I think I’ve got it figured out. It took me a long time to put these in the correct order, because I kept switching them around.
I originally wanted to just make this a “top albums” post, but because I went to so many damn shows this year, I realized that I should add that in as well.
Top Albums of 2010.
20. Beach House – Teen Dream
19. Sleigh Bells – Treats
18. Broken Bells – Broken Bells
17. Matt and Kim – Sidewalks
16. Lightspeed Champion – Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You
15. Mumford and Sons – Sigh No More
14. The National – High Violet
13. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
12. Stars – The Five Ghosts
11. Cee-Lo Green – The Lady killer
10. Frightened Rabbit – A Winter of Mixed Drinks
9. Black Keys – Brothers
8. Vampire Weekend – Contra
7. Spoon – Transference
6. Two Door Cinema Club – Tourist History
5. Morning Benders – Big Echo
4. Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
3. We Are Scientists – Barbara
2. Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
1. Menomena – Mines
Top Live Shows of 2010
Honorable mention: Weezer at Bumbershoot. I think if I’d have been able to shoot this, it would have been in the top ten.
10. Builders and the Butchers at Berbati’s Pan
9. Florence + the Machine at the Showbox at the Market
8. Arcade Fire at Key Arena
7. Panda Bear at the Crystal Ballroom
6. Phoenix at the Showbox SoDo
5. Frightened Rabbit at the Showbox at the Market
4. Editors at the Showbox at the Market
3. Spoon at the Moore Theater
2. Menomena at the Crystal Ballroom
1. EVERY SINGLE WE ARE SCIENTISTS SHOW I ATTENDED ON THE WEST COAST INCLUDING ALL OF AARON PFENNING BECAUSE HE’S AN HONORARY MEMBER OF WAS.
ADDENDUM: OH MY GOD WHEN I POSTED THIS THE FIRST TIME I FORGOT ABOUT DOCTOR WHO. D: So it’s down at the bottom now.
I figure since I can’t really get the reading done for my next class done, I’ll fill everyone in about my abso-freaking-lutely busy week.
No seriously. It’s the busiest my weekend has ever been, and I didn’t even do everything I could do. I still have an ass-ton of homework due Wednesday. So I’ll start from last Wednesday. Wait, no Thursday.
No, Friday. Thursday wasn’t all that exciting. We started layout early, which was nice, but it didn’t really save us any time, because we still didn’t get done yesterday until 10. But anyway, FRIDAY. Friday I had the following tasks: pack for Saturday, purchase two maple bacon doughnuts, drive to school, lay out pages, edit photos, drive to Seattle, find parking, meet Renee, give her a maple bacon doughnut, and see Spoon.
Mkay. Lemme tell you something. I thought I found amazing parking that night. It said $6, right? I paid on the way in, I thought I was done. Not quite. It turns out the next morning I had to pay an extra $24 for the night. $30 for parking. Balls. But now that I think about it, I don’t even care. It was totally worth the next two days. Because while they were ridiculously busy and kinda stressful and I got like 8 hours of sleep over the course of those 2 days, they were terrific. Like, really really really terrific. So after naively parked at the Warwick hotel next to the cute old building Renee was staying in, I walked over to the Moore to get my ticket and photo pass. I got there before Renee, but when she did get there we gorged on doughnut. It was awesome. But when I went to get my photo pass, I walked up to the will-call, gave them my name and said that I was supposed to be on the guest list for a ticket and photo pass. She took out an envelope and pulled out 3 stickers. One of which was my photo pass, but I had no idea what the other two were for.
