Thank You Zombie Jesus

The holiday Steam sale is scheduled to start tomorrow. Time to blow not much money for quite a few games.

Cards Against Humanity

I'll level with everybody. I get quite a bit of my entertainment from Giant Bomb, a video game website. Their weekly podcast is usually 3 hours long and I make it a point to listen to it the day it comes out because it's just stupid funny and I have come to really respect their opinions. But my favorite part about the website is their quick looks in which they record themselves playing games and they provide commentary over the top. It's sort of like a video review, but not really. Sometimes I find that while watching a video I see that they're enjoying themselves so I consider picking up said game whenever it goes on sale (because fuck paying full price.) Anyways, I also enjoy these quick looks because sometimes they just brighten my day. Check this one out.

Catan Champion

Yet again. I fucking love that game.

Tower of Skulls

Hey gang, it's been a while since I posted so here's what's up.

Check this shit out, http://www.wunderground.com/metarFAQ.asp .
I was on Wunderground last night checking the weather and I stumbled upon this awesome FAQ about how to correctly read a METAR, which is just a super awesome way to get all the possible information about the weather in one massivelycryptic line of text and numbers. I don't want to say that having the ability to read METAR is a totally useless skill to have, but it's sort of close. Super cool though. I would highly recommend it.

My president is just so fucking cool.

Spiritual Rights

Quick recap since last post. I played the shit out of Hotline Miami (see previous post) and it was amazing. It only lasts 4-8 hours depending on how dedicated one is to getting all the secrets and wrecking all the high scores, (I totally was), and it really is the best indie game I've played in quite a while. It is super violent and at the same time really trippy, but under that facade it's basically just a puzzle game soaked in Quentin Tarantino films and acid. Would I recommend this game for the ten dollar asking price? F yeah. It's well worth every penny and it has the best soundtrack of the year as far as I'm concerned. Check it out here at their bandcamp site. http://soundcloud.com/devolverdigital/sets/hotline-miami-official

I totally went to 3 concerts in 6 days and that was pretty sweet. I checked out Dropkick Murpheys on Saturday and they put on a pretty decent show. There was a time in my life when I was 12-14 when these guys were the bees knees as far as I was concerned and they served as the first bridge in my music tastes from Pop-Punk to Punk-Rock (yes there is a distinction) which would eventually lead me to where I am today and for that I am forever grateful to this band. They put on a hell of a show and I went totally loaded so that helps. I realized after the show that at 23, I may be a bit old to rock circle pits because I totally felt like I had been in a couple of car accidents the next day. Totally worth it and they put on a pretty good show.

Fast forward to Tuesday and I saw one of my favorite bands, Andrew Jackson Jihad at the Triple Rock in Mpls. Holy balls that was an amazing show. For those of you not introduced to AJJ they are a Folk-Punk band (yep, that's totally a genre) and they just make awesome awesome music. On their first release they were just two dudes who played an upright bass and an acoustic guitar playing some really insightful/hilarious/slightly offensive music and they have evolved into a full band playing more prototypical punk rock with a slight country flair (hard to explain, still awesome though). Anyways it was an awesome show. They played some Misfits covers as well as a Dead Kennedys cover so that was awesome. And about 3 songs in somebody threw/dropped a knife on stage and they totally played it off and just held onto it for most of the show while at one time waving it in the air during the encore. Just check em out. They're cool.




The last show I saw was Trampled by Turtles who were back in Fargo. They are an alt-country/ folkish band from Duluth and they put on an alright show. I had seen them two years previous in the same place and it seems like a year of constant touring might be taking a toll on them as they just didn't have much in the gas tank. They still put on a hell of a show and they looked like they were having a good time, but they just seemed tired. I don't know. Still worth the 15 dollar admission fee.

Hotline Miami

I need to buy this game. Best part? 10 bucks.

Well That's Settled

The new Pig Destroy album, Book Burner, absolutely slays. Easily the best metal release of 2012 and possible album of the year. Holy shit. They haven't come out with a new album in five years, but they must have spent every minute of that time getting pissed off and writing music.

Best part? It's streaming on NPR. I love America.

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/14/162728112/first-listen-pig-destroyer-book-burner

Tandem

I'm pretty sure I subconsciously hate the idea of any free time based off of my recent actions. 

I have in the past month done this:

-Start watching Season 2 of The Walking Dead.

-Start watching Freaks and Geeks.

-Try to keep up with the new series of Doctor Who.

-Burned through the first two books of A Song of Ice and Fire (the books from Game of Thrones).

-Started reading book three of the aforementioned series.

-Attempted to get caught up on all the games I bought from the past Steam sale which is in and of itself a lost fucking cause (Alan Wake, The Walking Dead (videogame this time, also very good), The Binding of Issac, Civilization V, Borderlands 2, and Super Meat Boy.

