lot more now that I’ve seen them live.

After that, we checked out Apollo Sunshine. Once again, this band was announced way before the official lineup was released, so I had plenty of time to listen to both of their albums. I know pretty much all of their material, but I didn’t recognize some of the stuff they played, so they must have been playing new material. Anyway, they were awesome live. I wasn’t expecting them to ‘jam’ as much as they did - They’d play a 3 minute song for 10 minutes or so, and it was really cool, I was pleasantly surprised. I’d definitely see these guys again.

Clutch was up next, and I was really excited to see them, I’ve liked these guys since high school, and it’s strange that I hadn’t seen them live before this. Unfortunately, by this point I was exhausted. I saw about half of their show and decided it was time to head back since I could barely stand. What I did see of their set was awesome, and I really do regret leaving early, but I hadn’t gotten much sleep over the past 24 hours. It seemed that they were only playing newer stuff though, which is cool, but I definitely would have liked to hear more of their older material. I have heard bootlegs of other shows that they’ve played recently, and they sort of seem to ignore everything before Pure Rock Fury, which is a shame. Anyway, some of the people I was with saw the whole set and said it was amazing, which I have no trouble believing.

Before my girlfriend and I headed back to the campsite, we swung by Rodrigo y Gabriela. What I heard of that sounded awesome, but sleep was calling my name. Apparently right after we left, they covered Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, which I’m sure was amazing.

On Friday morning we were all up by 8 am. It’s impossible to go back to sleep when you wake up drenched in sweat, and after one morning like this, you come to terms with the fact that you will never sleep past 8:30 am, unless you’re in an air conditioned RV or something. The first band we checked out on Friday was Cold War Kids. This is another band that was announced a few months before the official lineup came out, so I had plenty of time to listen to them, and I like them a lot. We were pretty far back for this set, and for whatever reason we didn’t try to get close to the front, so we couldn’t really see them playing, but it sounded pretty good. It’s hard to get into the band when you’re that far back though, so it was a good set, but I’m sure that it would have been much better had we been closer.

We went back to our campsite for a little, and then headed back for Kings of Leon. They put on a great set, I liked these guys prior to seeing them, but I wasn’t expecting them to be this good. Our group got split up (this happened about two hundred times) and my friend Alex and I got pretty close to the front. She had a water bottle of hot vodka with her… Thank god. I almost threw up 2-3 times, but it was a lot of fun, especially because of how close we were. It rained for about 10 minutes during this set, which was a godsend.

After Kings of Leon, some of our group went to see The Nighwatchman. I wasn’t really interested in that though. I’m assuming I must have headed back to the camp at this point, because I didn’t see any more bands play until…

Tool. They are probably one of my top 10 favorite bands, and it’s pretty ridiculous that I had never seen them live up until this point. Tool’s set may very well have been the best thing I saw (musically and visually) at Bonnaroo. I have heard how amazing they are live from people, but I tried not to think about it too much, as I didn’t want to have high expectations and then be disappointed. I was absolutely blown away. They played a good variety of songs, and Maynard was pretty funny. He kept saying “thanks and goodnight”, indicating that the show was over, but then they’d go on to play another song. Hearing “Aenema” live was nothing short of amazing. I had chills going up and down my spine for the majority of the set. Tom Morello came out and did some cool guitar work for Lateralus too, which was pretty cool, but it would have been just as amazing without him. The lights were spectacular - Obviously a good amount of people had taken one psychedelic or another prior to the show, and I had people pointing to the lasers flying all over the sky and asking me, “did that really just happen? Did you see that too?” Walking away from Tool’s set, I knew that it would be next to impossible for any band to top what I had just seen. I feel bad for anyone that missed out on that set.

Aesop Rock was one of the main acts that I wanted to see, but for whatever reason I never made it over to “This Tent” while he was performing. Instead I followed my friends to “Which Stage” to see some of String Cheese Incident, which really didn’t do much for me. Having just seen Tool, I guess I just wasn’t in the right state of mind to listen to that type of music.

Eventually we made our way over to El-P. I was a little bored after seeing String Cheese, but once El-P started his set up with “Mad World” (from Donnie Darko), I got excited again. I have listened to his new album, “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead” a good bit, so I knew most of the tracks that he performed. And although I was bummed to have missed out on Aesop Rock’s set, he came out to join El-P on the track “Run The Numbers” which was pretty cool. I would have liked him to keep the political ramblings to a minimum, but it’s no big deal.

We stayed at “Which Stage” after El-P finished so that we’d have a good spot for DJ Shadow. I’ve liked him for a long time, I definitely listened to him before I knew who El-P or Aesop Rock were. He took about half an hour to setup, so by the time he came on we were getting a bit antsy, but it was worth the wait. We saw 45 minutes or so of his set, and then decided to go walk around for a while, since there is a lot more to check out in Centeroo than just the music, and we hadn’t really explored much yet.

We ended up heading over towards “That Tent” where Sound Tribe Sector 9 was playing. I was familiar with their music, but not sure if I really liked it or not. We only caught the last 15-20 minutes of their set, and it sounded cool, but I couldn’t really get into it. After STS9 finished, we headed back to catch the end of DJ Shadow, which was a great way to end the night.