Well,
Needless to say, I squee’d. I was quite confused, like “why do I get these? Why am I here? I’m not this cool. Oh my god life questions!” But I handed one to Renee and it made us even more excited to see Spoon. Like seriously. We got after show passes. How? But then I realized that I didn’t have my ticket, so I went back over to ask if I had a ticket. Thank god I did, so then I was all set. I love the Moore Theater. They don’t check your bags and let you bring water bottles in. That’s the one thing about the Showbox that drives me crazy. You have to pay $1.50 for a water bottle you could have just brought yourself. BUT, when we got inside the theater, no one got there for a good half an hour. Well, it was still pretty empty until like halfway through Deerhunter. Poor Micachu and the Shapes. That’s one thing I hate and love about seated theaters. You don’t have to get there first to get a spot, because you have an assigned spot. But it leaves the theater pretty empty for openers. It’s a shame that not everyone got to see all of Deerhunter’s performance, because it was awesome. Casual, and epic, and awesome. Bradford broke into this long, almost poetic story about being 27 in Seattle at the anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. And how when he was 12 and it happened, he would say, “I’ll never be 27!” And other things. But that was pretty cool. Then this girl jumped up on stage and started beating Bradford’s guitar with maracas, shaking around the floor like a crazy person and dancing with all the band members. It was adorable. Too bad it was after the 3rd song, it would have made an awesome photo. But I was going to be bad this time. I adhered to the rules. Um…what else? Oh, Bradford kept saying, “this is fucking ridiculous, like what are we doing here?” (Hmmm, I know how he feels.)
After Deerhunter was done, the seat next to Renee’s was still vacant. I could have EASILY sat down right there, but I found my seat. All us photogs (the same ones I always see) piled up to the front to shoot Spoon. Again, we swiftly moved across the non photo pit, and oddly enough, as I was shooting, my phone vibrated telling me that I had an email. One of the other photographers, right across the stage, started following me on Twitter. ??? I dunno, it was funny.
And then they came onstage, and people went apeshit. Which is fitting, because, you know – it’s SPOON. I don’t want to go into too much detail because I still have to write my review for Popwreckoning, and it’ll get really tedious coming up with more adjectives to describe how awesome it was. I’ll just mention that everyone – including all the photographers – started dancing during “The Underdog” like silly fangirls at a Jonas Brothers concert. Okay, maybe I’ll use that description in my feature. It was fun to participate in the dance party. You can’t not dance to that song anyway. It’s so freaking danceable.
ABBY, STAY FOCUSED!
I think it was about halfway through Spoon’s set when Bradford came out to play guitar – OH WAIT! Michael Lerner (aka Telekinesis) played snare on a bunch of songs, which was a nice ‘lil local flavor. Back to Bradford, he came out and shimmied across the stage, dancing with Rob like goofballs, and I think it was during “Who Makes Your Money” when he snuck up behind Britt and thrust the guitar neck between his legs. Britt didn’t notice it for a bit, but then he stared down at his crotch and shoved Bradford back and they stumbled and giggled and it was awesome. And I don’t even know when this was either, but Britt looked down into the audience, and this was after I went back to my seat and I couldn’t see what was going on. He took his guitar off and jumped off stage to go into the crowd. Like, right into the crowd. Apparently some old dude was literally sleeping. Out like a light, and Britt went to go wake him up. Again – awesome.
Needless to say – it was all awesome. Afterwards, I made my way back up to the front of the stage to find Renee when she grabbed the set list, because she always gets the set lists. And we went out to the lobby to wait for whatever came next. As soon as the security people started shooing everyone away, I wasn’t sure exactly what we were supposed to do with our after show passes. Good god even when I say it now it sounds so flipping cool. What the hell? So it was us and a few other people who looked legitimately worthy of going backstage into Spoon’s FUCKING DRESSING ROOM. We were led behind the stage, and I turned around the glanced into the empty theater and I almost pissed myself. We climbed a steep set of stairs past Deerhunter’s tiny-ass dressing room where Jim Eno was talking with Micachu and the Shapes, and we heard a bustle upstairs. Spoon’s dressing room was small, but not obscenely small like Deerhunter’s. But still, we were in their dressing room. Renee wasn’t quite as all, “d’uh…I’M NOT WORTHY” as I was, because she’s met them like a gazillion times before. Literally, she’s following their tour right now. And she’s going to make cupcakes for Rob’s birthday this week. At least that’s what she told him. So we stood around for a bit looking like fools who for some reason got after show passes. I still was like, “I’M NOT WORTHY, I’M NOT WORTHY…WTF.” But eventually all the members of Spoon made it our way and we – and I mean Renee mostly – talked to them for a short bit before asking them to sign her set list and my ticket stub. Oh, that’s right here.