-Thought about getting caught up on Mad Men as well as Dexter, but quickly realized that would be a poor choice if I ever wanted to sleep again.

Thank god winter is coming so I'll have more time to piss away on this stuff so that by spring when the flood waters start rising again I'll be caught up with all this stuff, but then again there will have been another Steam sale so... yeah. 

First world problems suck.

Sup

I suppose it's time to do my monthly update. Guess what? I'm going to New York City for a few days and I'm leaving tomorrow. I don't have any sort of grand plan as to what I'll be doing there, but I'm sure I'll find a way to have a good time and do all the slightly touristy stuff without going full Japanese tourist.

I'll probably give a full report once I get back Mondayish.

The new Flying Lotus album is pretty fucking sweet. Until The Quiet Comes reaffirmed my faith in humanity and I've been fascinated with it since it began streaming on NPR a few weeks ago.

How about that election going on, huh folks? Jesus, I still can't wrap my head around how one debate resulted in such a huge swing in the polls. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Obama didn't whip his dick out during the debate and play piano with it. The polls seem to indicate otherwise.

Here's my new background. It combines two of my favorite television programs at this time, Breaking Bad and Adventure Time. http://wallbase.cc/wallpaper/2320668

That's all for now. I might start to post more regularly, but who knows. Probably not.

Knuckles.

With the Whitest Kids U' Know's 5th and final season they decided to end every episode with clips from a full length feature film they created titled, "The Civil War On Drugs." In it, Trevor and Sam essentially start and end the Civil War because of marijuana. Some guy decided to splice all the clips together and make the film whole. God damn it's funny

A Brand New Obsession

Well gang, I have proven to myself once again that I just don't get the concept of moderation. I've been told for months by all my friends to watch Game of Thrones on HBO and I had been planning on doing that for months. The problem was I had to catch up on...
1.) Doctor Who ('effing awesome)
2.) Breaking Bad (best thing on television since The Wire)
3.) Adventure Time (holy god, just watch that show. Don't let the fact it's on Cartoon Network throw you off. It's amazing)


So, once I had caught up on all that as well as play shitloads of Minecraft, beat Alan Wake, and dabble in Civilization V (fucking steam sale...), I was finally able to watch Game of Thrones. It's so damn good. It scratched an itch that I didn't know I had. The series is incredibly deep and so full of interesting characters with umpteen story lines that I had a tough time not burning through the entire first season in more than 3 sittings.

In my head I was thinking, "Oh, this series is great, I'm enjoying myself. Let's go to the source material. I'll saunter over to Amazon and see how much the first book costs. Wait, what? I can get the first four books of the series for 12 bucks (16 with shipping?!?!?). Purchase".

From there I realized I didn't do enough research, because there are currently 5 books out at this time of a planned 7 book series and of the first four I bought, the shortest is 850+ pages... I was sort of hoping to just burn through them over a long weekend, but I'm perfectly okay with biting off more than I can chew... This is looking like a fall project.

And that is why I really am lacking on the whole moderation thing. TV series, to massive book series, leading to just not sleeping at all anymore.

This always makes me happy

Just go to the URL below.

This is a fantastic 10 minute video of a guy trying acid for the first time and going to the Westminster Dog Show. It's pretty sweet. http://www.vice.com/shorties/shorties-the-westminster-dog-show-on-acid

Snakes And The Divine

This is totally my new wallpaper. Yeah, it's fucking awesome. Here's the URL if you want to see it in full size and make it yours as well. http://i.imgur.com/IiV0Q.jpg

Second Post in 5 Minutes

Just found this in some thread on Reddit, had to share. I love microscopes and the internet.

This is a slow-mo shot with a microscope of some metal getting cut. Pretty sweet stuff.

Mystery Ticket

Now that The Tallest Man On Earth's new album, There's No Leaving Now, has come out I wanted to share my two favorite tracks so far. On each of the two previous Tallest Man albums I would immediately fall in love with a track or two, but after a few dozen plays a new track would take center stage and I would become enamored  in a track I initially dismissed. The entire process would repeat itself over the course of a few months until every track became a standout track and that's why I love this artist.

Anyways... here are the first two standouts from the new album and I hope this helps some poor dude who mistakenly hit next blog and ended up in this wasteland of a blog find some new music.

"Leading Me Now"


"1904"

Mycroft Update

Well gang, I guess it's time to update his bad boy before I work this weekend, (which has a high potential to suck a whole lot), so here's what's been going on with me lately.

1.) A ridiculous amount of Diablo III. I played the hell out of the first 2 in the early 2000's and good god the new one is so much more streamlined and effective at making me never want to leave my computer. I've logged in... a lot of time with that game and I'm only just now able to play through part of the first act on the hardest difficulty. So yeah, I finally understand why Ahmed loves to gamble so much because every time I'm killing a monster I'm just waiting to hear the sound of loot drop and looking frantically around hoping that it's yellow (rare) or orange (legendary) so I can either; a) use it because it has better stats than the gear I'm currently using, or b) sell it on the auction house for more gold. It's so damn fun.