We woke up on Saturday morning and did a little boozin’ before heading to check out Old Crow Medicine Show. I like these guys, but I was missing Dr. Dog (who no one else wanted to see). OCMS sounded pretty good, so I stayed there for about 20 minutes before checking out the end of Dr. Dog’s set. They brought out dudes from Apollo Sunshine and Elvis Perkins for the last track, which was pretty cool.

After that, I convinced some of my friends to stick around and see some of Gogol Bordello with me. They put on an awesome show, very energetic, and everyone seemed to like them. I liked the hot gypsy girls that were jumping around… I want one. We saw about 45 minutes of the set, but the people I was with wanted to see Hot Tuna, so we headed over there. I like some of their music, but I just couldn’t get into it, and no one else really seemed to be into it either, so we headed back to our campground to drink some more. I realize I only mentioned drinking a few times in here so far. I did a good amount of drinking there, but the average temperature was about 90 degrees, and if I drank too much I was afraid I’d pass out and rot in the sun. I did have a CamelBak with me, but there were usually between 4-8 people with me, so it would empty pretty quickly.

Anyway, everyone was excited to see Ween. I like these guys a lot, but it sucked to walk by the tent where The Hold Steady was playing and not having any time to stop and listen. Anyway, I saw about half of Ween’s set, and then it got to the point where I almost couldn’t breathe at all. I headed to the medical tent, and after standing around for 15 minutes or so, someone finally decided to come see what I needed. They looked around for an inhaler and when they finally found one, it took me 2 minutes to use. I felt a little better and was all ready to leave, but they told me I needed to fill out paperwork. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find a pen. Part of me wanted to stand up and run out of there, but I figured if I stayed patient, it’d only take a minute. They spent another ten minutes or so looking for a pen, and then finally told me I could leave and not to worry about the paperwork. By the time I got back to the stage where Ween was playing, they had 2 more songs to go. So I missed a good amount of the set, but it’s probably better that I left when I did.

After Ween, we headed over to the main stage where The Police would be playing. We were pretty far back, but everyone seemed kind of exhausted, so it was nice to have a spot to throw a blanket down and be able to sit down on it without being trampled by drunken Sting fans. I have to be honest here, I was pretty disappointed with The Police’s set. Yeah, we were pretty far back, but the sound was awful. We were much further back for Radiohead on that same stage the previous year, and we could hear them just fine. I know it wasn’t just us, no one seemed to be into it. People all around us were having conversations, and a lot of people weren’t even facing the stage. I wanted to like their set a lot, as I’m a pretty big fan of The Police, but it just wasn’t happening.

I actually ended up walking back to the campsite with my girlfriend so she could change into jeans because it was getting chilly out. When we came back they had pretty much finished playing, but I didn’t feel like I had missed anything. I was pretty damn excited for The Flaming Lips anyway, who played next. Unfortunately, by the time we made our way over to the stage they were to play on, it was already ridiculously crowded. I’ve never seen any of the smaller stages that crammed before, there was literally nowhere even remotely close for us to sit or stand. When we did find a spot, it was so far back that we could hear the music from the other stages, so that really sucked. I knew I was missing an amazing show, but we ended up leaving pretty much right away.

We headed over to check out Galactic’s set, which was pretty damn cool. They don’t currently have a vocalist, but their upcoming album features a bunch of hip-hop acts (such as Mr. Lif, Lyrics Born, and Gift of Gab, among others). So they more or less supplied the beats for the rappers, which was pretty cool. I’m sure the album will be awesome when it comes out. I do kind of regret missing Gov’t Mule, but we ended up leaving before Galactic finished their set.

The first band I saw on Sunday was Wolfmother. We didn’t have great seats for this show, and I couldn’t really see the band well, but they sounded pretty good. I’m pretty sure I knew every song they played, so that was cool.

After Wolfmother, we checked out some of Bob Weir & Ratdog. I don’t know much of their music, but when we walked over they were covering “Come Together” by The Beatles which sounded pretty damn cool, and then they played a Dead song that I recognized as well. Would have liked to have stayed for more of that, but we headed back to the tent for a while.

A little later that afternoon we saw The White Stripes. Once again, we didn’t have the best seats for this show, but they were better than the seats we had for Wolfmother at that same stage earlier in the day. They put on a great show, though I wish I would have gone up to the front with some of the other people we were with. Jack White helped someone propose during that show which was pretty cool.

Widespread Panic was the last band of the festival, and I was pretty excited to see them. I didn’t recognize as many songs as I would have liked to, but they played a few that I knew, and they also did some cool covers, including Sabbath’s “Fairies Wear Boots”, which was a nice surprise. They put on an awesome show, and it was a pretty good way to wrap up the weekend. After their set we explored Centeroo a little more, but pretty much everything was closed at that point, so we headed back to our campsite and drank for a while until everyone passed out.

