Two Door Cinema Club @ The Loft

One of my favorite bands of the year was Two Door Cinema Club, so it was a no-brainer that I'd be going to see them at The Loft when they passed through town in October. Unfortunately, I had a hard time finding someone to join me, as Suzi doesn't really dig them (and was busy that night anyway), and Jeremy backed out on me kinda last-minute, but my piano student and friend Ryan Delehanty ended up agreeing to join, so I didn't end up having to go alone or end up paying for two tix.

The opening band was a hippie-ish band called GROUPLOVE, with whom I was only slightly familiar. They didn't do a bad job at all, but their male singer's voice is a little tiring on the ears (by contrast, I seem to remember thinking that it would be much better if they leaned more-heavily on the female singer). While their big single was easily the musical highlight of their set, perhaps the most memorable was their ridiculous (and ridiculously-high!) über-hippie bass player, who stomps around on stage looking like a total buffoon (but an entertaining one!).

Onto Two Door Cinema Club... While their set was easily one of the best of the professional bands I caught this year, I have to admit that my enjoyment of it was a little compromised by my fear that Ryan (who came to the show not having ever heard the band) would end up not liking it. If I were to offer one bit of criticism to the band, it's that all of their songs do start to sound the same over an hour or so, but their sound is solid and certainly unique to them, so no real complaints. Easily the best single thing about the group's performance was seeing the guitarist in action...he's one of the most original guitarists I know in the indie dance-rock genre, most of which has nothing to do with his use of pedals but his relatively-unique playing style that really adds a lot to the bands' signature sound.

Anyway, it was a fun night, and I'm really glad I got someone to go with me. As it turns out, Ryan ended up liking the show and even borrowed their CD from me afterward so he could burn it, so my worries were for nothing. Definitely check the band out live if you're into this sort of thing.

Blogging From An Airplane...

Yes, that's right: I'm currently blogging on an airplane on my flight back to Atlanta from San Francisco, and as Louis C.K. so eloquently pointed out on his Conan appearance awhile ago, it's kinda amazing. And no, I didn't shell out for the internet...evidently, as a sort of Christmas/New Year's promotion, Google is paying Delta to give everyone free internet for a limited time on their holiday flights. Pretty cool.

While I AM getting a lot of good work in online right now, I'm probably not likely to buy internet for future flights unless it's particularly inexpensive, which I highly doubt, considering how they're charging us an arm and a leg for everything on planes now. But, I'm happy to be trying it out right now, and certainly recommend it to others. The connection speed is good for almost anything BUT streaming video (and presumably audio), so no complaints really.

Cassy's Birthday Party

Right after the recording session I just blogged about, Suzi and I headed over to one of Suzi's best friends'(Cassy's) birthday party, which was essentially an early Halloween/toga party. The main portion of the evening was held in Suzi's friend John Cook's backyard area, which actually has more of a Japanese rock garden feel to it than that of a typical backyard. Being an early Halloween party with a toga theme, we were basically expected to come dressed up, but since I didn't own anything worthy of the theme, I headed out to a Halloween store and splurged on a Roman centurion (or possibly Hercules) costume, which was actually a bit of a hit (thankfully, as I was reluctant to buy it for one night only). Suzi made her own outfit, which turned out pretty amazing, especially with our two outfits together.

Anyway, Cassy put a lot of effort into the food and decorations for the evening, but seeing as the party was held on the last night of Atlanta's Pride celebration that weekend, a lot of her friends (who are gay) ended up not making it out, so the party kinda seemed a little vacant. So, after an hour or two, we all ended up taking the party to the gays, heading over to one of the local gay bars in town (Blake's). This turned out to be not such a great idea, as my costume got me more attention than I was comfortable with, so Suzi and I ended up taking off fairly soon after we arrived.

In the end though, it was a fun night, and seeing as it was the only time we ended up dressing up this year, it was basically our Halloween, despite being roughly three weeks early.

Recording Session 16 @ Riot

Ok, memory loss time... I know for a fact that Erich and I had our 16th recording session at Riot on Saturday, October 9th, but I can't seem to recall much about what we did that day. Perhaps it was one of our short sessions where we mainly just caught up...after all, it HAD been almost three months since we had done studio time...

Listening back to the track from that session and the one before it, perhaps all we really did was add in this subtle electronic thumping bass sound in the first half of the chill-out section of the song. If this is the case, Erich dug into his relatively new Korg Wavedrum's large library of electronic and acoustic drum sounds to find an almost subliminally-low bass sound to build up a bit of tension during a somewhat emotionally-low-point in the song. It works well, and though subtle, it adds a lot to the mix.

Apart from this, my best guess is that we spent the rest of our time continuing to work on automation of synth parts and mixing in general. In fact, since it had been so long since we had done any studio time, Erich might have even had to reacquaint himself with the track's settings. Fortunately, this hasn't been necessary since then, as we were pretty consistent about doing studio time for the next few sessions after this one.

Midtown Bowl w/Suzi

Back to catching up. While bowling is one of the most obvious things to do with a girlfriend for a casual date, for whatever reason it took Suzi and I until about six months into our relationship to finally get down to it. And let me tell you, I might not want to be going back too soon, as Suzi royally kicked my ass. Out of three or so games, I'm pretty sure I only won one of them, and even then, only by a couple points, whereas in the two games she won, she beat me by thirty or so points both times. Ugh. =) I usually think of myself as a pretty decent once-in-awhile bowler who can usually beat any girl in a group I'm bowling with, but Suzi proved me wrong.

One highlight of the night was the group of international exchange students bowling next to us the whole time. Just like my experience with the Haagse Hogeschool exchange students in The Hague, this large group consisted of two or three individuals from each of about six nationalities. You had your obvious Germans, Spaniards, and Australians/Brits in addition to a handful of other harder-to-figure-out internats. The fun part was trying to figure out who was from where, and of course, I couldn't resist striking up conversation with one of them to get the scoop.

Overall, despite losing royally, it was a fun night. I guess if I do go back with Suzi I'll just have to go with the expectation that I'm going to lose. =)

In San Francisco (But Still Blogging?)

After what amounted to a whirlwind of activity leading up to Christmas, I ended up just piling on the blogging delays by going on my last trip of the calendar year with Suzi, this time to San Francisco. Fortunately, our internet connection here is free, so maybe I'll get just enough free time to blog once a day, leaving me only a few posts behind for this month.

I'm not proud of how poor my blogging record was for the year (I'll be roughly 115 posts behind my previously-obtained goal of blogging once per day), but at least I made a decent effort to rectify the situation during these last few months. I really hope I'll be able to catch up to current-day events (as opposed to being 2-3 months behind, as I am now) with my posts sometime in the first quarter of 2011, but if I don't, maybe I'll just say "screw it" and skip blogging about a lot of stuff.

Regardless, thanks for sticking with me this year. I still love blogging, especially considering how nice it is to have a more-or-less permanent record of a lot of the stuff I was up to during these past few years, so hopefully I'll be able to snap back into a decent routine.

Yeasayer @ The Masquerade

Onto the Yeasayer show. Yeasayer is an indie band from New York who is quite popular in indie circles and whose second album I picked up at the tail end of Q1 this year. While my initial impressions of the CD were somewhat apathetic at best, I had grown to like the band a good bit more by the time of the concert, and since Suzi was a fan as well, we went together.

Unfortunately, like the Chromeo show, their set was kinda a letdown. We also missed most of the opening band's set, but since they were a band I hadn't heard of before (Washed Out), I wasn't upset. While Yeasayer did play a handful of songs I know from their new album, they had bland stage presence and didn't really bring enough to the songs to warrant catching their stuff live.

Oh well. At least I still like the album. I was gonna try to put up a live performance video of them for you to look at, but I decided their recent (and quite strange) video to their song "Madder Red" was probably a safer bet. Enjoy!

Rating Student Progress

On a whim, I took it upon myself to give each of my 26 students a grade on a five-point scale based on how well they were progressing in their lessons with me. Naturally, I'm not going to reveal anyone in particular's grade, but I would like to share with you how it all averages out, generally-speaking. The grading took into account four factors:

a.) how quickly they check things off in lessons
b.) how much they seem to be practicing
c.) their natural musical talent
d.) their age

And here's what the scoring means, in general:

1/5: The student isn't really progressing or putting in much effort, most-likely due to age, lack of interest, or some sort of cognitive handicap.

2/5: The student eventually gets better but only checks off at most one item per week. Essentially our lessons are their practice time.

3/5: The student progresses at an average rate. They practice just enough to keep things rolling, or at least they're mature enough with the material that new material can be introduced without weighing things down.

4/5: The student clearly puts in some effort to get better, but that's not to say that they don't coast when their natural talent can do the work for them. (This was probably me as a student).

5/5: The student is particularly driven in their study of music and continues to impress me with how quickly they pick things up, often checking things off almost as soon as they've been assigned them.

