This Week's Tunes

Man, weather is wierd. Less than a month ago it was around 100 degrees- and as of yesterday it was about 40 and pissing rain. On of my favorite things about where I live is standing on the beach looking at snow covered mountains.
So this got me in the winter mood- and with the holidays fast approaching, I dusted off some old friendlies to warm me up, music-wise.

-Mogwai: Mr. Beast
-Jimi Hendrix: Band of Gypsies
-Any Beatles record
-Mastodon: Blood Mountain & Leviathan
-Interpol: Turn On The Bright Lights
-Ataxia: Automatic Writing
-John Frusciante: DC EP
-And yes, I fucking like Christmas music, so I have a playlist of that going on iTunes. Deal with it.

2 Recent Revelations

I was watching Dave Chappelle's Block Party (again) the other day and I realized two things:

1. Lauren Hill is certainly the best female singer in modern music. Seriously- her voice is amazing, easily ahead of Beyonce (sorry Beyonce, no time to hunt-and-peck for your accent marks), Christina Aguilera (whose voice has like, zero personality), and Alicia Keys (she comes in second place, bolstered by her friendship with Jack White). However- I can't stand her! I don't know why. I love the Fugees, but she drives me nuts for some reason- maybe because she is rather nuts herself.

2. It's a serious bummer living in a world where Dave Chappelle is still in virtual hiding. I know he has/had a lot of shit on his mind- but come say hi once in a while Dave! Even an Oprah appearance would be welcome.

Things That Have Happened (to me) Since The Last Time I Got Gas for $1.86

Yes, the threshold has been crossed. Gas at this particular gas station is actually below $1.86 at the time of this writing- it's 7-11, 17th St, Costa Mesa here. This is a memorable amount is because I was helping Dawn move into the old Costa Mesa apartment, and the day after driving a miserable, air conditioning-less, radio-less huge U-Haul truck from Paso to the Mesa in the middle of August (2003, pending verification), I couldn't help thinking how screwed I was getting by filling up the truck at the 7-11 down the street for $1.86/gal. Little did I know, right? Get ready for a big ass incomplete sentence, starting NOW!

Graduated college, Paso earthquake, layoff, move to So Cal, collect unemployment, blow savings, internship (Adam LaRue is the greatest), "Sweet" music industry job, overworked & underpaid in shitty Garden Grove (excellent freinds made, however), TiVo zombie initiation, getting a cat, early (forced) retirement from music tastemaking (Sierra and I broke Fall Out Boy. Really. Kinda. Yes, unfortunately all in a days work), Dawn graduates law school ass-kickingly, European Sojurn, The Lost Year (which I will not speak of other than saying unemployment, depression, temp jobs), going to the gym, getting my shit together, getting a "real" job, new laptop (!), de-vegitarianizing, expanding liquid horizions, joining/quitting a drummerless band, moving to Corona Del Mar, getting engaged.
So there we are, up to last week. Weirdness!

The Current "Stuff."

Records:
-Brian Eno: Taking Tiger Mountian (By Strategy)
-Mogwai [as usual]: The Hawk Is Howling & My Father My King
-The Beatles: The White Album
-Melvins: The Maggot [Dude, I like it! Sorry for calling you out in the past Buzz]
-The Andrew Oldham Orchestra: The Rolling Stones Songbook [The last song on here may sound very familiar to you. Research!]
-Mastodon: Blood Mountain
-Scott Walker: Scott 2
-To buy: new (International) Noise Conspiracy, new phono preamp

Other Music Stuff:
-Geeking out over Mastodon recording a new record: check this and this.
-Have a bunch of Boris records to go through that I "got" from my brother. He loves the sludge-metal, that's for sure.

Holiday Attack:
-Other than getting engaged (geez- obvs, Brian), Thanksgiving was memorable for these reasons: A)The worst heartburn of my life. B) Drinking alcohol before 9 am for several days in a row (see "A" above). C) Playing video games with parents/adult family (it was Wii, but still. My Mom thinks creating "Mii"s is the most hillarious thing ever).
-I started Christmas shopping earlier than ever this year. Congrats to myself for good planning/budgeting.
-XMas tree this weekend?

Wedding Attack:
-1 week into planning and shit's going pretty well. After some haggling over the date (and many, many congrats to Megan and Morgan), things are going nicely. Only 10 months to go!
-The first thing I did when I got home and plugged my music hard drive in was start playlisting. I AM UNSTOPPABLE, and possibly the best DJ ever.

Hello Adulthood, nice to finally meet you.

Yes, Dawn and I are now engaged.

That is all for now.