Entries Tagged 'music' ↓

LA Riots Rock. I saw them last night at rickshaw stop in san francisco, and this DJ Duo kept us on our toes mashing it all up - punk, electro, rock, hip hop, booty bass - including a lot of annoying yet polished static (bring earplugs) to produce an incredibly energetic fun show (altho a fight between two drunk girls erupted around midnight). I also saw LA Riots when they opened for MSTRKRFT at Mighty on March 1, 2008, which obviously kicked ass. And the best part about last night - it was free, part of scion’s 20th CD sampler release party - the second one i’ve rocked here in SF. Read more on LA Riots, download MP3’s. Go Team.

Oh, and there was this one killer track last night that went something like “back it up” or “backup” .. I need a copy.  Ya feel me?

Last of my big trips for the year - Burningman. My ninth time going, always glad i went. This year’s favs include the dust storm thursday, my boy pete hudson’s monkey-snake thing (read wired, mercury news, grist.org), the big rig, and the oil rig tower (hello? coolest fire EVER). Oh, and the glowing ping pong balls - best visuals ever. And how could i forget our very own monkey island art car. Good times, good times. Check out my flickr pics and the youtube videos.

I’m finally getting in gear for this year’s Burningman. This will be my 9th year going. Yeah, i’m old, and nine times may seem like alot, but each year is different at burningman and for me (where i am in my life). Why do i keep going? why don’t i get burned out? Well, i see burningman as life - you get out of it what you put into it. You don’t have to party or drink or build large things that take all your time. You just have to participate. You do have to abandon some comforts of home, but you get more creativity and freedom in a larger context. I like that alot.

This year i’m going small again, minimal planning, small camp of friends tied together by the Monkey Island Art Car - brainchild of Sir Checkoway (and chef ben as the workhorse). The island is a ford taurus station wagon with the back chopped off, wood platform for the island, rocks, green plants, a generator, dj setup, and tastee beats. Right up my alley, and i’m lucky to have close friends that let me join in at the last minute. Sadly, i’m not staying with the brasstax bunnies - they’re way over at 3 o’clock and we’ll be at 9 o’clock area.

I’ve only been back in SF for about 2 weeks, so i’m still getting my feet wet in this year’s theme - the Green Man - but its right up my alley. Mainly cuz i’m looking into doing a Green MBA - environmentally and socially aware business - but i admit i’m still just looking.  But if you know me at all, you know i love nature - especially hiking in mountains.  I read that the man will be on a green mountain peak this year.  Can’t wait to climb that mtn !!

I also put together a list of DJ lineups at Burningman 2007. This will be updated till i leave on Monday. Enjoy.

Move over Coachella, here comes something meatier.

Saturday, September 15th focuses on electronic and dance oriented acts with an eclectic bill including Thievery Corporation, DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist, Gotan Project, M.I.A., Ghostland Observatory and Zion I. Sunday September 16th features the best and brightest in indie rock with Modest Mouse, Spoon, Built To Spill, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and M. Ward. In addition to the above acts, there will be a second stage featuring up and coming and local bands.

I already got tickets for both days.  I’m excited to be back in SF!!!

This song kicks ass and the video chops up the ass and gives it to you on a platter.

Child 1 :
Why don’t you tell me a story?
Child 2 :
Please tell me a story too.
Man :
You know, I think I’ll tell you the story of my life.
Child 1 :
You tell me!

Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!
Check me out!
Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!
Check check me out!
Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!
Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto! Ghetto-ghetto!

I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why I walk and talk this way!
I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why I walk and talk this way!
I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why I walk and talk this way!
You suckers!

He’s the master of disaster and the master of beat

Come-Come-Come-Come-Come with it
Ghetto-ghetto-ghetto-ghetto-ghetto-to

He’s so quick
He’s so fast
He’s so quick, he’s so fast
He’s upper-class player / He’s on the crossfader (?)
DJ Shadow with the scratch
Moves through town like a skater
Come on, rock
Check out the cut you suckers

This is why, this is why I walk
This is why, this is why I walk
I’m a bad ass motherfuckin’ DJ
This is why, this is why I walk
This is why, this is why I walk
This is why, this is why I walk and talk this way
Check me out

Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Holy shit!
Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Rave! Holy shit!