So, how does my current roster fare? I've listed the results below, but it should be noted that I've recently lost a few of these clients (due to extenuating circumstances) and have gained one, so this list reflects my roster before these changes:

1/5: 2 students
2/5: 6 students
3/5: 9 students
4/5: 7 students
5/5: 2 students

So, slightly above average, but not by a lot at all. I guess this is to be expected. In an ideal world, all of my students would be 3's or higher, but it's unlikely that I'll be able to get to this point until my free time for teaching is so saturated that I can start turning down students who aren't progressing as well as others. As it is now, I'm happy enough with the kids I've got, and seeing as 2010 on the whole has shown a marked increase in my demand as a teacher, I have every reason to think this situation will probably get better in the next couple of years.

Flux 2010

I've previously written about the Castleberry Hill Art Stroll on numerous occasions, so you're probably aware of how artsy that part of town can be, with all its art galleries and hipsters. Well, after Suzi and I hit up that Little Black Dress party I just wrote about, we headed over to a night's worth of public art events in Castleberry Hill, only to learn that the monthly Art Stroll is actually kind of an unofficial a warm-up to that night's event, called Flux.

Evidently this Flux night has been going on for at least a handful of years as a one-night-a-year type event, but the only reason I even heard about it was via one of Suzi's friends who recommended we go check it out. And boy am I glad we did! It's hard to describe what made Flux so much better than one of the already superb Art Stroll nights other than just pointing to its sheer scope. Perhaps the best example was that there was a short indie film being projected across the side of something like three or four office buildings in the area over a football field or two away. And, there were just way more events, galleries, performances, and patrons, enough of them that they had to block off a section of a street for outdoor drinking/mingling. While the festival had been going since the late afternoon, it was mainly an evening thing, so it was pretty impressive seeing this many people out in a relatively unlit area.

Anyway, it was super fun, and I definitely plan on trying to go again next year. I really hope Castleberry Hill can manage to keep up the good work it's doing for the indie Atlanta community!

Little Black Dress Party @ Buckhead Theatre

Another title I had considered using for this post was "Good Charlotte @ Buckhead Theatre", so obviously I wasn't exactly sure how to classify this entry, as I clearly didn't wear a little black dress to the party and we didn't exactly see Good Charlotte at the Buckhead Theatre, at least not all of them...

See, one of Suzi's friends won tickets to go to this "Little Black Dress" party hosted by a local radio station but couldn't go and offered us the tickets. Well, part of the evening's festivities was a short acoustic performance by the two Madden brothers of Good Charlotte (Joel and Benji), which (in addition to missing the first few minutes) we didn't really pay much attention to and therefore kinda makes it not count as a show (at least, for us). After this, a DJ/VJ went on doing a typical mix of 80's, 90's, and current hip-hop hits, to which we mainly people-watched while have a beer or two.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening was taking four prom-like pictures of ourselves in a little photo booth, all of which came out pretty well. This part of the evening was followed by a much more interesting event, but I'll save that for the next post.

New Albums (Q3 2010)

Here are the twelve albums I picked up in Q3 of 2010:

01. Rogue Wave - Permalight (3/5)
02. Our Last Night - We Will All Evolve (2/5)
03. Sleigh Bells - Treats (2/5)
04. Drake - Thank Me Later (5/5)
05. Oh No Ono - Yes (2/5)
06. Architecture In Helsinki - Fingers Crossed (1/5)
07. Steel Train - Steel Train (1/5)
08. Squeeze - Spot The Difference (1/5)
09. The Winter Sounds - Church Of The Haunted South (5/5)
10. Taking Back Sunday - New Again (5/5)
11. Ra Ra Riot - The Orchard (4/5)
12. 3OH!3 - Streets Of Gold (3/5)

Overall, it was kinda a shitty quarter. Sure, there were a couple 5's in there, but there were a total of three 1's and 2's apiece, so there were definitely some off weeks. Some surprises in the list were Drake's album (which might even get bumped up to a 5/5...it's kinda borderline), as it was a rap album not too unlike Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak; The Winter Sounds, a local band who weren't quite as impressive live but totally won me over with their album; Taking Back Sunday, who made this one album that really resonated with me despite being a generally copycat pop-punk group; and Ra Ra Riot, whom I liked enough this year to buy two albums nearly back to back (the next one is in Q4) and whose live show was one of the best of the year. Even the poptastic and cheesy 3OH!3's new album managed to be both a step above their last (in my opinion) and fun enough to pop it in from time to time.

So, a lot of lows balanced with a handful of highs yielded an overall below-average quarter, but one that I wouldn't trade due to its little gems.

New Hipster Glasses

Not too much to say about this other than I bought some new thick-rimmed black hipstery glasses (for eyesight in addition to style) right after my whole pink eye scare happened, almost entirely because I needed to give my eyes a few days to recover and was tired of my old glasses. After trying on a handful of options, I eventually settled on a set of D&G glasses that, despite the brand name, weren't crazy expensive, all things considered.

Anyway, the picture here is perhaps my best photo taken with them lately (from the eventually-to-be-blogged-about Chattanooga trip from Halloween weekend). While I do like how the glasses look quite a lot in person, I don't feel like I photograph as well with them on as off, but whatever...this hasn't kept me from wearing them virtually every day since I bought them, largely due to Suzi's continued requests for me to wear them and the fact that I tend to like to use any sizable investments I make a fair amount during the period immediately following their purchase.

Overall, I'm really happy with my glasses and plan to keep using them for a long time. =)

Third GPS Unit

For one reason or another, I haven't really kept you guys up-to-date with my GPS history (I'm currently on my third unit). Maybe it's because the first two I used were basically just hand-me-downs from my dad (instead of being expensive investments I made on my own), who had recently just upgraded his own GPS at the time, giving me his old one. So perhaps the fact that I bought my third one myself is why I'm inspired to write. In any case, GPS units have become a very important commodity in my line of work, not to mention just making going out to different restaurants and bars for fun a much easier endeavor. And of course there's the road trips too... Some people might argue that GPS's make it so you don't actually have to learn the roads around you, but I would argue that if you're an observant and curious driver like myself, it actually works the other way, helping you learn slightly different routes around town.

As such, as soon as both of my first two units died on me (they seem to do this very readily), I was eager to replace them right away. Each unit has been an upgrade over its predecessor, but easily the bigger jump in quality was between the second unit and my current GPS, which I picked up at Best Buy after having looked at a bunch of other options and asking lots of questions (that said, I've stuck with the Magellan brand, as I'm already familiar with how to operate them). Now, while my second unit did have a traffic reporting function, it was very rudimentary at best and was often better left ignored. By contrast, my new unit's traffic reporting is pretty dead-on (at least, until recently...more on this in another post?), plus it features a much bigger screen, lane suggesting, and a host of generally-better options.

All-in-all, until my new GPS started messing up on me, I was extremely happy with it, considering it my new toy for the year. I did end up buying the long-term warranty via Best Buy, so hopefully if it keeps crapping out on me I can get the situation resoled easily enough.

Eye Problems

In late September, I started developing what seemed to be the symptoms of pink eye, but only in one of my eyes. I worried about it for a couple days but still insisted on not seeing a doctor (as I don't currently have health insurance). At first I tried an OTC remedy called Similasan, but that didn't really work, so eventually I just gave in and got an appointment with an optometrist at a nearby Lens Crafters...

Turns out that I didn't have pink eye at all! It was just something like four REALLY dug-in eyelashes that I couldn't see because of their depth in my eye socket! The optometrist just used a wet swab to collect them all, and when he pulled them out we saw that they were covered in a type of mucous. Evidently my body had been fighting really hard to wash them out but just couldn't quite pull it off. So, the doctor gave me two sets of eye drops, one a simple lubricating element and the other a steroid to help lower my eye's immune response so that it would return to normal sooner.

As you can imagine, I was pretty happy by these results. Naturally, I wouldn't want to put Suzi or my friends at risk for pink eye, and with my clients it's almost an unspoken deal that I'll take off work if things get bad enough. Fortunately, I didn't lose any work over it, and my eye went back to normal within a couple days. False alarm!

Easy A

Now here's a movie I liked... 2010's been full of disappointment when it comes to my movie-going, but out of left field, Easy A managed to take the high school "dramedy" genre and do something really memorable and unique with it. Now, I know a lot of people are comparing this movie to Lindsay Lohan's Mean Girls, but I didn't see that one, so if this IS similar, then it's my first time with this type of plot device.

The story is simple enough and easy to pick up from the trailer, so I won't bore you with that here. Instead, I'll just hit on some of the things that made this film stand out. First off, almost every role is well-acted/cast, especially those of Emma Stone, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church, and even Lisa Kudrow (who actually plays a smartish antagonist for once!). On top of this foundation, the script manages to be funny without turning this into an over-the-top innuendo-fest, the plot feels somewhat unpredictable (at least for this type of movie), and the pacing is solid through to the end.