2.) Listening to the new album from The Tallest Man on Earth, There's No Leaving Now. There is currently a stream up on NPR.org, (which I expect will be down Tuesday when the album comes out), and it is so damn good. This is still the same Swede that we've all come to know and love and he's still (for the most part) just jamming out on his acoustic guitar. I've only listened to it 3 or 4 times so far, but it somehow pulled off the impossible of retaining a core sound while still finding ways to accent and further explore that sound in ways that I wouldn't have thought he could pull off in the past.

My mindset now that I'm somewhat older and god forbid, wiser, is that a musician needs to always progress and can't make the same album again and again. That sucks sometimes when a fan really likes a particular sound and feels almost abandoned when their favorite musician seems to distance themselves from the music that earned that fan. But that musician can't make the same album over and over because people change, so their music must change as well. Anyways... this new album by The Tallest Man on Earth manages to straddle that problem and moves forward, (just a bit), while still making the most beautiful music in the world. Boom. I'm giving it the Stiche letter of recommendation.

3.) Tea. I've been drinking a shit load of the stuff lately. I thought to myself a few months ago, "Hey, Stiche, how can I become a bit more pretentious other than start listening to exclusively Black Metal bands that are from only Norway and who's albums sell fewer than 500 albums?" And instead of going the underground Black Metal route, I decided to get into loose leaf tea. Surprisingly, (or not...), nowhere in the F-M area are there legit loose leaf tea dealers so I went onto the interweb and found what looked like a legit seller, Adagio Teas, and made my first purchase. I got a green tea sampler, which was very good, but I fell in love with black teas probably because there was more caffeine and I tend to stay up all night. Also, now that I think about it, I've always been drawn to stronger tastes with coffee... my favorite drinks have been depth charges/red eyes and Americanos so I guess that makes a bit more sense now that I think about it. Anyways, I started out with some of the old flavors I loved from my tea bag days like Earl Gray, Irish Breakfast, and Darjeeling and they were all fantastic. Well that was early April and I noticed that my tea stores were running low so I made another buying spree at Adagio and this time I went with blends and being the complete fucking nerd that I am, all the blends I chose had names that were either related to Sherlock, (the newish BBC series, not the movies with RDJ), and Dr. Who. So I'm now the proud new owner of 3 oz. each of the Tardis blend, Amy Pond blend, Watson blend, and the Mycroft blend. Some of them are more savory like the Watson blend that mixes Irish Breakfast with Earl Gray Green with cinnamon, (which I'm drinking right now and is fantastic), ad some are just tasty like the Mycroft which is pretty much chocolate with cream and vanilla.

Anyways, I'm feeling a bit more healthy drinking a bunch of tea instead of a bunch of coffee, but I still drink a bunch of coffee anyways... It's good stuff and would recommend for everyone to just buy a few boxes of tea bags and try those out. If you like them, awesome, finish the box and venture onto loose leaf tea. First off, you'll be able to scoff at all the peons who drink tea bags *scoff scoff*, and there is just so much more variety at the loose leaf level even for someone like me who has no access to great tea shops or co-ops where one can buy fresh. I'm not even saying Adagio Tea is the best tea, but it's treated me pretty well so far. And the taste of loose leaf tea is just on a whole other level. So good.

Mr. Tom Day sent this to me today asking that I post it here on the blog. It's a wonderful piece and I am honored to have the Day man grace this blog once more. Enjoy.

The Last Mission

It’s eleven at night and I am half past drunk enough to care. Sitting here looking out into the city that deflates my view of humanity and I am paralyzed with fear. I do not know what the future holds but I believe it to be bleak. Am I afraid of death or is it the inconsequential nature of my existence? People laughing, loving, crying, screaming all at once, and for the rest of our lives, we will remain unknown to each other. Life, it seems, is unaware of the past and present, and sure as hell doesn’t care about the future.

The thoughts of the last mission are still there. It was supposed to be a normal drop. How did the Russians find us? It doesn’t matter… there was only supposed to be two of us and no one else knew. Fuck, that briefcase is something that will make your blood run cold and they control it.

Oh well… It’s only a matter of time now until I end up with a hood over my head, hung out to dry; just a frayed end of rope that is ready to be excised. My history will be erased and some new recruit will take my place, and I am ready to end this now. I sit here before you, surrounded by clues to my former self, only wishing to reach the bottom of this bottle. Would you be so kind to join me?