So completely running on adrenaline, endorphins and bacon doughnuts, we walked around the corner to Renee’s cute ‘lil rented apartment. $45 a night for cozy dorm-like room? WIN! I don’t know how the hell she finds these places. But I managed to upload and edit my photos that night, because I didn’t feel like sleeping. I couldn’t post them to Flickr until the next day when I found a Tully’s because the internet at the apartment was uber slow. And I didn’t notice this until I uploaded my pictures to Flickr, but I shot most of Spoon’s set in 400 ISO. What the hell? I was so confused how it got to 400 ISO. I shot Deerhunter and Micachu and the Shapes in 1600 ISO, which is what I normally do, but miraculously the pictures on 400 ISO turned out awesome. No wonder they had no noise. I’ll have to shoot shows at the Moore more often. Brilliant lighting = brilliant photos, not to mention much easier. No need to shoot in black and white to relieve the super-saturated red light. Nope, theater lighting is pretty.
Before I move onto Saturday, I’ll post some of my favorite pics from the show. I’m so happy with this set!
Now I can the difference in noise on the Spoon and Deerhunter pics. Britt and Rob are SO CLEAR.
Friday, done.
Saturday, begin.
Saturday morning came way too early. I woke up at about 6, because I couldn’t fall back asleep. So about 4.5 hours is all I had, which actually was probably better than getting 6 hours. I always seem to be really really sleepy on 6 hours of sleep. By that time I’d reached the deep REM cycle. 4.5 hours it’s still nap-mode. But anyway, I woke up and got ready, didn’t take a shower because I was lazy. Just put my hair in a ponytail. I didn’t really know how many blocks I’d have to walk. Turns out I didn’t walk. It was 8 blocks away technically, but you couldn’t walk there without passing through a drug-dealer-infested street. I learned that when I was driving and a bunch of crackheads tried to flag me down in my car. IN MY CAR THEY WERE TRYING TO DEAL. But I missed the turn and ended up going like 5 miles out of my way down to the industrial area, and I got to the Bell Harbor Conference Center with like 2 minutes to spare when I left with 40 MINUTES TO SPARE. Boy do I suck with directions. Really.
I got to the conference center at the exact same time Niki did, and I was still pretty high from endorphins from the night before. Who needs sleep? Not me! We took the elevator up the third floor where everyone else was waiting, and they had free food. FREE BREAKFAST. I was so happy, because when I woke up it was too obscenely early to eat breakfast. 8 am is perfect for breakfast. So we ate our breakfast and I told everyone about my amazing night before, and tried not to sound like I was gloating. If I sounded like I was gloating you guys, tell me. I’m sorry. I like sharing my excitement. And I took my ticket stub out and they all – well some of them – ogled at it. And I squee’d again.
We went to a few sessions, learned a few lessons, and met with some of the Daily staff. Only about half of them came and introduced themselves, but the ones we did meet – Andrew, Lexie, and Nicole – were pretty cool. I can’t even fathom having just one job to do on the paper, which is what they do all the time because it’s daily and they have over 100 people on staff. ONE HUNDRED PEOPLE. We have TWELVE. That was my favorite part of the conference, meeting with them – because they are people that we can legitimately collaborate with, even though I’m starting to hate that word.
Here are some shots of us, sans me, since I was taking the pictures.
We got free lunch too, which was nice. After the conference, I tried to convince any of my fellow Ledgerites to join me at an awesome comedy show with Chris Hardwick, but no one obliged. I actually contemplating not going because I had so much homework due for Wednesday (which I still have not done yet), but then I thought that I’d regret not going. I’ve done that too much this year, and since I’m going to get paid more this quarter, and I might not even go to New York in July, I didn’t feel bad about spending more money on tickets and parking. I found an $8 parking garage a couple blocks away from the Showbox, which was great because it was half the price that I normally pay for parking. Definitely not parking right next to the Showbox anymore. Just let me tell you, I know my way around the Market now. It took me forever to find a place with free wi-fi for me to upload my Spoon pictures. I went into Starbucks naively thinking that I’d get wi-fi since we get it at school, but you needed AT&T. So I left and searched “free wi-fi pike place seattle” on my phone, and they gave me 3 locations. Tullys was about 5 blocks away, so I went to Tullys and uploaded my pictures, bought a chai and waited a ridiculously long time to use the bathroom. I swear this girl spent like 15 minutes in the Tullys bathroom. It pissed me off.