I hate to say it, but I might have liked Easy A well enough to place it into my Top 5 this year, possibly even without the caveat that it wouldn't belong in the list if in a better year of movie-going. The reason I "hate to say it" is that I never would have imagined a typical high school movie rising above its peers like this, but if you can stomach the genre, I think you'll like this one.

Organic Cereals

As you might know, I went all-organic at the grocery store after seeing Food, INC. in mid-2009, and naturally one of the biggest components of that is my cereal consumption (which is a big part of my diet...everyday for breakfast and often for a snack later). As such, I have developed a basic shortlist of cereals I'm willing to buy, a list which is naturally-short by the fact that there aren't really THAT many all-organic cereals out there. There are only a few makers that I can find at the stores...people like Cascadian Farm, Nature's Path, Erewhon, and Kashi.

Here's the entire list of stuff I buy, grouped by how regularly I buy them:

Regularly
Cascadian Farm - Multi Grain Squares
Nature's Path - Flax Plus Pumpkin Raisin Crunch
Nature's Path - Açaí Apple Granola

Moderately
Cascadian Farm - Pomegranate Raspberry Clusters
Cascadian Farm - Cinnamon Crunch
Cascadian Farm - Honey Nut O's
Cascadian Farm - Raisin Bran
Nature's Path - Pomegran Plus Granola
Nature's Path - Flax Plus Red Berry Crunch
Nature's Path - Shredded Heritage Bites

Rarely
Cascadian Farm - Cinnamon Raisin Granola
Nature's Path - Hemp Plus Granola
Nature's Path - Crunchy Maple Sunrise
Nature's Path - Crunchy Vanilla Sunrise
Nature's Path - Optimum Slim Cereal
EnviroKidz - Gorilla Munch Cereal
Erewhon - Organic Corn Flakes
Erewhon - Cocoa Crispy Brown Rice
Erewhon - Organic Crispy Brown Rice
Kashi - Autumn Wheat Biscuits
Kashi - Strawberry Fields

That's most of them, anyway. Might have forgotten one or two, but most of these are the ones that are usually available in the organic section of Kroger or at Whole Foods. The cereals I buy regularly I would certainly recommend to anyone, regardless of whether or not they want to go organic. The cereals in the bottom category are either too obviously for-kids (kidz) or aren't that good, so I only buy them on occasion.

Get Low

One of the movies I was most hoping would turn into one of my favorites of the year (despite only knowing about it for perhaps a day or two at most before seeing it) was Bill Murray's new film Get Low. Knowing virtually nothing about the film prior to viewing it, largely due to my near-absolute adoration of Murray's recent work and resultant faith that any movie he did would be worth seeing, I was surprised to find that despite being featured prominently in the film's advertising, Bill Murray wasn't that big a part of the film itself.

Rather, it's Robert Duvall who steals most of the spotlight (as the enigmatic old hermit whose desire to "get low" - i.e. be buried - drives the film's plot), and he does deliver a pretty convincing performance. That said, the film really didn't stick that hard with me, and it's a shame, because it was pretty much just the surprise ending after a big build-up that ruined it for me. See, Robert Duvall's character is known around the town for being a bad man, but we never really find out what he did that was so bad until his climactic "funeral party" at the end of the movie. Unfortunately, this revelation proves to take all of the mystery out of the film and replaces it with a couple annoying questions due to glaring plot holes.

Oh well... Bill Murray was decent in the film, but it certainly was no Lost In Translation or Broken Flowers. Worth a rent if you're into period films, but otherwise, might as well just mosey on past...

Media of the Year Awards 2009

Yeah, yeah... I know it's almost the end of 2010, but I figured I've gotta at least finish ranking my Top 5's of everything from last year before this one's over. Hopefully next year I can finish the list much earlier... ;)

Ok, before I get to the list, it should be said that almost every category had a few serious contenders for the top spot, often making it quite difficult to pick a favorite. Overall, 2009 was a really solid year for entertainment media, and as such, it might stand as the pinnacle for all future years' Top 5 lists. The list this year is much longer than that of 2008, partially because I feel like I saw more stuff, and partially because it's just fun to have more categories. Alright, here we go:

Album: The Used - Lies For The Liars
EP: Wallpaper - T Rex
Dance Single: Sam Sparro - "Pocket"
Non-Dance Single: One Eskimo - "Astronauts"
Live Show (Local): Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun @ The Earl
Live Show (Pro): Black Kids/Sunbears! @ The Loft
Live Show (Misc.): Bill Maher @ The Cobb Energy Centre
Movie: Where The Wild Things Are
Video Game: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
YouTube Video (Music): Lady Gaga - "Paparazzi" (VMA's)
YouTube Video (Misc.): Mike from Milwauke - Phantom Menace Review

So there you have it. It was a fantastic year for entertainment media, for sure. 2010 is almost to a close, and I have to say that a number of these categories this year just don't stack up to 2009's (especially regarding movies...ugh). Here's to a great start to 2011 though!

Not Enough Time (Part 2)

Roughly a year and a half ago, I wrote another post covering this exact same sentiment: that despite having perhaps way more free time than most people, I still feel like there simply isn't enough time for everything I really want to do on even a weekly basis. I most often feel this way as I'm scurrying off to work following my typical couple hours of downtime in the morning, in which I had hoped to get more done but inevitably fail to do so, and it's at these moments that I start hearing the refrain from the cheesy INXS song from my youth (above) on repeat in my head.

Furthermore, with Christmas looming around the corner (this year featuring not only presents and family gatherings but a holiday party at my place and a post-Christmas four-night trip w/Suzi), I feel even more like I might have to start dropping some basic frequent activities (largely playing video games and spending too much time on the internet) in order to squeeze in all the preparations.

Ugh. At least I managed to blog today...that's something, right? ;)

Two Hours with Abdullah

Right after my trip to Houston, I was scheduled (via Music & Arts, the music store I work at) to have a one-off two-hour piano lesson with an older Middle-Eastern student named Abdullah. There are a few things about this situation that made it atypical... For one, teaching a two-hour lesson is pretty much unheard of in the private lessons industry. Second, it's rare for someone to want a one-off lesson that isn't intended as a trial lesson. Third, it's uncommon (though not entirely rare) for me to teach older people. And lastly, of course, it isn't every day that you have a Middle-Eastern client in the overly-white suburbs of East Cobb, especially not one who doesn't have his permanent (or frequent) residence in the States. Rather, Abdullah was basically just passing through on business and wanted to take his first piano lessons (ever) while he had the chance. Actually, I wasn't the only person he contracted through Music & Arts...when he called them to set up lessons, he specifically asked for two different piano instructors, each for only two hours and both lessons within a couple days of one another. Strange.

So, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when it came time for my lesson with Abdullah. Add to this the fact that he was something like 45 minutes late to his own lesson (evidently he slept through the start or generally lost track of time...I can't remember which it was), and you've got a rather confused teacher. When he did arrive, he was extremely genial, insisted on calling me "sir" despite being old enough to be my father, and he encouraged me to slow down when trying to impart my knowledge, not because I was talking too fast for him to understand (rather, his English was fine), but because, despite having missed almost half of his lesson, he was in no hurry!

Now, to make things even stranger, he came in with a couple pieces of sheet music (which the other instructor had had him purchase) and, get this(!), an iPad with some piano app, which was intended to be his instrument to practice on! (Not gonna happen!) I soon learned that he didn't actually want to learn piano per se, but rather just wanted to learn more about music. Once I understood this, I made a point to shift the lesson into a sort of Cliff's Notes version of a music appreciation class, focusing on basic theory and concepts like melody, harmony, rhythm, texture/orchestration, and style.

After a little over an hour or so of this (but still not the end of even the remainder of his prepaid two hours), he leaned back and told me that he had gotten enough out of this lesson. Furthermore, he said that the other teacher didn't understand what he was after and just insisted that he learn basic piano and that, by contrast, I offered him more than he had hoped for, promising me that whenever he was back in Atlanta (whenever that would be!) he would be sure to continue lessons with me. I was very grateful and suggested that this might perhaps be due to my composition background rather than the other teacher's (presumably) performance-only background... Regardless, it definitely felt nice to meet his needs as a teacher.

Quite possibly though, the strangest thing he told me (as a sort of aside) was that in his culture the name "Ryan" (presumably not spelled quite the same) meant something like "god" or "prince" or "enlightened one" (I can't remember exactly which it was, but I know it certainly was way too flattering of a comparison...).

What an interesting experience. It's one of those lessons you only have a few times in your life, if at all...

