Here's what I have been listening to recently.
1) Badfinger: I played in a wedding band at the beginning of August and one song requested that we learn was Badfinger's "No Matter What". Great song and a classic rock radio fixture, but I wasn't very familiar with much else by them. The only other song I knew was "Baby Blue" and mainly because it's on a Portastatic album. I picked up "The Essential Badfinger" and now can't stop listening to it start to finish. Great stuff. For any fan of late era Beatles, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Cheap Trick, Big Star. Check out some of their live performances on YouTube. Classic.
2) The New Pornographers: This band is the shit. I love every album and much to my wife's chagrin, can't stop listening, singing, playing their songs. I think I must have a thing for bands with multiple lead singers. I was lucky enough to have met their keyboardist, Kathryn, earlier this fall here in Athens. Her other band, Immaculate Machine was playing. We sort of hit it off and have kept in touch since then. When N.P. came to Athens a few months later, Christina and I had the pleasure of post show drinks with Kathryn, Carl Newman (founder, lead singer), and the guys from Okkervil River (who, by the way, are playing the 40 watt tonight with Crooked Fingers).
3) Pavement: Old Faithful. I always keep at least one album in rotation.
4) Fabulous Bird: Peter Alvanos, aka Fab Bird, plays drums with me in our band, The Golden Gates. When he's not slinging bread (bread deliveryman) he's crafting classic sounding power pop in the vein of Big Star, Elliot Smith, or the db's. Check his stuff out at www.myspace.com/fabulousbird
5)Singles: Dwight Twilley's "Looking for the Magic", ELO "Do Ya", Dinosaur Jr. "Freak Scene", Big Star "September Gurls", John Waite "Change", The Cars "Let's Go", Bruce Springsteen "Brilliant Disguise", T Rex "20th Century Boy", Lou Gramm "Midnite Blue", Supertramp "Give a Little Bit"
So, as you can see, I'm a big power pop fan. If you have some suggestions for me, leave me a comment.
Word,
Mark
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Movie pick #1, "The Signal"
Here's a short synopsis of what led me to rent this movie in the first place.......
About a month ago, Gnarls Barkley played the 40 watt. The show sold out in a couple of days, but lucky for me my friend Ross set aside tickets for his friends so that not only douche bags would get to go. I was excited about this mainly, and as you may or may not know, Brian Burton, aka DJ Danger Mouse, use to live in Athens before making it big as a dj, producer, and musician. I met Brian back in '98 while I was living in Alpharetta and working at the Lickskillet Farm. Brian's best friend was a co-worker of mine named Alex Motlaugh. Another reason I was excited about the show, was that I figured Alex would be there as we had lost touch and hadn't seen each other in six years. Sure enough, upon walking into the 40 watt, Alex is standing right in front of me. Alex was an aspiring cinematographer when we last spoke. I knew that he had done some work on the Cartoon Network's Danger Doom show.
We chatted a little and enevitably, the question arose, "So, have you made any movies yet?" "You haven't heard?" "No", I said. I was the executive producer for a movie that did well at Sundance last year. Really? What's it called? "The Signal", it's sort of a horror movie.
I asked my buddy Todd if he had heard of it and he assured me he had and that it was all the rave amongst horror movie bluffs.
Alex told me I could find it at most any video rental place. I was absolutely shocked, almost missing it completely, to find that Vision Video had a full shelf of the dvd. I was expecting maybe one or two copies, not 15.
The movie itself is definately not run of the mill horror. It centers around a troubled married couple living in Terminus (Atlanta). Marital problems take a backseat when all media transmissions (tv, radio, ipods, etc) begin playing a horrible signal that pushes mankinds rational and patience to the limit. Anarchy and mass genocide ensues. Not a complete gorefest, but definately enough skull pounding to keep you awake for the whole thing. It sort of reminds me of "Shaun of the Dead" with the comedy pulled out (ed. note* I didn't really find "S. of the D" that funny, entertaining, but not that funny). Cool kids killing each other. A great way to spend a week night. Check it out when you get the chance. I give this movie 3 3/4 out of 5 murderboners up.
About a month ago, Gnarls Barkley played the 40 watt. The show sold out in a couple of days, but lucky for me my friend Ross set aside tickets for his friends so that not only douche bags would get to go. I was excited about this mainly, and as you may or may not know, Brian Burton, aka DJ Danger Mouse, use to live in Athens before making it big as a dj, producer, and musician. I met Brian back in '98 while I was living in Alpharetta and working at the Lickskillet Farm. Brian's best friend was a co-worker of mine named Alex Motlaugh. Another reason I was excited about the show, was that I figured Alex would be there as we had lost touch and hadn't seen each other in six years. Sure enough, upon walking into the 40 watt, Alex is standing right in front of me. Alex was an aspiring cinematographer when we last spoke. I knew that he had done some work on the Cartoon Network's Danger Doom show.