Oh well, because the rest of the night was totally worth waiting to pee and paying $30 for parking the night before and not doing my homework. I just wish I could have shared the experience with someone else. GAH I need to find people to hang out with who live in Seattle. It would surely make my spontaneous trips less lonely.
I stood in line for about a half an hour before they opened the doors, and alas, there were still tickets available! The Showbox set up chairs. CHAIRS. There are never chairs at the Showbox. It was weird. I sat right up front, because no one else did, but I was just a bit off to the left side, near the bathroom and the speakers. I think they started the show around 8-ish. Possibly before that. I dunno. Molly Lewis started the show with funny ukulele songs about breaking up with Wikipedia and a cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” Apparently she might be playing at next month’s “w00tstock 2.0.” Yes. Three hours of nerd and music, featuring WIL FREAKING WHEATON and ADAM FRAKKING SAVAGE. To borrow from Trenton’s vocabulary – ADAM’S A SAVAGE. Okay, nerd tangent over.
Wait, no, nerd tangent NOT over. It’s FAR from over.
After Molly Lewis came Mike Phirman who told some jokes and played some songs. The mic kept cutting out, which led to some funny jokes – both from Mike and from Chris. My favorite joke was about how Mike wants marijuana legalized merely because he has an idea for a business venture. A pot cookie company called Chips A-huh. It’s better when you hear it, but it was funny. I didn’t take any pictures because my crappy camera was dying, but this guy did. Apparently he was part of the Street Team that Chris put together from his Nerdist website.
Here’s some of my favorites from his Flickr page.
So I have even more of a total nerdy fangirl crush on Chris now. It’s ridiculous. He came out with a tiny polo on, and told nerdy jokes about the south, G4, Cracker Barrels, Motorhead, Tacoma, his nerdist street team and tentacle porn. No seriously. Right when Chris got on stage a couple of his street teamers held up signs that said “Hard for Hardwick,” and “You’re my Palate Cleanser.” D’aww. And then a guy who was sitting behind me threw a rolled up poster to Chris on stage. Curious as to what it was, Chris opened it up and it was hentai tentacle porn. And he proceeded on a tangent about how ridiculous hentai is.
This is the only video I found on Youtube from it. They were kinda prohibidado about filming, but this guy didn’t care.
Some girl sitting at the bar kept shouting like “my kids love you on Barnyard!” Chris asked her where she was from, and she said Tacoma and people laughed. It turned into a theme. Apparently Seattleites hate Tacoma. I gotta admit, if I had Seattle all the time, I’d hate Tacoma too. One girl in the front had an awesome purse made from the face of Animal from the Muppets. At some point Chris was like, “oh my god is that your purse? That’s awesome! Can I see that?” And she walked up to the stage and showed it to him, and he proceeded to make noises like Animal, and the girl walked up a little closer and told him that his zipper was down. This was halfway through the show, and his fly was down the entire time. So hilarious.
And toward the end of the show, he brought Mike back on stage to sing some songs – INCLUDING THE PI SONG. At this point there were 3 mics on the floor after they died. The awesomeness of the show KILLED THE MICS. So I think this was the second song they played, but during their “Anything” song, where it’s all about determination, how you can do anything, fly like a bird, unless you’re a girl – Chris decided that he’d croon to the audience. Since it’s a power ballad, he got all up in people’s faces and sang right to them while Mike played guitar onstage and kept singing. Chris started on the right side of the stage, being all ridiculous and serious, and as he got closer to the left side of the stage, he got more and more intense, grabbing people and almost seducing them, right? So he walked up to the guy sitting two seats down from me, and he grabbed his head and shook it around while belting out this song about perseverance.
Then he got to me. Seriously. I kinda got molested by Chris Hardwick. Seriously. He got right up in my face and sang right to me, grabbed my face and started to crawl on me, grabbed my ponytail and I got a faceful of Chris’s chest. I have to say that I awestruck with the WTF-ness of it all, but I kind of enjoyed it. Okay, I was really excited when he grabbed my face. I mean, I see him on TV every week. And he was like, crawling on me.