Let the beat rock.

- DJ Shadow, Walkie Talkie

Well, i’m just another sucker who thought Apple designed products well. Apple products sure are pretty. But what could be the absolute worst thing that could happen when you use iTunes? Besides blowing up in your face killing your baby nephew. Yes, erasing your harddrive without warning. I backup my laptop, but not my iPod. So of course today i got my iPod wiped clean by iTunes 7. For you techies out there, its like the old “sudo rm -rf /”

What do you do when iTunes erases your iPod??? well, first stage is denial. What? no songs? eject ipod, hold it in my hand, look at artists .. blank. WHAT?? Ok, maybe i can recover .. search the web .. Oooh.. “iTunes 7 erased my iPod” happened to this guy, too. Hmm.. most of the 48 responses are people complaining how it happened to them too. OK, so maybe it did happen. Any recovery tools out there .. a few for windows, none for the mac. Let’s recheck the iPod, maybe my songs are there now. Nope. Videos gone, too. But my photos are still there. Wow.

Sigh. Luckily i have copies of my mp3s on a backup server, but i did lose all my playlists. I spent many many hours creating and tweaking these playlists - those run mixes, driving in the car mixes, chilling out on a bus mixes, and many more. I hate iTunes.

Ok, for the record, here’s what i did - I reproduced it to make sure i got warning message and steps correct. With my iPod plugged in, on iTunes 7 I clicked on chadpod (my name for my ipod). I clicked on the Music tab, and unchecked “Manually manage music and video”. I got the warning message in the image above - “Are you sure you do not want to manually manage music and videos on your iPod? All existing content on the iPod ‘ChadPOD’ will be replaced with content from your iTunes library.  Ok, i think “merger” when i read that, not “YOUR IPOD WILL BE ERASED”?  Clearly i was wrong.  Then I clicked Summary tab just to the right of the Music tab. I tried to sync one of my playlists automatically by checking the “Sync Music” box and selecting one of my playlists. I then had an interruption, and when i got back to my computer, I decided i didn’t have time to finish this right now, so I went to eject my iPod.  Then i got the following warning: “You have changed the settings for iPod ‘ChadPod’.  Would you like to apply these changes?”.  Umm.. Ok.  At that moment it erased my ipod - i could tell cuz it took a few seconds. Now my chadpod is blank. Wha?? Unplug from my macbook pro. Yep, wiped out. I admit that popup was a warning, but i definitely didn’t expect to lose my music and playlists. What i still don’t get is that it didn’t even sync. I have tons of music in my iTunes, none were copied.. No playlists copied. Whatever happened, it definitely was not a design flaw, it’s a bug in iTunes.

Lessons Learned:

• Use Manual Mode to update iPod (apple info on switching to manual mode).
• NEVER accidentally click on anything in settings - especially do not try and sync a playlist if you’re in Manual mode
• iTunes SUCKS.

Hmm… I think i feel better now that i vented.

It’s been a couple months since i updated my huge readership on what i’ve been up to and what i have planned, mainly cuz i’m not anything close to a real writer, but here it is. Basically i spent August in SF preparing for burningman, went to bman for 8 days, and been kickin’ it in SF since, except for a 3 day trip to Yosemite, which OWN3D!!

So yeah, burningman was delicious. I mean that in a rock-out with your art-out kinda way. It was my eighth year, and my best. 2003 is a close second, i prolly had more fun then, but i never really left our boombox camp. This year was well rounded: we had a nice, small camp, met new people and got closer to existing friends, had many nomad adventures where we saw lots of art installations, participated in many camps, found lots of old friends, enjoyed a beverage or twelve, and danced my ass off. Yes, my favorite moment and when i decided it was my best year was on thursday night, dancing to lorin at the root society dome (10:00/esplanade). Other highlights include the belgian waffle, serpent mother, Neverwas Haul - the jules verne steam engine car from 100 years ago, a swimming pool, the pendulum tower ride, war of the worlds, and much more ..