We chatted a little and enevitably, the question arose, "So, have you made any movies yet?" "You haven't heard?" "No", I said. I was the executive producer for a movie that did well at Sundance last year. Really? What's it called? "The Signal", it's sort of a horror movie.
I asked my buddy Todd if he had heard of it and he assured me he had and that it was all the rave amongst horror movie bluffs.
Alex told me I could find it at most any video rental place. I was absolutely shocked, almost missing it completely, to find that Vision Video had a full shelf of the dvd. I was expecting maybe one or two copies, not 15.
The movie itself is definately not run of the mill horror. It centers around a troubled married couple living in Terminus (Atlanta). Marital problems take a backseat when all media transmissions (tv, radio, ipods, etc) begin playing a horrible signal that pushes mankinds rational and patience to the limit. Anarchy and mass genocide ensues. Not a complete gorefest, but definately enough skull pounding to keep you awake for the whole thing. It sort of reminds me of "Shaun of the Dead" with the comedy pulled out (ed. note* I didn't really find "S. of the D" that funny, entertaining, but not that funny). Cool kids killing each other. A great way to spend a week night. Check it out when you get the chance. I give this movie 3 3/4 out of 5 murderboners up.
Still looking for inspiration......
Okay, so I've been a "blogger" for three weeks now and only have one post. I'm very disappointed in myself. I really thought that when I signed up that I would be struck with inspiration and the world would be introduced to the second coming of Mark Twain. Not to say that won't happen, but I have been pretty slack so far.
Here's what I did today:
Woke up at 7:30. Checked my email. Let the doggies out and fed the kitty. Off to work (8:30). I've been working with my buddy and baseball teammate, John Newland, on a house he purchased on King Ave (behind Athens Regional). Today I set my sights on cleaning out the basement. The house was originally constructed in 1936 by the Mayer (no kin of John(that I know of) family. Mr. Mayer owned a metal shop in town. What is the significance of this? Well, the basement was filled with every trinket of metal the old man never sought fit to toss. This, added to the heavy debris from our construction up stairs had left the basement looking like Sarajevo. In the corner stood a set of metal filing cabinets that had been there a long time. I had opened them several times but never noticed anything in them until today. In the very back of the bottom cabinet were two clippings of the same article (not dated) from the Athens Banner Herald. The clippings were actually a feature on Mr. Mayer. The family had moved to New York from Germany in 1933 where Mr. Mayer worked for Bosch Magneto. Upon moving to Athens in 1936, Mr. Mayer set up business as a metal miller. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor (1941), an FBI agent came knocking on the Mayer's door. Apparently neighbors had turned them in as German spies. Only Mrs. Mayer was arrested and taken to Atlanta in custody. She was found not guilty, but spent another 6 weeks in jail after her acquittal. The main reasons they were suspects was because both were German and spoke little english, drove a top of the line Packard, and often had visitors with "Yankee" plates. Upon being released, Mrs. Mayer never spoke German in public for the rest of her life. The Mayers lived in the house until 1999, when both died of natural causes a month apart. Amazing!
So.......I loaded up all of the metal (over 700 pounds of it) and took it to the metal recyclers. I had never been before and didn't really know how the system works. Pretty straightforward. We (John and I) split the 97 bucks and were pretty happy.
Shortly afterwards (3:00 p.m.-ish) I met my plumbers over at our rental house to have the sewer line snaked out. They ran the snake all the way into the street and it did nothing, which means the city's sewer is backed up and backflowing into my yard. The plumbers called the city to have them come out. They said they'd send someone right away. As of 8:00 p.m. tonight, nothing has been done. So, if you have to stop by and see the Veteto's (my tenants), please don't roll around in the front yard. I'm also wondering if the city is going to refund my $100 I spent to have my line snaked. Probably not, but that pretty much sucks. I had to think back to Harris' nightmare situation in East Atlanta.
Upon finishing up work, I headed down to my workshop (under Normal Hardware) to do a little work on a 1600 dual port engine I'm building for my 1969 VW Westfalia camper. Finished getting the block back together, so tomorrow, I'll start building the top end (carb, distributor, exhaust, etc...). I'm still pretty new at the engine build. My first few were fucked up, but my last three have been pretty solid so far. I actually traded one engine I built for a 1964 Beetle project and quickly turned around and traded it for the Camper.
On the way home, I decided to stop and check my air pressure in my tires. The first gas station I stopped at stole my money so I went across the street. Second time's a charm sort of . Though the air pump worked, the gauge was sort of screwy, so I didn't fill them up as much as I would have liked (optimal 32-34 psi).