Houston Trip w/Dave

My buddy Dave (whom I often reference in this blog) recently graduated with his Doctorate in Music Composition and shortly thereafter was hired as a professor at Sam Houston State University just north of Houston in the small town of Huntsville, Texas. Seeing as I had the ability to make the trip, hadn't really been to Houston (short of a brief college visit to Rice back in high school), wanted to see Dave's new situation, and generally am always up for more bro time, I booked a flight to see him there for three nights in mid-September.
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Here are the Facebook albums:

Houston Trip w/Dave (Part I)
Houston Trip w/Dave (Part II)

It was really nice having some good one-on-one catch-up time with Dave...in fact, despite this being (I believe) the 9th time I've seen him since leaving Bloomington in the Summer of 2006, it's the first time we've been afforded this kind of buddy time since the old 805 days. Sure, we've gotten a few hours here or there, but having uninterrupted hangout time over the course of more than that was pretty great. In fact, a large portion of our time over the trip was spent chatting on the long and frequent drives between Houston and Huntsville, which (if I'm doing the math correctly) adds up to something like eight hours in the car together!

Other highlights of the trip included our awesome visit to the Johnson Space Center; walking the campus of SHSU; and our night out in Houston my second night in town, where we ended up finding some great little bars and had the largest of our numerous lengthy discussions about artistic integrity and taste. =)

Overall, a great trip. I'm glad I got to see Dave's new setup in Texas and certainly wish him the best there.

Read A Book

[Note to my mom: This song's got a lot of cussing in it. Just skip this one... =)]

I'm aware that I might be the last person on the planet to have seen this video, so if that's the case, forgive my late arrival to the party. If not, check out this video that was just introduced to me two nights ago at a party. It's pretty self-explanatory (and pretty AWESOME!!!). My favorite parts are the bits about buying land instead of rims, the booty girls with "BOOK" written on their asses, and drinking water because "your body needs that shit."

Funny stuff.

Phonogram: Rue Britannia

As you may know, my buddy Dave and I exchange birthday and Chrimbus presents every year...I tend to give Dave video games and music, and he tends to give me graphic novels or regular books. Well this past birthday, Dave gave me a new graphic novel entitle Phonogram: Rue Britannia, the first in a two volume fictional series surrounding modern day Brits still obsessed with the musical style known as BritPop (think Oasis and Blur), which by most accounts (especially those made by Americans) died out in the early 2000's.

To say that this book is kinda weird is a bit of an understatement. The whole story hinges on the idea that some people who are really into music (as opposed to the average person who just uses it as a backdrop to their lives) have special magical music-based powers, but it's never really suggested what they're to use them for other than petty instances of personal gain. The protagonist is more of an annoyingly cocky antihero than someone you could identify with (this would be true even if the music he constantly references was something an American could relate to), so when he gets in trouble with another "phonomancer" called "the Goddess" and ends up having to fix everything and solve a little supernatural mystery, it's hard to empathize with him. The story manages to be inexplicable and a bit too magical for my taste, all the way up to the odd conclusion where our antihero decides he needs to start liking some other form of music and ends up solving the mystery.

So, you could say this wasn't my sort of thing. Oddly, the best thing about the book was actually related to all the BritPop references... Instead of just assuming you knew all about the bands the book was referencing, the back of the book includes a cheekily-written glossary featuring short descriptions of each band/track/sub-genre. One of my favorites was about Radiohead:

"One-hit-wonders with their "Creep", everyone thought. How wrong we were. Reinvented themselves as state-of-the-art stadium rock with The Bends before gaining the status of perennial favourite experimental rock band of people who don't listen to experimental rock music."

Isn't that pretty much dead-on?!? The rest of the four page glossary is full of stuff like this and is easily the best part of the book. I made it a task for myself to try to spot as many of these references in the book itself and to underline them all for future reference, essentially making this a sort of research project. The only thing that sucked about this process was that, after learning about a band or track, I would hop on iTunes to hear what all the fuss was about, but since this music predates iTunes and isn't particularly favored in the American market, most of it isn't there!

Anyway, thanks go to Dave for sharing the book with me (he hadn't read it prior to giving it to me...just thought it looked like something I might dig). It wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but I had fun learning about a genre I knew next to nothing about. To be fair, I don't think this idea would work with any other genre either...not unless you were one of the people who knew the movement inside and out.

Cardinals vs. Braves

I've written about going to Braves games a couple other times on this blog, but never before had I gone with a group. Now I know better, as going with a group is much more fun. This time around started off as kinda a mess, as we were initially supposed to go with a different group that ended up shadily ditching on us at the last minute, evidently so they could weasel some better seats out of one of their connected friends. Never really found out the whole story with this one, but it left a bad taste in my mouth and almost caused me to just skip the game entirely.

But then, my buddy Jim happened to be going with his wife Katie and their friends, and when he heard we got ditched insisted that we join them. I was hesitant at first due to worrying about having to confront the other group in person that night, but I'm glad we ended up going, as hanging with Jim and Katie is always fun. Their friends were nice (we've even seen one couple on another Jim & Katie occasion since then), I'm pretty sure we won the game, and of course, we ended up at Jim and Katie's place for a little piano/saxophone afterwards.

One funny part of the evening took place at the game: Jim started talking with some middle school-aged boys we were seated next to, and it was funny because Jim was throwing in a cuss word here or there and they would get really excited, but eventually one of the boys revealed that he had shoved a drum stick up some other kid's ass, and Jim got a little freaked out and stopped egging them on from that point forward. Funny...

Philly Labor Day w/Suzi

As I mentioned in my last post, during the time leading up to Labor Day, Suzi and I were going through a little bit of a tough spot, largely due to my stress trying to fit all my clients into my recently-limited (due to fewer available working hours with school back in session) work schedule. Originally, we were thinking any trip we took over Labor Day would be a smaller, localish driving trip (say to somewhere like Chattanooga or Nashville), but towards the last minute we decided to just take advantage of the long weekend and fly up to Philadelphia.

Well, turns out that the Philly trip was exactly what we needed to get us out of the rough spot. Sure, we had a week or two of residual awkwardness even following the trip, but this was the start of things being normal again.

Here are the Facebook albums:

Philadelphia Trip w/Suzi (Part I)
Philadelphia Trip w/Suzi (Part II)

Highlights from the trip include the Eastern State Penitentiary, the museum and riverside area, the Belgian beer bar we stopped at, our fancy night out on the town, and the downtown area in general. Plus, this was the first time Suzi had been to a city this large, and as such, it helped prepare her for the overwhelming size and scope of New York. Ultimately, this trip stands right up there with our trip to Baltimore as one of my favorite of the year. I loved how spontaneous it was and would definitely recommend a weekend getaway there to anyone interested in a bigger city vacation.

State of Work: Fall 2010

While the Summer of 2009 was kinda brutal for me work-wise, the Summer of 2010 wasn't so bad: most of my clients stayed in town and stuck with me, and though I didn't make as much money as I would during the school year, I was still doing fine. So, when Fall 2010 started up, it wasn't a surprise that I got really busy all of the sudden. In fact, at the beginning of Fall semester, it was starting to look like I was going to have to turn people away, prioritizing students by loyalty, amount-paid, teachability, and relative location. Well, as it turned out, it never came down to this, as I had a few students fall off after the initial rush. This period of uncertainty though was enough for me to start getting a bit on-edge in life, partially causing Suzi and I to go through an awkward stage.

I currently teach 27 people on a weekly basis for a total of 16 hours of uninterrupted teaching (i.e. not including driving to/from the suburbs or in-between clients' homes). This also doesn't include a student or two who only take lessons from me once in awhile, nor does it include my ASYO theory class (which happens roughly every other week or so and is sadly poorly attended this year: only 3 kids are in my class...at one point we had something like 8 or 9).

While I technically only teach four days a week (Sun-Thurs), I teach the theory class on Saturdays off and on, and Thursday I have my vocal lesson, which ends up taking up a couple hours all-told with traveling to/from during rush hour. Add to this the fact that I was supposed to be doing weekly band rehearsals Thursday nights w/Jeremy alone and Friday mornings with the whole group (which never ended up happening), and my weekend free time started to look a bit less than you'd think.

Overall, I can't really complain. I would take on more work if I could, but it tends to come in waves, and right now is a dry period for new students. My average work day including both types of commuting is currently about 6 hrs 15 mins, so I could probably take on about four more hours worth of students to have a more typical work day (assuming my clients would let me teach as late as 9 or 10pm on some days. I might eventually have to give up my Saturdays to teach, which would suck but would still be better than having to give up my vocal lessons entirely (which currently can only happen on Thursdays).

Fingers crossed that I keep getting more work!

