John’s Crawlspace

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.

I’d venture to say that I became aware of The Disco Biscuits probably 2-3 years ago, but they never really piqued my interest. I had some friends that liked them, but they just didn’t “do it” for me. Up until about a year ago, the fact that they are considered a “jam band” was enough in itself to keep me from really giving them a chance. I was more confused by them than anything else; I had a hard time understanding the appeal of their music.

I have checked out parts of their sets at a few festivals (most recently Langerado) but as I said before, I was never really able to get into the music. This band has a huge (dedicated) following, and I almost felt like I was being left out or something. I’m open to all kinds of music, so clearly I just didn’t “get it”.

Illicit Drugs:

At some point, it dawned on me that the reason that I wasn’t able to get into this band was because I’ve never taken ecstacy. At some point in high school, I saw how people acted when they took it, and I decided that, in direct conflict with my burning desire to put holes in my brain, I had no interest in ever trying it. It should have been obvious to me… The bands name is a direct reference to the drug, and “molly” is all over the place at their shows. Anyway, it became apparent to me that the majority (or at least a good amount) of the band’s fanbase were so into the music because they were rolling at the shows.

This may or may not be an unfair statement, I’m sure the band has fans that have never touched the stuff, but I formed my opinion. So essentially, if you disagree with me, you’re wrong.

Cardio:

I’ve been running on and off since my freshman year of high school. I was never even semi-serious about it until college, and even then my running was sporadic… I’d go 4 times in 1 week, then skip the entire next week, you get the picture. After I graduated, I realized that I needed to get rid of a mild beer belly that I had cultivated, so I started to get into a routine, and I realized that I actually enjoyed it. Since I graduated in December of 2006, I’ve been running pretty consistently, although some knee problems have forced me to cut it from 5-6 times a week to 3 times a week.

Anyway, I’m a huge music fan, and I waste a lot of time putting together playlists for my runs. Most people probably just put their iPods on shuffle and go. I, on the other hand, spend much more time than I probably should putting together these playlists. A few weeks ago, I came across the “Hippie Workout Mix”, which is comprised of selections of live Disco Biscuits performances (put together by Live Music Blog, which is a pretty cool site). I usually run to metal, but I thought I’d give it a try.

To my surprise, I really enjoyed running to this. It had a pretty consistent beat, and due to the nature of the music, I found myself spacing out a little bit, and therefore not concentrating on how long/far I had gone. My only complaint was that, at just under 33 minutes, it was too short. But I knew that the guy who put that podcast together was on to something, because it was great to run to.

Due to continuing knee problems (which really, really suck, and most likely mean I won’t be able to participate in this) I’ve been forced to find alternatives to running. So at the gym tonight, I decided to give the elliptical another shot. It doesn’t look much like that, but that chick using it is smokin’. I’ve used it before, but it was boring as hell. I don’t like running in place; I’d much rather be running outside, where there’s stuff to look at.

Anyway, I was putting some music on my iPod at work, and I thought I’d give this Disco Biscuits nonsense another shot. I found a song on the Live Music Archive that was about 36 minutes long, and put a few songs on the playlist before it so I’d have an hours worth of music.

I stand firm in my opinion that the elliptical sucks, and in my opinion is no replacement for a good old fashioned run, but that hour went by ridiculously fast. The improvisational techniques employed by the band (and their overall style) is perfect for running, in my opinion. After my workout flew by, I realized that the Disco Biscuits exist for a reason… They need to start playing in gyms. The only problem with that idea is that their fans would show up, and within minutes, people would be trying to plug molly and smoke DMT in the gym, and I don’t think that would fly. If you’ve been to music festivals before, maybe you just got a mental image of a bunch of drugged-out zombies “raging” in a gym. Maybe you laughed.

So what was the point of this post? I have no idea, really. Maybe I’m in the minority since I was able to “overcome the odds” and find a way to enjoy this band without the assistance of mind-altering drugs. I realize this is a weird post. I’m exhausted (as usual) which may have something to do with it, but I know I’ve been neglecting the site, so I told myself I’d sit down tonight and wouldn’t get up until I wrote something. So there you have it.

This actually kind of scares me, and I’m not sure why. Maybe because it reminds me of the mechanical hound in Fahrenheit 451? If one of those things was following you around, I bet you’d be pretty freaked out, so don’t call me a pussy for being scared of a robot.

My 500 GB external hard drive (this) is giving me “cyclical redundancy check” errors, and not allowing me to access any of the files on it. I’ve spent an insane amount of time gathering/organizing the music on here, so to say that this sucks would be a bit of an understatement. Anyway, I’m gonna see what I can do about that now, so wish me luck. Or don’t, it really doesn’t make much of a difference.

Charles Manson is making good use of his life sentence - He just released an album under Creative Commons. The 16-track album is titled “One Mind”, and you can download it here. I just downloaded it, and the quality leaves something to be desired… But then again, it was recorded in prison. Anyway, I’m intrigued. I might have to check out some more mentally ill musicians.

Watching stuff in slow motion is usually pretty awesome, and this is no exception. Wow.

Shorpy.com posts high-resolution historical photos. For some reason, I find most of the pictures to be pretty pretty fascinating. Definitely a good way to kill some time.

What The World Eats is pretty interesting - It shows pictures of families from different parts of the world with everything that they purchased at the grocery store (or wherever they get their food) for that week, along with what they spent on it, and what their favorite foods are. It turns out that the Aboubakar family from Chad is living large… Who would have thought?

You’ve gotta be pretty confident in your artistic abilities to start drawing on a Lamborghini in sharpie marker. Check out the end result though, it looks pretty badass. By the way, the link for the word ‘looks’ in that last sentence is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.

Remember the Westboro Baptist Church (the “God Hates Fags” people)? They got Rick Rolled. I laughed.

Some dude attached high-def cameras to elephants. The resulting pictures came out pretty well… Interesting stuff.

Correct me if I’m wrong… But I’m pretty sure that the music video for “Unleash Carnage” by Himsa just made tennis a little bit more badass.

Charlton Heston is dead, and I’m going to bed. That sentence rhyming was not an attempt at humor.