My only requests: please make it quick and tell my partner I…

Awww Hells Yeah

Daniel Craig has done a wonderful job playing James Bond since he took over with Casino Royale. I know that The Quantum of Solace takes some shit for not living up to the tone that Casino Royale built, (which may or may not be true) but I am incredibly excited for the new Bond film, Skyfall. It has Javier Bardem as the villian who's absolutely brilliant in everything he's ever touched, and with any luck he'll bring some real magic to his role. Also, I'm an unabashed fan of Craig. Ever since I saw him in Layer Cake, watch it by the way you'll thank me later, I've followed his work and he hasn't made a bad film as far as I'm concerned... well Tomb Raider sucked... really bad. But anyways, the trailer for Skyfall just came out and I'm totally sucked in and full of hope for this movie. Should be a good flick.

Fantastic News

I'll post later about seeing my first death metal concert this past weekend with Tom, (so brutal), but I had to mention this news first. The Tallest Man on Earth is releasing a new album this July and for any of you who have followed this blog, (both of you), you know that I absolutely loved The Wild Hunt as it was my top album of a couple of years ago. Well he released a new track from the album, "1904" and it's amazing. There is a very real progression in his sound and at the same time its not as though he abandoned the sound that made me fall in love with his music. On top of that, he's coming to Minnesota in August (YES!!). So yeah, check out the track at this link. It's great.

Jesus...

Action/Adventure

Last night I had nothing really going on and I didn't want to go out to the bar, (sorry, Ben), so I ended up watching a couple of movies. Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was a damn fine movie. It lived up to the renewed prowess that M:I III had while being it's own film. I won't give anything away, but the suspense and action doesn't really let up any more than it needs to in order to let the audience catch its breath. Say what you will about Tom Cruse, (god knows I have), but seeing him as Ethan Hunt again reminded me why he is the star that he is. He can just flat out play the shit out of the character and is a total badass while doing it. Simon Pegg is also great in the movie and it's nice to see him have a more significant role in massive movies because his screen time in Star Trek and M:I III just weren't that substantial. I've been a fan of his since I rented Shaun of the Dead on a whim in 2005/2006 and it's wonderful seeing him in big films that will help broaden his exposure. I just can't wait until he makes another film with Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. Speaking of Edgar Wright, I watched The Adventures of Tintin last night as well, (which Wright co-wrote), and I couldn't sum it up any better than Tom Day did when he first told me to watch it. He said that it was essentially Raiders of the Lost Ark, but with motion capture graphics and fewer snakes. Holy shit, the movie was everything an adventure film should be. The film was full of amazing set pieces that took place all over Europe and the scenes were kinetic and absolutely brilliant. There were chase scenes that baffled me in terms of their intricacies and peril that sucked me into the film in a way that totally transported me and I'm having a difficult time of remembering any films in the past 2-3 years that have done that so successfully. Sure, it may or may not be a film geared towards children, but that's not entirely true. One of the characters is a drunk sea captain who starts detoxing at one point and hallucinating which as a health care worker who has seen this happen many times (and can be quite scary often), can't believe they pulled it off. But they did. Please watch this film. It's amazing.

Gross

I was just incredibly disappointed in myself when I was impressed and found enjoyment in The Weather Channel's new online interface. I'm getting old.

Tea Update

At some point between cups 5 and 6 I realized I had made a huge mistake drinking so much tea. Yeah, I was more or less in a caffeine coma for a while last night, but the good news is that everything up to the 5th cup was delicious. Drank the shit out of my Dragonwell (green tea) and Darjeeling Sungma, Earl Grey, and Irish Breakfast (all black). It was when I tried to drink my second cup of Earl Grey that I realized I had no self control and hated myself for it. Oh boy. How do you detox yourself from something that's loaded with antioxidants?

Impulse Buys And Tax Money

So, last week I got off work around 8 in the morning and was more or less tired drunk once I got out of the shower (I'm sharp as a tack until I take a shower, then I get super tired) and decided, "Hey, I want to try some tea." With that I went on the internet and sure enough I did some quick research and found what appeared to be a fairly reputable website Adagio Teas and went ahead and started buying some tea. I've enjoyed tea in bags for the past few years, but finally decided it was time to nut up or shut up and go all in with some loose leaf tea. My plan was to just buy a couple of tins of teas that I liked and try one that I had never had before, but fuck, I've never been one for self control so I got 8 different kinds of tea and a badass thing to brew tea in and ended up blowing close to 60 bucks.

 Look how fucking sweet this shit is!

Fuckin' Science!

 So yeah, that should all be coming some point today (April 30th) and I plan on just going balls out and drinking the shit out of a bunch of tea and not sleep ever again. In other news, I was crashing at a friend's place after a particularly rough night at the bar and sure enough when I was sleeping, her dog ate my glasses. Bastard. With that I was forced to finally get a new pair of glasses so I said fuck it and I'm now the proud new owner of a couple of pairs of Ray Ban prescription glasses. One black thick rimmed and one subtle professional style.

So yeah, that's where all my tax money went. fuck.