Come on, stop looking at me like that.
So after the last song, Chris announced that he’d be in the lobby signing stuff and taking pictures, because “apparently people like that.” I stood line in front of these two high school guys, who were clearly nerds themselves. Except in all of this, I didn’t have anything for him to sign. I had $20 bills and the Ledger business cards. But I had my purse. My gun-wielding cougar purse.
I swear, it’s the only thing I had. But maybe I could turn it into a “thing,” where I get all the famous people I meet to sign it, so it’s not just Chris Hardwick and then WAS. I almost felt kinda bad for having the first signature on my bag to not be from WAS, but then I saw what he drew, it made me happy.
And the first thing I thought of to talk about was Spoon, because he mentioned earlier in his set referencing a hypothetical heckler, “hey if we leave now, we can make the last ten minutes of Spoon!”
So I said, “I was strategic and saw Spoon last night so I could see you tonight!”
“Ah, great! I haven’t seen them in a long time, how was it?”
“Awesome. And Britt totally jumped into the crowd to wake up an old guy who was sleeping.”
And Chris looked up from my bag for a second and said, “what the hell, who sleeps during a Spoon concert?!”
“I know, it was ridiculous.” And I said some sort of thank you and asked for a photo, and the guy standing behind me took it with the crappy coolpix.
“It’s really bright.”
“That’s what Photoshop is for.” And Chris laughed. And I squee’d and said thank you again and walked away.
Eeek yay.
I just have to say that there weren’t enough Doctor Who fans in the audience, because when Chris made a DW reference, “Doctor, are we going to take a trip in the TARDIS?” in a British accent, and like four people shouted. I screamed so loud. Seattle needs more Who fans. We really do.
LAST WEEKEND was the Doctor Who series premiere. I have to say that I love Matt Smith. I felt really bad for a bit that I liked him because I felt like I was cheating on Ten, but now I don’t feel as bad. Matt did such a good job. Like a really good job. I so excited for this season. I was house-sitting for Andrea’s old neighbor and their horrific dog, and I downloaded the episode while I was doing nothing surrounded by an incredibly windy day. Heck, I was getting paid $20 a day to do my homework and make sure the dog doesn’t go too apeshit. I’m all for that. So what else better to do than watch Vlogbrothers videos and download Doctor Who? Ahhh, spring break.
I mean, look at Matt. He’s adorable.
I love him. And I love Karen. And I love what Moffat has done so far. I still feel a little nostalgic about the old Tardis and sonic screwdriver, but it’s still early, and I’ll probably end up loving both of them. We need more Doctor Who love, seriously. At least Nerdfighteria is all for the Doctor Who love.
I think I’m done now. Holy hell that was a long, photo-loaded post. But I told you it was a busy weekend. Was I right?
This is possibly the longest I’ve gone without writing a new blog in quite a long time. It’s the tenth day of 2010. 1/10/2010.
There’s much to discuss – but I’ll just list a few that have been of note in the last week.
1. Classes started.
2. I have two hippie teachers.
3. One of which tells us about drug trips and playing clubs in the 60s. He’d pretty badass.
4. I didn’t get into TV Criticism. *FACEPALM*
5. Spoon’s new album leaked, and I was clever enough to find the direct source of the leak. *Laughs maniacally*
6. It’s amazing.
7. I’ve been on a Doctor Who marathon for the last few days, because I miss Tennant. Ten was the best Doctor.
❤
8. Oh, and Laura's moving to New Jersey in less than a week. Well, fuck.
9. I almost had a nervous breakdown yesterday when I found out.
10. But I have wonderful friends who keep me sane, even if they can sometimes be the cause of my insanity.
What else?
OH RIGHT!
NBC sucks. Like, a lot. They just can't give up this stupid chin.
Jay Leno is getting his time slot back because NBC realized that Leno at 10 would never work. But this also means that Conan’s Tonight Show will be moved back to 12:05. Wouldn’t it be the Tomorrow Show then? Anyway, there’s always the possibility of Conan losing his gig, which would suck even worse. Cause Conan is way funnier than Jay.