Got home. Let the dogs out. Noticed that at some point today, Ruby (our golden pup) decided to eat the dvd case for our movie rental (luckily not the dvd).....(unluckily she did chomp up my Cable Guy dvd)...(Good thing its on tv about every 3 hours). Normally she likes to drag mine and Christina's socks out of the hamper and carry them around (much like her predecesor, Thurston) but rarely destroys anything besides paper (phone books, coupons, etc.) I'm hoping she's not entering into a new "bad girl" phase.
Christina called from work to tell me that she would pick up dinner if I took out the recycling. She's now working at the UGA Health Center and doesn't get off until 8 p.m. I took out the recycling, but then she called and said she might not be home until closer to or after 9 p.m. I'm not sure if that meant I am to fend for myself or not. I guess I should have asked. Well, it's 8:54 p.m., so I should find out soon........
Here's what I did today:
Woke up at 7:30. Checked my email. Let the doggies out and fed the kitty. Off to work (8:30). I've been working with my buddy and baseball teammate, John Newland, on a house he purchased on King Ave (behind Athens Regional). Today I set my sights on cleaning out the basement. The house was originally constructed in 1936 by the Mayer (no kin of John(that I know of) family. Mr. Mayer owned a metal shop in town. What is the significance of this? Well, the basement was filled with every trinket of metal the old man never sought fit to toss. This, added to the heavy debris from our construction up stairs had left the basement looking like Sarajevo. In the corner stood a set of metal filing cabinets that had been there a long time. I had opened them several times but never noticed anything in them until today. In the very back of the bottom cabinet were two clippings of the same article (not dated) from the Athens Banner Herald. The clippings were actually a feature on Mr. Mayer. The family had moved to New York from Germany in 1933 where Mr. Mayer worked for Bosch Magneto. Upon moving to Athens in 1936, Mr. Mayer set up business as a metal miller. Two weeks after Pearl Harbor (1941), an FBI agent came knocking on the Mayer's door. Apparently neighbors had turned them in as German spies. Only Mrs. Mayer was arrested and taken to Atlanta in custody. She was found not guilty, but spent another 6 weeks in jail after her acquittal. The main reasons they were suspects was because both were German and spoke little english, drove a top of the line Packard, and often had visitors with "Yankee" plates. Upon being released, Mrs. Mayer never spoke German in public for the rest of her life. The Mayers lived in the house until 1999, when both died of natural causes a month apart. Amazing!
So.......I loaded up all of the metal (over 700 pounds of it) and took it to the metal recyclers. I had never been before and didn't really know how the system works. Pretty straightforward. We (John and I) split the 97 bucks and were pretty happy.
Shortly afterwards (3:00 p.m.-ish) I met my plumbers over at our rental house to have the sewer line snaked out. They ran the snake all the way into the street and it did nothing, which means the city's sewer is backed up and backflowing into my yard. The plumbers called the city to have them come out. They said they'd send someone right away. As of 8:00 p.m. tonight, nothing has been done. So, if you have to stop by and see the Veteto's (my tenants), please don't roll around in the front yard. I'm also wondering if the city is going to refund my $100 I spent to have my line snaked. Probably not, but that pretty much sucks. I had to think back to Harris' nightmare situation in East Atlanta.
Upon finishing up work, I headed down to my workshop (under Normal Hardware) to do a little work on a 1600 dual port engine I'm building for my 1969 VW Westfalia camper. Finished getting the block back together, so tomorrow, I'll start building the top end (carb, distributor, exhaust, etc...). I'm still pretty new at the engine build. My first few were fucked up, but my last three have been pretty solid so far. I actually traded one engine I built for a 1964 Beetle project and quickly turned around and traded it for the Camper.
On the way home, I decided to stop and check my air pressure in my tires. The first gas station I stopped at stole my money so I went across the street. Second time's a charm sort of . Though the air pump worked, the gauge was sort of screwy, so I didn't fill them up as much as I would have liked (optimal 32-34 psi).
Got home. Let the dogs out. Noticed that at some point today, Ruby (our golden pup) decided to eat the dvd case for our movie rental (luckily not the dvd).....(unluckily she did chomp up my Cable Guy dvd)...(Good thing its on tv about every 3 hours). Normally she likes to drag mine and Christina's socks out of the hamper and carry them around (much like her predecesor, Thurston) but rarely destroys anything besides paper (phone books, coupons, etc.) I'm hoping she's not entering into a new "bad girl" phase.
Christina called from work to tell me that she would pick up dinner if I took out the recycling. She's now working at the UGA Health Center and doesn't get off until 8 p.m. I took out the recycling, but then she called and said she might not be home until closer to or after 9 p.m. I'm not sure if that meant I am to fend for myself or not. I guess I should have asked. Well, it's 8:54 p.m., so I should find out soon........
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