This is why I will always love Queens of the Stone Age

Torn To Pieces

Well, my good friend Mr. Thomas Day will be gracing the Fargo/Moorhead area this weekend which means I have to get myself ready both physically and mentally for what's about to happen. Right now, I'm drinking some green tea to boost the antioxidant load in my body in a feeble attempt to guard by body against as many toxins as possible because god knows I'll be making a trip to the Empire bar at some point while he's here.

I'm also listening to some solid classic death metal, Death. Death was more or less the band that ignited the genre and created the initial trajectory that death metal has since taken (and to an extent, extreme metal in general). The best part about Death is that as the band evolved over the years they became more and more (and more) progressive and complex with their riffs, time signatures, and even lyrical content. They went from 4/4 beats and having albums named Scream Bloody Gore, which is still amazing by the way, to The Sound of Perseverance wherein they utilize a ridiculous amount of key and tempo changes, sing about existential crisis and esoteric beliefs, and have riffs may or may not have been created by Rasputin's ghost. For people who don't enjoy metal at all I totally understand because it's painfully hard to get into, but for someone like me it is incredibly enjoyable to listen to music that was written by the artists and is arguably the most complex music in the world that isn't classical.

Anyways, time to head to work again. And yeah, it'll be good to see Tom again.

You Left Without Leaving

Alien and Aliens are two of my favorite films of all time. When I first heard that Ridley Scott was making a prequel for his masterpiece, Alien, I was ridiculously excited. Then I heard that it was only tangentially connected and that it only really took place in the same mythos and universe I was a little bit bummed, but still really excited because, fuck, this dude made Blade Runner. And then I sort of forgot about the film on purpose because what's the point of waiting for a film when it won't come out any faster and when I don't want anything spoiled for me by looking at 100's of behind the scene photos?

Well, I finally broke down and watched a viral video they released starring Michael Fassbender who apparently plays and android named David 8 in the film. Holy balls it pushed all the right buttons for me to be excited for the movie all over again. Fassbender has a certain quality in his roles that have always hinted he was an android, (how could any person be that cool and calm and collected in Inglorious Basterds like he was, and come on, Magneto in the 60's? He can control metal. Androids are made of metal. Boom) so I can't help but feel he has the potential to do an amazing job in this film.

Anyways, run-on sentences aside and bastardization of grammar, I'm really looking forward to this film.

Here's the video I was talking about


p.s. Oh yeah, if you have the glasses, it's in fuckin' 3D if you want to watch it that way. yeah.

So. Much. Metal.

Why can't Pig Destroyer come out with a new album already?



It's been five years since Phantom Limb. Fuck... I guess I had better be getting to work and save some lives.

Whoa dude.

An exchange I had with my room mate last night following her eating her fifth bag of popcorn that night...

Me - Would you like some of my food to eat?

Room mate - No, it's alright, I'll go grocery shopping tomorrow and this is all I have left.

Me- Are you sure? I've got plenty of soup and cereal if you want some.

Room mate - It's okay... This is why I need a boyfriend.

Me - So you can cook for him?

Room mate - ... No, Jordan... So he can take me out to eat.

Me - Ooooh. Whoops.

I Need A New Rock Bottom

Today will be the first day I can drink in a back yard under the sun. Today will be a good day.

Because this is way over 140 characters.

Walter H. White: Jesse. Jesse. Your body is running dangerously low on electrolytes. Sodium, potassium, calcium. And when they're gone, your brain ceases to communicate with your muscles. Your lungs stop breathing. Your heart stops pumping. You go marching out there and within an hour you will be dead.

Jesse Pinkman: Okay. You need to cut out all your loser cry-baby crap RIGHT NOW and think of something SCIENTIFIC.

Walter H. White: Something scientific? Right.

Jesse Pinkman: What? Come on! Man, you're smart. You made poison out of beans, yo. Look, we got, we got an entire lab right here. Alright? How about you pick some of these chemicals and mix up some rocket fuel? That way you could just send up a signal flare. Or you make some kind of robot to get us help, or a homing device, or build a new battery, or... Wait. No. What if we just take some stuff off of the RV and build it into something completely different? You know, like a... Like a dune buggy. That way, we can just dune buggy or... What? Hey? What is it? What?

Walter H. White: [starts to get up]

Jesse Pinkman: What? Hey? What is it? What?

Walter H. White: Do you, do you have any money? Change, I mean. Coins.

Jesse Pinkman: Yeah, I got a bunch of them. From the...

Walter H. White: Okay.

Jesse Pinkman: YES!

Walter H. White: Gather them, and, and, and the washers and nuts and bolts and screws and whatever little pieces of metal we can think of that is galvanized. It has to be galvanized, or solid zinc.

Jesse Pinkman: Solid zinc, okay.

Walter H. White: And, and bring me, bring me brake pads. The front wheels should have discs. Take them off and bring them to me.