Grrr.
Except I’m not yelling at John Barrowman, more like ZUCKER!
Sorry, I’ve been fangirling about Doctor Who and David Tennant ALL WEEK.
See? I drew a TARDIS on my notebook for Creative Non Fiction.
But there will be one good thing to come from Jay leaving 10 p.m., NBC will be speeding up the process of getting the pilot of Tennant’s new show “Rex Is Not Your Lawyer” out there. Stupid title, I know. But this man belongs on television. Preferably UK television, but I’ll take what I can get. Maybe people will go as apeshit over him as they did Hugh Laurie. I doubt it, but here’s hoping.
Ugh. I have homework to do. But I thought I’d have a quick update, since Harry Potter has been in my home screen for over a week, which isn’t bad, but it was getting old.
Not sure why I decided to spell out the years instead of using numerals, but maybe it’s cause I’m a word person. But since it’s the first day of the new year, and new decade, I want to look forward to why this year is going to be way better than last year. I know I did a “most anticipated albums of 2010” post three weeks ago, but this will be much more inclusive, just briefly touching on how amazing music will be this year.
In no particularly order other than when I happen to think of it:
Harry Potter is back. I can’t find an embed-able trailer, so the video is here.
I know HP6 came out in 2009, but this is the beginning of the end. And not to mention that HP71 comes out AFTER the third Twatlight movie. So Harry, Hermione and Ron get the last word of 2010. Ha. And I’m hoping that the 4th sparkly vampire fanfic isn’t coming out for awhile. It wasn’t on the actors’ contracts, after all. As of right now, it’s not listed under any IMDB profiles. It’s just too bad that it’s inevitable that they’ll get the last word after HP72 comes out. Unless the production companies are douches and decide to postpone the last HP movie if Breaking Dawn does get made within the next year or so.
I’m turning 21.
But I’m probably not inviting Morrissey to my birthday.. Yes, I will finally be able to legally drink. But that’s not the point. I don’t care to drink. If I wanted to, I would have already. But the thing is – I can’t. Well, not really. I can have a little, just to avoid being the outsider, but I have to practice self-control for my own life’s sake. The point is that I can go to places where people drink. I would be stuck at all-ages shows the latter half of this year. No venues can hold me back! I won’t have to take my sister to every show I go to. Hallelujah! And hopefully – HOPEFULLY – I’ll be at Sasquatch during my birthday, cause sunday is the 30th of May. And hopefully 1) I’ll be camping; 2) I’ll have a media pass, so I’ll only be paying for camping; 3) I’ll have people other than just my sister with me; 4) amazing bands will be playing.
So many awesome bands have albums coming out.
(Thanks to Adrian at the WAS board for finding this.)
I only posted one photo, because this is the most important release of the year. And perhaps one of the most important albums of my life. For one thing – from what I’ve heard of it, We Are Scientists’ new album is going to be AMAZING. And for another – I now have access to music like I never have before. And for one last thing – I may finally get to meet them this year.
In fact, that should be its own reason for why 2010 is going to kick ass. I’ll add that in a sec after I’m done talking about the other albums I’m anxiously biting my fingernails waiting for.
Where was I? Oh – Spoon, Vampire Weekend, Motion City, Morning Benders, Interpol, Frightened Rabbit, The Strokes, MGMT, Panda Bear, Arcade Fire, and possibly Sufjan. Jesus Christ.
Cue.
Yeah.
I might meet Keith and Chris
Yes, it’s a might. But even the prospect of meeting these two men make this year so much better than 2009. I’m pretty sure my life would be pretty damn close to complete if I got to see WAS this year in Seattle and meet Chris and Keith. Well, I still have to finish school, find a paying job, get health insurance, my own place, and married. But other than that – I’d be content with my accomplishments.
More good things to come with Popwreckoning
Remember this? ^^^
Well, more of this ^^^ is coming. And quite possibly this ^^^ for more publications. Since I now have a resume, and a growing portfolio, I can get access to more awesome perks for frequent show-goers. More albums equals more reviews equals more readers equals more exposure equals awesome. More shows equals more photos and more networking equals more exposure equals – again – AWESOME. The one thing that I’d sad about this year is that I have no money – so no SXSW. I have access to SXSW, but alas, airfare and hotel fare – how you thwart my happiness, damnit.