The Other Guys

So, yeah...for whatever reason, Suzi and I went to see this one (not really sure why, but whatevs). You can pick up the basic premise from the trailer, and if you've seen a Will Ferrell movie, you know how that part works: just insert him into a sillyish buddy-cop movie, and that's what you've got. There wasn't really anything wrong with the film, but there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy about it either. Sure, it was good seeing Michael Keaton back in action; and despite being a wrestling fan, it was nice that The Rock wasn't in it past a short cameo; but past all this, it wasn't really worth recommending. Well, then again, the whole bit about Will Ferrell's nerdy character having lots of hot girlfriends in his life was funny, but that's nothing to build a movie off of...

Oh, and I forgot the Ponzi Scheme graphic thing that they made for the end credits...that was kinda cool (but still didn't make the movie worth recommending).

Winter Cold 2010

Just wanted to point out a large reason why I haven't been blogging much lately is that I'm currently under the weather. I first started getting a feeling something might not be right Saturday while celebrating Suzi's birthday, but it wasn't until Monday that I knew I was definitely ill. Ultimately, I think it's just a regular cold: started with malaise and a sore throat, morphed into stuffiness, and now I'm snotting it all out (which evidently means I'm on my way to recovery).

The only real bad news is that I had to cancel work today due to feeling the most out-of-it as I have over any of the past few days and due to having so much mucous (would hate to get anyone sick and/or be seen as an irresponsible teacher). That said, I might still be able to make up these lessons, and I only had to skip one day's worth of work out of four this week, so that's not so bad.

Anyway, hoping I'm better by Friday, as I've got a busy weekend ahead of me and would like to start those make-ups sooner than later.

Man vs. Subway

So, I'm back from NYC, and while the trip was solid, it was also perhaps the most stressful trip Suzi and I have taken (of six or seven thus far, depending on whether or not you count Athens, GA), mostly due to trying to get around via the subway there. Let me preface all this by saying that I realize that an American city having a decent and comprehensive metro system is AMAZING, so it's not that I'm taking its presence in NYC for granted.

That said, I've spent a fair amount of time getting to know the metro systems of Paris, London, Barcelona, and other major European cities, and in terms of user-friendliness for first-timers, I have to say that New York's is easily the weakest. Sure, it didn't help that there were a number of line closures due to construction over the weekend, but even if it had just been the regular problems there (inconsistent signage, the lack of maps at every stop, the confusion involved in figuring out whether a train was a local or an express, and the stops' naming system being based off of street/avenue intersections rather than landmarks friendly to first-time visitors) I still would have been quite frustrated with it all. Plus, it's considerably dirtier than any of the European lines, but that's the least of my worries.

So, we ended up missing a number of our exits, had problems running our cards twice due to confusion (they don't have a check-out turnstile to see that you're not trying to let people use your card), had to resort to long walks a few times instead, and even ended up accidentally in Brooklyn (across water) due to the whole local/express confusion. Being the designated navigator for the trip, I ended up beating myself up about all of this and often got mad at the system, but fortunately, Suzi was really understanding and rolled with it just fine.

I'll write a full post on our NYC trip when it comes to that point in my backlogged blogging chronology, but since this was heavy on my mind, I figured I would get it off my chest.

And if you were wondering: Subway won...

In NYC

A quick one here, just to let you know what's up. Although I'm generally not writing about anything up-to-date these days as I'm a couple months behind on my blog, I don't think it would hurt to break trend here for a sec to tell you that I'm currently blogging from my hotel at Ground Zero in NYC! Suzi rarely gets time off from work, so getting a four-day weekend (even though it was over Thanksgiving) meant we could finally take a trip to somewhere that requires a little more time to fully appreciate. Sure, one extra day over our usual trip time doesn't really allow us to take in that much more of what NYC has to offer, but it's certainly a start.

Anyway, this is Suzi's first time to NYC at all and my first time here as a tourist (I've been a couple times with the CORE dance company), so we're basically seeing everything for the first time. Yesterday was chill, as we didn't get in until 2pm and then relaxed at the hotel for a bit, having gotten little sleep (plus, for one reason or another, it got dark around 3:30, so it wasn't like we were gonna be able to see much that we could take pictures of). However, last night we managed to make it up to Times Square for a little sightseeing, some delicious Cuban food, and a comedy show. So, it's already adding up to a great trip!

It's supposed to be overcast today, but we plan on seeing as much as possible, and tomorrow and Sunday are supposed to be sunny, so maybe we'll save the more idyllic outdoor activities for then (including Central Park). So excited!

Chromeo @ The Masquerade

Back to blogging. BioShock 2 and Pac-Man C.E. DX have been really obsession-worthy. Sorry 'bout that...

If you don't know, Chromeo is this 80's-style dance pop/rock duo from Montreal who is pretty big right now. And by "80's-style", I mean John Hughes would have used them as the entire soundtrack to one of his films had they been making music back then...it's that authentic and well-written. So, it was a no-brainer that I wanted to see them live when they came to Atlanta (perhaps for their first time?) this past August.

Suzi and I were asked by Cori, a coworker of hers, and her boyfriend Ian if they could join us, so we made a date night of it, having dinner at Two Urban Licks just before heading over to the Masquerade for the show. There, my buddy/student Ryan Delehanty met up with us too. Anyway, the opening group Holy Ghost was only alright...don't really remember their show all that well as it seemed to run together. Unfortunately, Chromeo was only alright. The place was too crowded, and I guess on some level I was kinda burnt out on the group by the time the day of the show rolled around. The production quality was solid, it just didn't really move me.

Oh well. Although a band's live show often strengthens your interest in their material and persona, sometimes the show just pushes you away by being kinda bleh. Actually, this tends to happen with me at The Masquerade, as I had the same thing happen with Peaches and Yeasayer (whose show I've yet to write about), so maybe I should start avoiding this venue (or at least the bigger stage upstairs)?

On Education

For quite awhile now, if you were to ask me what I think some of the biggest problem with America are, I would probably list such things as a two party (near-monopoly) political system, money in politics, a form of Capitalism that supports greed more than the freedom it pretends to promote, our health-care system, poor use of tax money, and probably a few others. But arguably the biggest problem of them all, and perhaps the one that when shaped up a bit would end up fixing a handful of smaller (but still serious) problems, is our education system.

I've already written about some of this before, so I'll keep it short, but I do sincerely think that remodeling our public school curricula to include more immediately useful topics such as personal finance, health and fitness (a real class with real working out and personalized nutritional guidelines, not the bullshit they currently parade as such), ethics and responsibility, entrepreneurship, and civics would go a lot farther than literature, social studies, and science for the vast majority of kids. I'm not saying these shouldn't be offered, but I'm just saying that some people, especially those with less motivation to do well in school due to the types of role-models they have in their socioeconomic environment, would probably benefit by having classes designed to help them succeed in life even if they don't go to college. Most people don't need literature, social studies, and science in their everyday lives, but yet something as fundamental as personal finance goes overlooked (possibly contributing to that whole housing crisis we had a couple years ago).

Ok, I'm gonna stop here, but you should check out the well-spoken monologue above on the education of civics that Richard Dreyfuss delivered on Real Time with Bill Maher recently. Great points.

13th Band-Recruiting Rehearsal

Yes, we're still looking for a drummer. That said, things are looking up, but not in relation to this post. Our last drummer audition was with my Music & Arts colleague Caleb, but due to both the difficulty of trying to put things together with him and his lack of experience playing actual drum set (versus percussion, which he has degrees in), we figured we ought to start looking elsewhere.

Well, elsewhere turned out to be the newly-in-town brother of another drummer we auditioned roughly a year ago (Brady from Doug's Sublime cover band). I first met Scott at the Tin Roof gig Doug was doing (about which I've already blogged), at which point he expressed a lot of interest in what we were doing stylistically. I eventually met up with him at he and his girlfriend's house in Decatur, and we went through the material, all of which went really well (seemingly on both ends).

Unfortunately, Scott is in the middle of a bunch of changes, one big one being trying to settle into a job other than waiting tables, and as such (despite being into what we're doing), he's letting us continue looking for someone else until he gets his shit in order, at which point he would love to come play if the spot hasn't been filled.

Oddly enough, since then we've had an offer from Brady (his brother) to come play with us again, and there's another guy I met relatively recently who is psyched about the prospect. Add to this the fact that Erich (our recording/aux perc guy) is thinking about possibly committing to drums, that Caleb is possibly still available, and that Scott isn't totally out of the picture, and we've got 4-5 potential drummers.

So, we've just got to touch base with everyone, including auditioning the guy I just met (he'll be our 9th drummer auditioned, if you don't count Jeremy, who is essentially our studio drummer right now), and see where this could go. Fingers crossed!

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (film)

Major "ugh." As you're already aware, the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels meant a lot to me. At least, that was until I saw their movie adaptation... The books have so much charm and depth to them, but the movie killed that with the following missteps:

- The main characters are largely cast poorly (especially Michael Cera as Scott and whoever played Ramona Flowers). If nothing else, they could've at least found people who looked even somewhat remotely like the drawn versions (Ramona, Kim Pine, and Envy Adams are all supposed to be pretty hot, and all three women they got to play them were disappointingly subpar), because although they too would probably fail at nailing the spirit of the characters, at least they would look good.