Jesse Pinkman: Alright, brake pads. Okay. What are we building?

Walter H. White: You said it yourself.

Jesse Pinkman: A robot?

Walter H. White: A battery. MOVE!

The Cap'n

Part of me is sad that I don't have any beer for a beer shower, but the other part of me is excited at the prospect of a Jameson shower.

Edit: Fucking success.

I Am The Batdad!

Oh, yeah, I was thinking to myself... I'm down to one set of contacts left which means I need to go into the ol' optometrist's office soon which means new prescription and glasses. Are Ray-Ban's still legit or have I missed the fucking boat on those by two years? Not the totally ridiculous and obnoxious ones, but the semi-ridiculous and obnoxious ones. Just a thought. And yeah, this post is only 20 minutes after my previous one, so what?

Now and Then

And after a monthish of putting this off, here is my #1 album of 2011...

1. Andrew Jackson Jihad - Knife Man

This album should not be as amazing as it is. It's full of ridiculous self referential lines like, "I hate whiny fucking songs like this, but I can't afford a therapist. Sorry guys, here's a solo," and they play a solo in the track "Distance". Then in the very same album there is something so fully and completely human and sad like in the song "People II: Still Peoplin'" (yep, that's the spelling) wherein they sing about homeless drinking mouthwash to get drunk it dawned on me that this is something special. It is in that track that the best line of the year is uttered, "hope is for presidents and dreams are for people who are sleeping." It's so damn catchy and sad and true all at once. I just realized that I haven't even described what genre this is. Well imagine Folk-punk with an added emphasis on pop-punk (but in a good way), in the sense that there is a very strong Neutral Milk Hotel vibe, but with some piss and vinegar (and whiskey) mixed in. Just give these tracks a listen and if you enjoy it, but think there's just a little bit too much electric guitar check out their earlier album People Who Eat People Are The Luckiest People In The World.

"Distance"


"People II: Still Peoplin'"


And my top track of 2011, "Hate, Rain on me"



In other news, I did the college educated, middle class equivalent of a pilgrimage and finished watching The Wire. It took me about half a year to burn through the series and even though it's been a few weeks since I've finished it, I can't help but feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself just for watching a tv show. Everything about the show was perfect from the casting to the characters, (if I could be McNulty for Halloween and have anybody recognize me I would be him in a heartbeat. Fuck I'll do it anyways), to the setting, to the dialogue, it's all perfect.

It was a series that built upon itself in each of its 5 seasons and was about so many things. It was about urban decay, the underclass, institutional racism, the drug trade, backroom politics, assholes like McNulty not giving a damn about anything but the end game, but the show was really about Baltimore. I've never been there, and I can't say I ever want to go after seeing the series, but the city itself was the staring character. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's the best I can articulate it. It really is the best show I've ever watched and I've watched Mad Men, I've watched Battlestar Galactica, and Dexter, and Doctor Who (more coming up in a future post), and The Walking Dead, and Weeds, and the original The Office, and Arrested Development... Well... It might be tied with Arrested Development. The point is, The Wire was a masterpiece painted in an infinite number of shades of grey. There were no good guys, not even the cops. There were no bad guys, even the crooks had redeeming factors. Just watch it.

What else... Because god knows I probably won't update until April at the earliest. Well, the new Every Time I Die album, Ex Lives gives me hope for the future of music. The band has been around for a decade and they somehow created their best album yet. The best way I can describe it is imagine ZZ Top doing 20 lines of coke with The Dillinger Escape Plan and then partying with a bunch of high school kids. It's kind of like that with all the positive connotations and none of the negative ones. Check it out. It's thus far my top album of 2012.

Ex Lives Stream - http://soundcloud.com/epitaph-records/sets/every-time-i-die-ex-lives/s-KSLFB

Last note of this post... I'm really not a fan of Pandora radio at all. And I mean at all, I've been a last.fm man for life, but... but. I was shown that if one listens to Gorillaz radio it's pretty damn magical what comes up. Just check it out.

Check this out, too. Fuck, if you've made it this far with the post you owe it yourself to finish it out.

whoops

Mega post coming in the next day or two...

I Suppose It's About That Time.

I figured I had better finish my best albums of 2011 before Q1 of 2012 was over...

5. Modeslektor - Monkeytown

This album is why I enjoy electronica. It's big, beefy, obnoxious (in a good way, not in the way Skrillex is..), and full of awesome beats. Monkeytown (and Modeelektor in general) isn't an album built on the subtle intricacies found in a band like The Field, or batshit crazy and out there like a Flying Lotus track; rather, this album goes to the heart of what makes a beat a great beat. Each track has it's own flavor and there are hints of IDM and breakbeat sprinkled throughout, but what defines this album is how incredibly enjoyable the album is from start to close. Monkeytown runs the gamut between slow burners like the Thom Yorke graced, "Shipwreck", to the big beat "Evil Twin" (both of which are featured for your listening/viewing pleasure.