I’ll be starting senior year in the fall.
The idea of finishing college scares the hell out of me, but as I get closer, it’s getting more exciting thinking about it. If we can just get this universal healthcare taken of, I’ll be set. I’m getting sick of school. Honestly. It’s been close to 15 years that I’ve been a student. 15 years of school. Holy crap.
This is the first time in a long time I can say I disagree with this statement. But you gotta give it to Carles, he makes a point in this post on Hipster Runoff posted today.So funny. Love you Carles.
I think I’ll start these one-word blog titles for awhile. They’re ambiguous. Yeah.
But the point of this post is based on anticipation. The anticipation of 2010. And more specifically, the prospect of new albums, from some of my favorite bands, and some that I just merely enjoy. Either way, I’m going to make a timeline of when these albums will generally be released. Because I have nothing else better to do, than wait for any word back from Deck promotions. Oh right, I might actually get a fucking press pass for Deck the Hall Ball. Yeah, bitches. That actually fits for anticipation too. Yay for vague references!
JANUARY
Twelfth:
OK Go – “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky”
Check out “WTF?”
Vampire Weekend – “Contra”
Check out “Horchata.”
Ninth:
Hot Chip – “One Life Stand” (no album cover yet)
New electronic jams are always nice. Especially since NPSH’s only rereleasing Glistening Pleasure on Warner this year.
Sixteenth:
Lightspeed Champion – “Life is Sweet! Nice to meet you”
Twenty-Third:
Michelle Branch – “Everything Comes and Goes” (Shut up, “Everywhere” was my jam in middle school. She’s my one step out of boy bands, and one step shy of the Killers.)
I needed to get out of this house. Yes. I had class on thursday. Yes. I skipped class. But I did turn in all my work, and even turned a paper in early because I was an idiot and thought it was due thursday instead of this coming tuesday. Oh well, one less thing to me to worry about.
So what exactly gave me the impulse to drive 2.5 hours south of Gig Harbor for a couple days?
Well, I wanted to hang out with my WAS buddies, and going to Portland was my chance to do that.
Aren’t we cool?
But I also went to go see a great show – a benefit for Portland’s PDX Pop Now organization, which celebrates the local musicians of Portland. It’s pretty cool. Actually, when I emailed a woman from PDX Pop Now about the photo policy of the club, Mississippi Studios, she said I wouldn’t be able to get on the main floor since I’m not 21, but she did say that she could get me on the list for the festival in the spring.
Portland people are so damn nice.
The guy taking our tickets asked me if I had a photo pass for the show. I told him I didn’t, but then he said, “I don’t wanna give you any grief. Just don’t use any flash.”
I never use flash if I don’t have do. And I didn’t.
See. I made this one my desktop.
I’m finally proud of my concert photography. It feels nice to actually have good pictures to send to PopWreckoning instead of the shitty ones I’ve been sending from my Coolpix. YES!
Here are a couple more of Britt Daniel and the other bands, IOA and The Robinsons.
It was a great show, and the balcony had some pretty sweet seating. It wrapped around the stage on three sides, which gave extra room for us youngins. We were the first ones to get to the balcony, so we got the best seats out of the 35 seats upstairs. 35 seats. Isn’t that cool? We need cool clubs like that in Tacoma. Because Tacoma’s lame, and only has The Viaduct that plays shitty-ass hardcore music and Club Impact that caters to 16-year-olds.
After the show was over, Laura and I drove to Sabrina’s to stay the night, and hang out with her cool baby, Curtis. He’s like a monkey, makes gremlin noises, and he head-bangs. Or he’s just squirmy. Anywho, he’s funny. We stuck around there for a bit the next day and had children climbing on us for a good two hours. We watched Cinderella and ate bacon. Then it was time to meet Adrian and Renee, and Renee’s friend Ahmad.
Another reason why Portland people are so nice – the guy running the parking garage gave us the code to open up the door if we needed to get to our car after 6, which is when it closed. See? Nice.