- The six installments of the graphic novel are condensed into one film, a recipe for disaster, as the graphic novels weren't all that short themselves. Most of the charm of the books was in getting to know every little detail about each character, their inside jokes, and the world around them. The movie ends up just rushing past most of this, and all the banter that does make it into the film ends up seeming unnatural and hurried.

- Not enough attention was paid to the evolution of Scott's character (and romance w/Ramona), and way too much attention was paid to the fight scenes (easily the LEAST interesting part of the books). Sure, the whole "we're inside a video game" vibe is cool, but it shouldn't have been the focal point. The book is about SO much more.

- The ending wasn't true to the books. I get that sometimes an adaptation needs to end a bit differently (see Watchmen) due to differences in the media involved, but that adapted ending still needs to work, and this one didn't.

- I wasn't convinced by Beck's music for the film at all. Somehow, despite being one of the musical sources used as inspiration for author Bryan Lee O'Malley while writing the books, the two parts didn't really work together as a whole.

I could probably keep going here, but I'm gonna stop so I don't end up vomiting. Never before has a film adaptation killed my proverbial boner for the source material quite as well as this one did. If I could take back seeing it, I would. It was that bad to me. Granted, if you haven't read the books, the movie might be alright, but only because you would have no idea how much you were missing and would probably only like it for the kitschy video-game inspired fights.

In some sort of defense for the film, I liked the following things: the casting for most of the villains (although not Envy Adams) and for Stacey Pilgrim, nailing the look of the environments in the film, the ChipTune Universal intro, and the new Metric track that's supposed to be a The Clash At Demonhead live song in the story. That's about it.

Dad's Garage w/Suzi

I've been to Dad's Garage (one of our local improv theatres) so many times that I truly can't separate the experiences from one another any longer, but the last time I went was in late August when my friends Scott (with whom I usually go to Dad's Garage) and Justin invited Suzi and me out spontaneously one Thursday night. All I can remember about the show was that it was surprisingly way above par for their average Thursday night, which was nice considering it was Suzi and my first time there together. Yes, it was fun seeing Scott and Justin (I'm thinking this might have been the last time I saw them?), but unfortunately we didn't go out afterward, as Suzi had to get up early for work the next day.

Perhaps slightly more notable then is the fact that I haven't seen Scott in nearly three months. Up until that point, Scott was inviting me out to Dad's Garage almost every other week, but roughly around this time, Scott's lease here in the city proper ended up expiring and since he was (at the time and maybe still?) recently-unemployed, he moved back home with his folks in the suburbs. Had it been back when I too was living with my folks in East Cobb I'm sure we would be hanging out all the time, but even though I am up that way regularly during the week, I'm often too drained to be of much use by the time I get off work around 8pm or so, especially if asked to hang without prior planning.

Anyway, despite having a more-or-less forgettable (though good at the time!) night out at Dad's Garage, here's to many more times there, hopefully with Scott and Justin involved!

Summer Heights High

Easily one of the best things I discovered this year (god, I wish this were a movie so it could be included in my weak Top 5 this year to bring it up a notch) is the Australian hit TV mockumentary called Summer Heights High. The premise is simple: the guy behind the show, Chris Lilley, plays three different characters whose stories never intertwine at an Australian public school, and over the course of the eight-episode show we see a selection of mostly-comical highlights from each of the individuals' experiences there. It's kinda like taking a toned-down version of Ali G, Borat, and Bruno and placing them in one environment, but instead of essentially Candid-Camera-ing real people, all of the characters in the show are actors. So, the point isn't about making real people look stupid, but rather parodying three interesting types of people.

Two of the characters are students and one is a teacher. The teacher, whose name is Greg Gregson (otherwise known as Mr. G), is an over-the-top gay drama teacher who eventually becomes the head of the arts department and starts acting even more self-important than usual. He's written a number of musicals in the past (including IKEA: The Musical and Tsunamarama, based around the big 2004 tsunami but set to the music of Bananarama), but the show focuses on his writing and directing of his new work inspired by the very recent death of one of the school's high school girls known for being a promiscuous drug addict. Good stuff.

Next up is Ja'mie King, a spoiled and (supposedly) attractive private school high school transfer student who thinks she is better than everyone due to her upbringing. Actually, her transfer is given as the reason for the in-story documentary being made in the first place, as some production company wanted to film both her in a public school and one of the girls from Summer Heights High in Ja'mie's private school to see how they react to their new environments. Ja'mie is easily my least favorite character on the show, partly because she's not that believable or funny. It IS funny though that she wants to date a boy that's in middle school. Oh, and the lesbian bit is good too...

Finally, Jonah Takalua is an illiterate Polynesian breakdancing misfit middle schooler who is constantly in trouble with the school counselors and his least-favorite teacher. Almost everything Jonah says is funny, to the point that Suzi and I have adopted at least a few of his sayings in our everyday speech (especially when talking about "rangas"). Just watch a few clips of Jonah and you'll see what I mean.

Ultimately, the show is amazing and totally worth owning (despite me not liking TV all that much). Part of what appeals to me most about this show is that it wasn't intended for more than one "season" (if you will), as it's a self-contained one-off that's meant to leave the story hanging a bit at the end (it even gets a little sad at times). Sure, something like The Ali G Show is funny, but making fun of unsuspecting regular people can only go so far. By contrast, Summer Heights High is less Jackass and more like a John Hughes film shot like a documentary and with more comedic characters, if that makes any sense at all...

Definitely watch it if you get the chance. With only eight 30-minute episodes, it's a quick watch and totally worth it.

Baby Baby/How I Became The Bomb @ 529

Back to updating what I was up to right after Suzi and my Athens trip. After having found Suzi a cool outfit for the night (just for fun, not because she didn't have access to her wardrobe), we ended up going out to see out second-ever Baby Baby show, this time at 529. Having absolutely fallen in love with the band back when we accidentally caught them at the last Parachute Musical show, seeming them again had been high on our priority list for awhile.

The show was certainly solid, but obviously nothing could match our first impression of the band, being bowled over by how fun and creative their material and live show are. Perhaps more notable is that we got to spend some time chatting it up with them afterwards, especially with their aux perc player Collin and their drummer Grant (who even gave us a longer demo of their stuff). Oh, and Suzi really liked the body-paint they sported for the evening. And there were some glowstick people there...

Opening for Baby Baby was another localish band (from Nashville), How I Became The Bomb who has a sort of Devo-esque 80's vibe, complete with synths and goofy 70's/80's-inspired outfits. While I can't remember this show too well, I do recall the group being generally pretty solid live despite losing me a bit with their material. That said, on going back and listening to their MySpace page, I think I dig it a bit more now. I would definitely go see them again sometime to get a solid second impression.

YouTube Video (Misc.) of the Year Nominations 2009

As I've already mentioned in my other YouTube Top 5 category post, I watch enough YouTube (as a substitute for TV) that it makes sense to list my favorite clips of the year. While the other category was for music-related videos, this is for virtually everything else. Here are the nominees:

Bill Maher - Feminism: Unlike most of the other clips on here, this one is arguably more profound than it is funny. As I've written about before concerning this clip, I'm certainly for women's rights, but Bill Maher does have some important points about the over-feminization of American culture at the risk of neutering the masculine elements. It's a occasionally funny, but ultimately I like this clip for the points it makes. Love Bill Maher's work so much.

Derren Brown - NLP Suggestion: I've already written a post about how awesome Derren Brown's religion/superstition-busting illusionist work is, so I won't go into detail here. It was hard picking a "best" video to represent his work, as it's all incredible, but I went with this NLP video because after his illusion he takes the time to explain the process for all the non-believers out there. Fantastic stuff.

Katt Williams - Everyday I'm Hustlin': Like Derren Brown, I've already written a post about Katt Williams' stand-up work, but this clip (centered around Rick Ross' track "Hustlin'") is perhaps my favorite. It's too bad Katt has apparently taken a hiatus from doing stand-up, as I would certainly go see him live. Along with Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock, I consider him to be in the upper-tier of black comedians. Great stuff.

Louis C.K. - Comic Relief 2006: Easily my favorite recent-discovery comedian, Louis C.K.'s work is simultaneously quite clever, applicable to the average white guy (considering most good comedians are black, this isn't that common), a bit dirty, and always funny. In fact, I like him enough to be missing one of my favorite bands of the year's show on December 11th so I can go see him instead. Like the other videos on this list, there are plenty of great Louis C.K. clips out there, but this one has perhaps the most laughs per minute.