I didn’t see as much as I would have liked to, partly because I was the only person carrying a phone with me most of the time, and once you split up with people it was pretty much impossible to meet up with them again, it was just too confusing. But I had an awesome time, and definitely plan on going next year. If I do go, I’ll definitely be more prepared. We left Manchester around 10 am or so on Monday morning, and didn’t get back to Philadelphia until about 2am Tuesday morning because of some traffic and other minor complications. I am still pretty out of it, and my asthma still really sucks, but hopefully that will clear up over the next few days. If you read this entire post, I’m proud of you, because I sure didn’t.

If you want to check out some of the live sets that are available for download (both audio and video) LargeHeartedBoy’s 2007 Bonnaroo Downloads is a good place to start. Also, try here and here. Tool’s set was available in FLAC, but I converted it to MP3 for you, so you can grab that here: Tool - Live at Bonnaroo 2007 - It’s not amazing quality, but it’s listenable. Enjoy!

So the Bonnaroo 2007 schedule was finally released yesterday. I’ve been waiting for a long time to see this thing, and it was inevitable that I’d be disappointed. I only say that because, with the amount of bands that I want to see there, there’s bound to be some scheduling conflicts. I’m not gonna make definite decisions on who I will and will not see there yet, since I guess it sort of depends on who my friends are going to see (as of now there’s 13 of us going), though I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing bands by myself either.

As of now though, I’d like to see The Little Ones, Apollo Sunshine, Clutch, Cold War Kids, Brazilian Girls, Kings of Leon, The Black Keys, Tool, Aesop Rock, El-P, DJ Shadow, Dr Dog, Gogol Bordello, The Hold Steady, Ween, The Police, The Flaming Lips, Bob Weir & Ratdog, Wilco, The White Stripes, and Widespread Panic.

But if I did see all of those bands, I’d miss out on seeing Mute Math, The National, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Tea Leaf Green, Tortoise, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Hot Chip, The Nightwatchman, The Roots, Manu Chao, String Cheese, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Slip, Railroad Earth, Hot Tuna, Spoon, Keller Williams, Gov’t Mule, Galactic (with tons of awesome hip-hop guests), Girl Talk, Wolfmother, The Decemberists, and Ornette Coleman. And those are just the acts that I’d really like to see that I’d be missing - There are a lot of others as well. So it’s pretty frustrating. It wasn’t this bad last year, because I hadn’t checked out as many of the bands beforehand, so I guess I didn’t really know what I was missing.

This is the best thing I’ve seen all day… Have a good Memorial Day weekend everybody.

This lineup may or may not be legit, but I’m pretty psyched about it so I’m posting it anyway. The official lineup comes out sometime tomorrow, so I guess we’ll know for sure, but for now, the highlights of this lineup (for me) are: Tool (obviously), Aesop Rock, Clutch, The Flaming Lips, Spoon, DJ Shadow, Wilco, Ween, Gov’t Mul, Widespread Panic, The Decemberists, Sound Tribe Sector 9, The Hold Steady, Cold War Kids, and Tea Leaf Green. I was really doubting that Tool would be there, so if this is legitimate, it’s awesome. That’s all for now.

Edit II: Da Sequel: The lineup is confirmed as of 2:55 this afternoon… I took a screen shot from my gmail inbox, here it is.

Edit: Added supplemental Billboard.com article concerning the lineup. Additional articles: Jambase.com, Tennessean.com, Knoxknews.com, and uh - Actually that’s enough articles, you’re not gonna read them all anyway.

From Bonnaroo.com:

For the 2007 edition of Bonnaroo we are making available a limited quantity of discounted early-bird tickets before the line-up is announced. The early-bird pre-sale begins Wednesday, December 13, 2006 at 10:00 AM and ends as soon as the allotment is sold-out (Or until we come to our senses and cancel the promotion). Quantities of these specially priced tickets are extremely limited, so act fast!

I don’t know how many of you are even into music festivals, or the types of bands that tend to be at them. I’m not a huge fan of jam bands, but I went to Bonnaroo last year and had an amazing time. The music was cool, but that was only part of the experience. I’m definitely getting my ticket tomorrow morning because they’re selling for $125 (plus service charges, shipping, and miscellaneous BS, bringing the total to about $150). Last year I spent over $200 for my ticket because I waited until later in the year to buy it. The lineup for this year hasn’t even been announced yet (speculation here, but I’m sure some bands I’d like to see will end up being there. Anyway, if it just happens to be 10 AM on Wednesday, December 13 2006 (or soon after) and this post has inspired you to buy a ticket, you can do so here. But if my posts have that strong of an influence on your thoughts and actions… Would you be interested in buying some real estate in an imaginary place?

Anyway, yeah, my posts lately (ha!) have been dealing with music more than in the past, and I guess some of the music I’ve been posting hasn’t appealed to many of you. How about this - Post in the comments area an album you’d like to see on here, and if I have it (or can get it, which I most likely can) I’ll post it on here.

Have you ever come across a YouTube video that you wanted to download, so you could view it later, maybe on your iPod/PSP/other mobile device? There are several ways of doing this, but now there’s a surprisingly simple way: Vixy.net’s FLV Online Converter. Definitely a nice tool to add to your bookmarks, I know it’ll come in handy for me at some point.

Alright, I have a final in about 45 minutes, and it’s inevitably going to pwn my soul, but I should probably hit the books.