About a week after burningman, shayna and i decided to get some yosemite. Git sum. We came back from bman and decided this real world stuff wasn’t that great. And since shayna had never been to one of the most beautiful and most visited national parks in the country, we had to go. We drove up saturday, stayed in a tent at Curry village for $100, hiked around taft point and sentinel dome on sunday, camped in a tent at lower pines sunday night, and monday embarked on the best day hike i’ve ever done - half dome. It took us almost 12 hours, and it was teh bomb.

So thats where i’ve been. I’ll post where i’m going soon - plans are finally being ironed out this week.

Vacation is awesome. Especially in Florida, with friends, and great music. Thats where i was last week - the Winter Music Conference in Miami. This was my first year, but luckily tons of my SF friends were down there to guide me to a thoroughly kickass time.

Four of us got a room at the palms - me, Fritz, Juan, and our prime guide, Sir Checkoway. When i say prime guide, i mean it - ’twas Checkoway’s fifth year, and he definitely shed his wisdom upon us. We started it off Wed at an M3 event - the remix hotel cocktail party - where i got to see DJ Krush and spend $16 on 2 cans of corona. Yes, cans, and yes, $8 each. But they also had reps from tons of companies like pioneer, denon, apple, showing off their latest and greatest DJ hardware and software.

Later Wednesday night we hit Suite Lounge to check out Steve Porter, a big house DJ. Besides that mad cash required for miami, the only other thing that sux is getting into the hot spots. Sometimes even being on the list doesn’t guarantee entrance, especially if you’re a guy. Getting their early, paying huge covers, and being on the list will usually work - and it did for porterhouse that night. I must point out that one of the dudes on before porter was really kickass - phillip gold of phil and fluff. Finding new sound like this is one of the many reasons miami was soooo nice.

The night quickly turned into dawn, and then late morning before we slept. Thursday afternoon smacked me in the face with the arrival of the rest of the SF posse - juan, dingdong, stef, j9, jay, tamo, trav, stephan, et al. A few of us hit the palms secluded beach before getting ready for the night. That evening we hit the green gorilla party (SF representin’) at the marlin bar - one of the best vibes of any miami party. We also made our way off of south beach to miami for the Future Sound of Breaks V 4.0 party at Nocturnal (next to Studio A and Space). Cool venue, music was good, but not great. Saw Donald Glaude, Baby Anne + Jen Lasher, among others.

Friday Afternoon was another family affair, hanging out at the Catalina hotel where Tamo and Viajay were spinning. That place had a real nice pool as well as .. how you say.. very miami scenery lounging around the pool area. Later we hit my favorite event of all of miami - The Stanton Warriors at the Betsy Ross Hotel. Dominic (one of the 2 stanton warriors) started spinning in their hotel lobby area with just a handful of booties shakin, but within a few tracks the entire place erupted. Too bad i was too busy dancin’ to take any good pics.

Saturday our retardness started growing roots - with fritz leading the pack. Still, rule number one of the trip was music - so we pressed on. In the afternoon we hit opium garden, a kick ass venue but the music was just begining. We aborted early and hit the beaches, then later walked down collins for some house party. One noteworthy stop was some hotel playin’ solid chicago house - the sound republic. We were a bit too tired to shake it, but hung out for a couple beerz. Later that night we cruised the strip, checking out chevy caprice with 22 inch rims and pick-up trucks with the doors opening straight up delorean-style. Heh.

Sunday woke up at the crack of dawn to meet some peeps at the pawn shop - good crowd, good beats, but only stayed a bit - then hit BED for some SF reuniting. That was trouble - we ended up hanging out at our friends pad on the 28th floor of some apt complex. Later we missed our our flight so we hit up the IO lounge for some more breaks and dnb.

Monday i was broken, but rule number one forced me out for one last rally. Nothing great, we did the usual tour, but the basic nyc party at the beach plaza hotel was a nice way to end the trip. Juan and I slept that night in order to catch our super early flight and work the next day. However, Fritz and Checkoway stayed and powered thru to see danny tenaglia play an amazing 17 hours straight. Well, they actually only caught 13 hours of it - 3am to 4pm tuesday. Damn.

All in all, great trip, but man does my wallet and my liver hurt. Not sure if i could repeat it again, but i’ve said that before. I’m definitely glad i went. Fer shure.