Mike from Milwauke - The Phantom Menace Review: It's not every day that an amateur YouTuber contributes a feature-length set of clips (in this case, seven segments of 10 minutes apiece) that's not only good but that starts garnering acclaim from Hollywood personalities. This epic review is kinda a story within a review where the actual author plays some cranky old man who hates the film. Despite seeming pretty low-class, the character actually knows a lot about film-making, and there's even a surprise ending of sorts to the review. Incredible. Watch all 70 minutes of it.

So, three stand-up routines, an entertaining comical movie review, and an educational exposé of illusion "magic". All around, I would say these five clips average out to be a better group of clips than those found in my YouTube music Top 5, but both groups are very solid, proving my point that for some people, TV really isn't needed when you just want that channel-surfing-like experience for a few minutes. So glad YouTube is still free!

EP of the Year Nominations 2009

This is a new category for my Top 5's, as I didn't really buy many true EPs back in 2008. But now that I'm much more into indie rock, I've actually found that the EP is not only a fairly common format for bands to release new material, but it might even be my preferred length for most bands' albums, as they often end up putting in some filler that ultimately just weighs down what would have otherwise been an awesome EP when they attempt to shoot for a full-length. Anyway, here are the five best EPs of 2009:

Alvin Band - Lady Portrait: While the full-length with which this EP came packaged wasn't one of my favorite albums of the year, the EP managed to transcend it in almost every way. Where the full album was entirely vocal (a neat concept that didn't quite pan out), the EP took that mostly-vocal texture and added in a few necessary instruments, giving a bit more drive and tonal variety to an otherwise decent idea. Add to this more-memorable song-writing, and you've got a fantastic EP.

Black Kids - Cemetery Lips: Technically, I didn't really listen to this entire EP. Of the six tracks on the EP, I only downloaded the three non-remix tracks, as I wasn't too interested in having an EP where half the tracks are remixes of tracks I already knew. But, the three original tracks on the EP are all solid, even featuring some of the best lyrics of any of this group's songs. Considering their full-length was also a five-level CD that year, 2009 was a good year for Black Kids and me.

Parachute Musical - Season's Greetings: I feel a little bad putting this album on the list because, of its five tracks, there are only two tracks on here that aren't featured on their full-length (which made its way onto my Album of the Year list itself), and one of those is just a remix (a good one though) of one of the tracks off that album. Still, if it hadn't been for this EP, I probably never would have gotten into Parachute Musical the way I did, and the EP came before the album for me, so I'm going to go ahead and include it here.

Sunbears! - Dream Happy Dreams: This band from Jacksonville opened up for Black Kids at The Loft, giving me one of the best concert-going experiences in recent memory. As such, I picked up their EP not long afterward, and I am happy to report that it's fantastic. Featuring what are easily some of the most musically-educated arrangements I've heard in years, their two-man indie take on The Flaming Lips-ish quasi-epic fantasy rock has no real rival in my list of music I picked up last year. Great stuff and fantastic live show!

Wallpaper - T Rex: While I technically picked up two EPs by Wallpaper, this is the one with the originals on it, while the other features only remixes of these tracks. Both are good, but this is clearly the starting point. Wallpaper is easily one of my favorite artists to come around in a long time, largely for his stylish use of jazzy 7th chords in a semi-Stevie Wonder-esque setting. Slow and fast songs are handled deftly, and the EP is short and sweet, making it easy to keep pressing repeat.

All in all, I almost think my EP list for the year could rival the album list, if not for 2009, then certainly for an off year in the future. All five of these EPs are worth picking up for almost anyone with an ear for melodic rock with a twist of experimentation, and even though a couple of these bands' full-lengths don't hold up to the quality of their EPs, that doesn't really diminish my appreciation for what they've done here. As such, I sincerely hope the EP continues to be a popular format for years to come.

Album of the Year Nominations 2009

I know, I know. If you follow my blog at all, you're probably thinking: "Didn't he do all those Top 5 of the year nomination posts a long time ago? It's almost 2011!" And you'd be right...from what I can tell, the most recent Top 5 post from 2009 I wrote was back in February. BUT, I never did a list of winners for each category, and I actually failed to blog about an additional three categories. So, before I can go ahead and list the winners, I need to do those posts. This is what I get for procrastinating so much!

Onto Album of the Year. As you probably don't remember, 2008 actually featured two Top 5 album lists: one for dance album and one for non-dance album. Well, 2009 saw the rise of my interest in indie rock, and as such, I bought very few dance albums. So, this year it's just Album of the Year. Here are the nominees:

Gossip - Music For Men: Gossip's big Rick Rubin-produced album marked not only a boost in popularity for the group but also a turning point in my understanding of what a true indie guitar part should sound like. Add to this Beth Ditto's stellar vocals, minimalist but effective textures, and tons of extremely dynamic dance sections, and you've got an album worth recommending to almost anyone that likes to move.

Head Automatica - Popaganda: While I had initially gotten into Head Automatica's material back in The Netherlands (via the single "Beating Heart Baby"), it wasn't until I got hooked on Popaganda's impossible-not-to-sing-along-to vocal lines and lyrics that I finally got what the band was really up to. Although I have gotten into one or two other groups with a penchant for old 60's-era stylings, no one nails the style in a modern way quite like this band.

Nightmare Of You - Nightmare Of You: My first impression of this group (via iTunes clips) was that their album was pretty solid, but then I saw their shitty live show and didn't know what to think. After buying the album, I started to fall back in love with their material, but it wasn't until I read through their clever lyrics that I really started considering them Top 5 material. A Smiths/Cures-esque approach isn't usually my cup of tea, but somehow these guys pull it off for me.

Parachute Musical - Everything Is Working Out Fine In Some Town:
If you had told me that one of my Top 5 albums of the year was going to be from essentially a "local band" (alright, they're from Nashville, but still), I probably wouldn't have believed you (even after getting really into Today the Moon). But from the moment I downloaded Parachute Musical's free EP, I was hooked and had to pick up their full length right away. Despite a bunch of more-rocking tracks not too distant from those by Ben Folds, what really sets this album apart are all of the intimate and very-well-orchestrated slow tracks, none of which the band ever does live (unfortunately).

The Used - Lies For The Liars: Another big surprise for the year was that one of my favorite albums of all time happened to come from an "emo-punk" group I had previously written off. I've checked out clips from all of their albums, but for one reason or another, the only album that The Used ever put out that appeals to me is this one. Lies For The Liars features an excellent mix of metal guitars, creative electronics, emotive vocals with often-poignant lyrics, and (most-importantly) a wide stylistic variety without seeming to throw in everything but the kitchen sink.

So, while I can't really say that 2008's list was that much more diverse (short of Kanye's fantastic album of that year, which ended up winning), 2009's list does feel a bit more intentionally indie. Sure, The Used is pretty mainstream and Head Automatica's album is easily much poppier than their debut, but the other three bands I hadn't even heard of prior to getting into the scene. Anyway, as the first full-year of buying mostly rock music weekly, 2009's Top 5 set the bar pretty high. While 2010's list has been pretty solid, I'm still not sure it will be good enough to beat that of 2009, and unlike 2008's list, this one doesn't feature any duds due to not having enough options to choose from...

Scott Pilgrim Vol.6

As you might be aware, my friend Dave gave me the first installment in the then five-volume Scott Pilgrim series for Christmas 2009, and I fell in love with the series on first read, collecting the remaining four books and posting about them. Still, I knew they were planning on concluding everything with a sixth and final book that was set to be released just prior to the film adaptation's release this Summer, so I picked it up and read it quickly to be ready for the film.

Now, I have to admit that it's been a few months since I read the book, and even though I just quickly looked through it again, I'm sure some of my memories are a mixture between the actual book and the ending of the film. Also, as you'll see in an upcoming post, I didn't like the movie much, so some of my negative views of the last book might be jumbled up with that too...

To start, it should be pointed out that Vol.6 is significantly thicker than the rest of the installments, probably because author Bryan Lee O'Malley felt like he needed to tie up a lot of loose ends. That said, over half the book covers the final battle between Scott Pilgrim and Gideon Graves, and as such, I think the book could have afforded to be a good bit shorter. The end of Vol.5 was kinda dark, and Vol.6 picks up that tone from the get-go, so it's not fair to dislike this installment simply because it made me feel a tad uncomfortable. Still, I remember feeling pretty "eh" about the whole thing, and in some regard, I felt the story might have been better left with a question mark rather than a subdued period, so to speak.

[Spoiler Alert] One particularly good thing about Vol.6 is the little secret we end up learning about Scott: that despite seeming like a good guy the whole time, he was actually kinda a douchebag to every girl he ever dated before, but he just blocked all that guilt from his memory until confronted with his evil half in this volume. I liked this part and felt it added more to the overarching storyline than any sort of epic finale possibly could have, so props to that. [End Spoilers]

So, Vol.6 was alright. I need to go back and reread the books (this time with Vol.6 to wrap it all up) to better draw conclusions on its effectiveness. I'm still really glad I read the series and still recommend it to all twenty-somethings out there, but (as you'll see shortly), I would stay away from the film...