"Shipwreck"


"Evil Twin"


4.The Black Keys - El Camino

The thing about The Black Keys is that I've known about them for the better part of 5 years and aside from recognizing that they made music that worked quite well in commercials, I had never paid them any attention. Yeah, that was a mistake. El Camino is not The Black Keys of the past. Previous albums have put far more emphasis on soul and grittiness whereas El Camino puts an emphasis on fun and sleaziness and if we'll all be honest, that's where it's at. Danger Mouse produced and co-wrote all the tracks on this album and his fingerprint is immediately apparent, much the same way it was apparent with Beck's 2008 album, Modern Guilt (which is also a fantastic listen by the way). Not a single riff in this album is reinventing the wheel or will be remembered in 30 years, but not a single riff is wasted. This is an album to party with. This is an album to listen to while driving down the highway just a little too fast. This is El Camino.

"Run Right Back"


"Little Black Submarines"



3. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver

It's kind of hard to put this album on a best of 2011 list after all the success they had for the simple fact that before this album came out, Bon Iver was every indie fan's darling. The songs are more robust and feature more instruments and are a far cry from the man in a cabin story. Initially I was hesitant and almost resistant to the thought of my Bon Iver trying to change and after a single listen I realized how full of bullshit I was. This is a natural progression for not only Bon Iver, but for Justin Vernon. I mean how the hell do you expect anybody to be featured in a Kanye West song and make the same album over again. Why would you want anybody to? The tracks have a certain bravado to them and dare I say hopefulness intermingled with the lyrics and melodies where For Emma, Forever Ago was filled with despair and loneliness. When Calgary opens up at the 2:28 mark (the 2:30 mark in the video below) it sounds like Justin Vernon is embracing his confidence and just letting it rip. It would be easy to say that this album isn't as great as For Emma, Forever Ago because it lacks the intimacy of that album, but I really couldn't say which album I prefer and that's a really great thing.

"Calgary"


"Towers"


2. Red Fang - Murder The Mountains

I just sort of lucked into finding out about this band while at a bar early in the year. Near the restroom there was a poster for an upcoming show featuring Red Fang. Who the f was Red Fang? I had no idea, but the poster intrigued me and when I made it home I gave them a listen and good god I am so glad I gave them a shot. It's tough to put my finger on their exact genre, but I would say they straddle stoner-metal with sludge and if that sounds kind of scary, don't worry, it's entirely palatable and they never get to be too heavy for their own good. They're something of a throwback to metal that is focused on being just a little bad ass and here to have a good time. This is the sort of album you bring home to head bang to and not have to worry about accidentally summoning a Pagan god on accident. This is straightforward feel good hard rock/metal. The drumming is never anything more than a time keeper and the riffs probably didn't require an abacus or calculus to devise, but each song is so full of bad ass and groove that the songs bleed together. Now that I think about it the best word I can use to describe Murder The Mountains is groove. There are solos and they are awesome, but it's the underlying groove of each song that make this album so spectacular. Also, the video for "Wires" wins best video of the year hands down.

"Number Thirteen"


"Wires"


I'll put #1 up in a day or two.

Where Do They Fly?

Anybody who knows me knows that I really really like The Tallest Man on Earth. Whenever I listen to him, my mind would always be taken to a calmer, more beautiful place. This is exactly the way I've imagined it. Kristian Mattson playing near a lake during a sunset. wow.

How I feel sometimes while at work

http://www.marriedtothesea.com/index.php?date=012212

This is why I love Married To The Sea. Give them some love and browse their archives.

Show No Mercy (The Very Metal Top Half Of 2011)

Here's part 2 of my 2011 in music.

10. Wolves In The Throne Room - Celestial Lineage

I've just finally come to accept that I really enjoy black metal, particularly black metal from the U.S. that is more or less singing about nature and full of ambient tones. Don't get me wrong, this album is still crushingly bleak and full of blast beats, shrieking, and riffs that approach the sound barrier, (all prerequisits for solid black metal) it just does it so much better than nearly anyone else out there today. Celestial Lineage brings back female vocals which were sorely lacking from Black Cascade, but retains the rough and primal foundation that make Wolves In The Throne Room so great.

"Thuja Magus Imperium"




9. Decapitated - Carnival Is Forever

Technical death metal has always confused me in the past. I would listen to bands like Cryptopsy and just hear really fast and really complex notes but never really be able to connect to it. I could appreciate it, but that would be about it. Carnival Is Forever helped change that for me, (at least a little bit.) In 2007, their tour bus crashed killing their drummer and causing injuries to their vocalist causing him to have to pull out from performing permanently, (showing that god really doesn't like metal) and the band almost called it quits. Thank god they didn't. Riffs start and stop and reappear out of nowhere and the drum work is impeccable. I really had no idea that any person since Michelangelo was so skilled with their hands, but every member of this band on every single track show what dedication can produce. Oh man, it's so metal.