We walked over to the Burnside Powell’s. And let me tell you, up until then, I felt like a terrible word nerd for never having been to Powell’s. It’s an entire block of books. Four corners of shelves up to the ceiling of books. It was overwhelming. Like a labyrinth of new releases, old classics, an entire nook of moleskines, and room filled with sci-fi. The first thing I did was go find the new Postsecret book to see if my secret made it in. It didn’t, but I did find this.
It says, “I called in sick to work today so I could buy this book.”
It made me extremely happy. I almost bought it just because of that, but I was being cheap, so a photo sufficed. About 20 minutes after Laura and I got there, so did everyone else. And we browsed the many rooms of Powell’s, and Ahmad had a certain interest in girl gangs.
“Wouldn’t it be great if when you went to heaven, everyone was in a girl gang? No one would fight, but we’d all be ready to fight. And we’d have great matching outfits? That’s be perfect.”
We asked the woman working at the desk if there were any books on girl gangs, but sadly enough, there weren’t.
Actually, I didn’t spend a lot of money this weekend at all. I only spent it on food and a new sweater. We ate some pretty interesting food while we were there though. I had a couple new culinary experiences while in Portland. One being lamb meatballs at a mediterranean restaurant, and saffron rice at that same restaurant.
This one. Doesn’t it have a ridiculous sign? What are those purple claws supposed to be?
Lamb was really good. I can say that now.
But the true wonderment of culinary confections was where we went later that night. No, we never got to hit up Pine State Biscuits, because we had no idea where Belmont St. was, and we walked about 8 miles that day back and forth from Powell’s to Renee’s hotel, to Everyday Music, to Am App, to Buffalo Exchange, and then Voodoo Doughnuts.
Yes, Voodoo Doughnuts opened my eyes to the most confusing, most tasty doughnut I think I’ve ever had.
You may think this looks disgusting at first glance, but trust me, if you ever get to chance to go to Voodoo Doughnuts, you need to try one. YOU MUST.
The Maple Bacon Doughnut.
Just think about it: sweet and salty is never bad; candied maple bacon is tasty; don’t you always dip your bacon in syrup? I know I do.
Once we’d walked to and from Voodoo Doughnuts, Ahmad found some sweet tights for his Halloween costume and we sang down the street back to Renee’s swanky hotel.
As we sat and watched the rerun of thursday’s Project Runway, Ahmad came up with a great idea. We’ve started a band. And we’ll look like a girl gang. And we’ll be called Hot Carl. Laura will play keyboard, I’ll play guitar, Adrian will play bass, Ahmad will sing vocals, and Renee would be our band manager. We wouldn’t need a drummer, only a drum machine. Because that’s how we roll.
Hot Carl.
And yes, we know what Hot Carl means. I can’t remember who suggested it, but once they did, I knew it meant something else, but for some reason, it slipped my mind. So I googled it. And then we all laughed. It was PERFECT.
So…. when we left, Laura, Adrian and I walked literally for almost an hour trying to find our damn parking lot. I’m pretty sure we went around the same block three times.
Hot Carl.
But eventually, we found it, opened the door, and made our way through Vancouver to drop Adrian off, since it was on our way.
Hot Carl.
We stopped at a restaurant called Elmer’s for dinner. We got there at about 8:40, but it closed at 9. The waitress who seated us didn’t really care because she worked the bar later, so she let us stay after hours to finish out sandwiches and fries (and onion rings).
Hot Carl.
Seriously, if you don’t know what that means, google it right now. Urban Dictionary will be the first one that comes up, and that is the definition. Seriously.
We drove back to Sabrina’s earlier than we had the night before, so we got a little bit more sleep than the previous night. The next morning, we went to this restaurant – I’m not kidding – called Fatty Patty’s in Battle Ground. And we ate – I’m not kidding – slop. Well, it was hashbrowns with bacon bits, ham, cheese, green onions, all covered in white gravy. I like my hashbrowns a little bit crunchier, but it was pretty tasty. And even after my coco-puff doughnut I’d had when we first woke up.
Yeah, pretty much the food was the best part of the trip, other than the show on thursday, and how fucking huge Powell’s is.
THIS IS A TANGENT. 