Athens One Nighter w/Suzi

I've already blogged about the Patton Oswalt portion of Suzi and my short stay in Athens, so I'll just quickly talk about the rest: going out for drinks after the show and then the casual hangout stuff we did the next day before arriving back home. Suzi HAD been to Athens before, but we'd never been together, so I thought I'd show her some of my favorite bars while we were out after the show (barhopping in Athens is my favorite thing to do there, and I couldn't imagine liking barhopping more somewhere else). So, we hit up a bunch of places: Max Canada, Allgood, Firehouse, whatever One Love is called now, Buddha, and then The Grill for some sobering up food. Due to some heavy rain right after the show, we ended up spending most of our time at Max Canada and then realized we would have to drink quickly at each place in order to get a few places in, so we ended up drinking a lot. Fortunately, our hotel was within walking distance to downtown (definitely something we planned), so no big deal.

The next day, we hit up The Grit (as mentioned before), visited the music school (where I played some piano for Suzi), checked out the new art school (which I hadn't even seen yet), and on the way home we hit up the Mall of Georgia for a focused mission to pick out a trendy outfit for Suzi for the big Baby Baby show later that night (you'd be surprised how hard it is to find red pants for a girl! Should've looked while we were still in Athens...).

Overall, it was a fun little trip, especially Friday night's activities. I genuinely LOVE Athens and think it's a crime I didn't take advantage of it during my undergrad until my last three months there, but perhaps that's the reason why it can still be so special? Definitely looking forward to going back!

Patton Oswalt @ The 40 Watt

I've already featured Patton Oswalt's stand-up comedy on this blog, so I'm not gonna give any background info on him for this post, which covers his show Suzi and I caught up in Athens. For differing reasons, we were both fans of Patton's work, so it seemed like a no-brainer to go see him. The question was whether or not to go see him in Atlanta on a Saturday night (which conflicted with a Baby Baby show we really wanted to hit up) or to drive up to Athens during rush hour traffic to catch him the Friday night before. We ended up deciding on the Athens trip because, despite the traffic, it didn't conflict with the Baby Baby show, it was cheaper and at a more intimate venue, and it was a good excuse to hang out in Athens for the first time together that night and the next day.

Anyway, the show was good, but it was hot as hell in the venue (even Patton commented on this), so it wasn't exactly the best environment to see something you're excited about. Patton was really funny, but his opener Eddie Pepitone wasn't all that great despite his schtick of being a really angry oldish man. I think he just scared a bunch of people...

But, what's worth writing about isn't the show... When we arrived to town to quickly check into our cheap motel, we quickly found out via the employees there that Patton and Eddie were staying in the room right next to us! Patton even mentioned (in his set) knocking one out AT the motel right before coming over! Funny... Unfortunately, we didn't get to see him there.

The next morning, we tried to hit up breakfast at two different places before settling on this notable hippie place in town called The Grit. While waiting to be seated, I happened to spot none other than Patton Oswalt and Eddie Pepitone sitting at the large table right in front of us! We were fortunate enough that they stood up to leave right before we were seated, and we got to talk to Patton. Instead of being a dick about fans spotting him, he was SUPER nice, even talking to us about how he accidentally got booked at a Travelodge instead of a better hotel! I didn't ask for a picture or an autograph, as he was being so cool talking to us for a minute in a public place that I didn't want to be that guy.

So, the whole Patton experience was good (I'll blog more about the Athens visit in the next post), and I'm super glad we decided to go to Athens instead of staying in town, as we very well might not have gotten to meet Patton here.

Farewell to Max

Back in August, for the first time in my teaching career I had to say goodbye to a student I had been teaching for awhile but who was heading off to college and therefore set to discontinue lessons with me. I still teach his brothers Harrison and Bennett, but Max is now a freshman at Emory here in town and is most-likely too busy to be a regular student anymore.

Anyway, in addition to being my most-advanced student, Max (like his brothers) had been studying with me long enough that I consider him to be a friend as well. As such, it occurred to me that now that Max is an independent college student, he might be up for playing keys with our band, either as a permanent member or just in live situations. So, in his last lesson with me, I offered him the position along with a goodbye present and a CD with our demos on it.

While he was flattered, I'm not sure he's ultimately gonna end up playing with us, as he might be too busy playing in something like two jazz bands (one on sax and one on piano, I think) and Emory's Wind Symphony, all in addition to having a non-music major, adjusting to his new place and scholastic setting, and of course making new friends. Perhaps the biggest compliment I could have received is that Max ended up deciding to minor in music, which officially marks the first time any of my long-term students had taken our lessons to the next level like that. Pretty awesome. Also, I hear the improvisatory rock piano I taught him might have come in handy in introducing him to his current girlfriend, but of course, I guess I can't take too much credit for that... =)

Anyway, Max was a fantastic student, and I hope to keep in touch with him in whatever capacity he's got time for. Thanks for two great years, Max!

Miami Getaway w/Suzi

Still pretty old news here, but maybe I'm making headway? Anyway, back in mid-August I decided to take Suzi on a surprise trip to Miami, partly to simply get away, but mainly to give us a special place for me to finally tell her I love her (as it was getting pretty hard to resist doing in a less romantic setting). The trip also offered me a chance to see my Dutch buddy Bas on his first visit to the States, he and his friends making a stop in Miami on their two week trip. Might as well start with the Facebook album:

Miami Trip w/Suzi

Yet one more highlight of the trip was getting to see my first undergrad school, The University of Miami, for the first time since I left back in December of 2000. Now, while this wasn't quite as poignant an experience as I had hoped for, it was still pretty awesome. Actually, I kinda wish I had gone back sooner, as some of my memories had already faded beyond the point of caring...but whatever.

Overall, the trip was pretty perfect: the hotel was great (despite not being what I picked out, the chain having filled up and moving us to another location), the weather was good (despite being really, really hot), my time hanging with Bas and his friends was totally worth making the trip down to Miami, and the whole saying "I love you" part went even better than I had hoped for. All around, a great trip. Would totally go back sometime, though I'm sure it probably wouldn't be quite as special. =)

Steve Reich vs. Philip Glass

Most of you are probably aware that I am (or at least, once was) a HUGE fan of Philip Glass' music, owning a whole CD case full of his recordings and having spent over two years performing his works in more than 30 concerts. Well, that active interest has waned over the years, and the more often I return to it, the more surprised I am at how much less touching it all is to me. I suppose this is a natural part of how likes and dislikes work, coming and going over time, but in showing Suzi some of my old favorite minimalist music this weekend while driving to/from Chattanooga (yes, this is a current post despite not being caught up), I came across a somewhat disturbing realization:

I might be starting to like Steve Reich's music more.

If I had heard myself utter this even a few days ago, I would probably cry blasphemy and denounce the possibility of the sentiment, but now I'm not so sure. See, if you don't know, Steve Reich and Philip Glass are sort of quasi-bitter rivals in the world of minimalist music, and even their fans tend to compare the two frequently, with composers almost always siding with Reich. For the entirety of my time being aware of the music of both, I have always preferred Glass's work, as it always seemed to touch me more deeply on an emotional level. It should be said, however, that I never disliked Reich's work in and of itself...rather, if I ever disliked something about him, it was simply in reaction to most of my peers claiming that Glass was generally inferior.

Anyway, in showing Suzi the music, I split it up into two parts: Philip Glass on the ride home from Chattanooga, and all the other minimalists (including Reich) on the way there. What I discovered was that Reich's music is infinitely more stimulating to show people in sound bites over the course of a couple hours, as his pieces tend to be more texturally-complicated/stimulating, easier to introduce their compositional methods and the inspiration for them, and have a bit more variety (at least, when only sticking to a sort of highlight reel of sorts of his most-interesting stuff). Playing a mix of Come Out, Piano Phase, Different Trains, Electric Counterpoint, Three Tales, and Music For 18 Musicians seemed to yield much better results than playing Glass' scores to Dracula and Belle Et La Bête, samples of his piano writing, Two Pages, Songs From Liquid Days, the Uakti collaboration, Einstein On The Beach, and Hydrogen Jukebox, amongst other pieces. [Note: I'm saving Koyaanisqatsi so I can show her the film one day]. Maybe I could have chosen better pieces, but each time I tried to think of a Glass piece that was cooler than a Reich piece to show to someone who isn't familiar with the music of either, I always felt at a loss.

This makes me sad, but perhaps I'm finally starting to agree with all of my composition colleagues? Or maybe I still have strong emotional reactions to Glass' music that wouldn't come out in this sort of demonstration exercise? Not sure, but I guess I can say with confidence that I think I'm starting to appreciate Reich's music more than ever before...