"404"


(Not from this album, but just watch the drummer, Krimh, wail away in this track) "Day 69"





8. Mastodon - The Hunter

Surprise, Stiche liked a Mastodon album. I was really worried how the album would sound when I found out that this album (a first for Mastodon) would not have an overarching concept to the album. No album on Moby Dick (Leviathan), or journey up a mountain full of cyclops and moving trees (Blood Mountain), or whatever the fuck Crack the Skye was about. No, this album was just a collection of songs played by a slightly tamer Mastodon and after a few dozen listens, that's just fine. Instead of racing guitars and shouted vocals, this album throttles it back just a bit and is full of groove (not Pantera groove, but groove groove). It's an album made by a group of (Manly) men who have beards and tattoos who are growing old and the music reflects it. The solos by Brent Hinds are bigger and even more spectral than anything he did on Crack the Skye and good god they're beautiful. It's nice seeing these guys not take themselves so seriously. Hell, "Stargasm" is about having sex in space. Yeah.

"Stargasm"


"Dry Bone Valley"




7. Eddie Vedder - Ukulele Songs

There is no doubt that Eddie Vedder is the man. I mean, come on, he's made classic grunge albums with Pearl Jam (and to a lesser extent alternative albums later in their career), and with his work on the Into the Wild OST, he showed that he can make beautiful music of the stripped down, insightful type with little more than a guitar or ukulele. It's not much of a shocker that when he named this album Ukulele Songs, he wasn't kidding. It's easy to call bullshit on an album featuring 16 tracks of Eddie all by his lonesome accompanied only with the aforementioned uke (and an occasional string accompaniment), but there is a certain charm and absolute zen-ness in this album that is painfully easy to get lost in. The concept is so simple - give Eddie Vedder an instrument that more or less sounds exactly the same regardless of how one plays it an boom, he makes an exceedingly enjoyable album. It blows my mind.

"Light Today"


"Can't Keep"





6. Radiohead - The King of Limbs

This band has arguably released either a masterpiece or a near masterpiece ever since they put out OK Computer in '97 (that's my opinion when I have my Radiohead fanboy blinders on). When they decided to release The King of Limbs with only a week heads up and requiring nothing more than just saying, "Hey, we have a new album dropping next week," (paraphrased of course) the music community went ape shit and rightfully so. I have a tough time coming up with any band more deserving of such hype. When The King of Limbs came out I was immediately disappointed and comforted all at once. I was disappointed because it didn't reinvent the wheel like Kid A did a decade before or define the alternative genre like OK Computer did. The tracks were good. They were very good. "Little By Little" was so full of anxious guitar-work that I could feel the strings sink into my skin with each strum. "Separator" was so enveloping in the way it was haunting and carefree all at once that I couldn't stop listening to it. And that's when it dawned on me. Radiohead doesn't owe anybody anything at this point. They can change the landscape of music only so many times and when they're done doing that, they still put out pretty damn kick-ass music. Also, "Lotus Flower" is amazing in nearly every conceivable way.

"Little By Little"


"Lotus Flower"

2011 (drawn out edition)

I've finally put together my "best of" list for 2011. It's been a pretty legit year in music from my perspective. Sure it didn't have too many mind blowers, but it was a memorable year. I'm heading to work in a few minutes so I'll just post my honorable mentions in no particular order as these all just barely missed the top 10.

Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
Any year with a Beastie Boys release is a good year as far as I'm concerned. It had been far too long since a proper release, (all due respects to The Mix-Up, a wonderful instermental album), and it's hard to find any faults in the new album. The Boys have somehow managed to keep spitting some of the illest rhymes all the while staying relevant after nearly 30 years. How the fuck did they pull that off?

Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament



Beirut - The Rip Tide
Listening to Beirut has always helped take me to another place in my head. It didn't seem to matter what was going on in my life at the time, but as soon as I threw on a Beirut album life seemed to get a little bit simpler and idyllic and this album is no different. Yeah, there isn't quite as much East-European influence slathered on it, but that's not a bad thing. The songwriting is just as tight as ever and beautiful as ever.

Vagabond



Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo OST
The follow up soundtrack to my top album of 2010 is monolithic in nature. The crazy bastards made an album that's pushing 3 hours long for a film that's two and a half hours long. It's still filled with chilling dark ambient tracks that makes my skin crawl and that's a wonderful thing. I need to add this disclaimer, I have yet to see the film, and once I do there's a good chance that my opinion about this album will change and it might end up making my top 10. Anyways, at face value, if you dug The Social Network OST, you should dig the hell out of this one, too.

Immigrant Song (featuring Karen O)