Saturday, October 13, 2007

sorry i missed food dude fridays last week

but i was seeing an awesome band called RTX, it was the shit more on that later possibly.

anywayssss
i thought i might write a review on a restaurant and since most of the people that read this live in san francisco i thought i would review a restaurant from up there that sarah and i used to frequent quite a bit. The restaurant is Miyabi on Church St right across the street from Sparky's(who i hear is having some trouble with new management or something). Miyabi's is a little unassuming sushi restaurant. The sushi is awesome the dinners are pretty good too(stuff like teriyaki chicken and shit like that) but the sushi is mostly what i go for. they give you a little card to mark off what rolls to get and all that. i recommend getting an avocado roll, a california roll, spicy tuna, uni, and then get one of the more expensive rolls, i love the spider roll(deep fried crab with avocado and other stuff) i always order a bowl of their good miso soup and dont forget the sake!!!!

oh yeah the best thing about this place is the prices. I think for 2 people i have never broken the 35 dollar mark and thats not because i skimped on the food i ordered, i ordered a lot of food. so check it out if you dont that would be foolish.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Clockcleaner-Babylon Rules




So there is this genre called "pigfuck" and it basically started with flipper and then went to big black then jesus lizard and continues to this day in modern bands such as pissed jeans, homostupids, grinderman, and qui. Well add another one to the list and a good one at that...introducing Clockcleaner. The music of pigfuck is dark, angsty, deeply emotional(but not sappy at all), and purely primal. The music consists mostly of repetitive riffs pounded over and over with an emphasis on the bass. The singers for all these bands differ but they all share a common thread of sounding paranoid and angry and always intense and sometimes sarcastically lazy and Clockcleaner's John A. Sharkey lll is no exception.

The music on this record is dominated with all of the above with added piano and some vocal and guitar pedal techniques. The vocals range from snarling to croonerish and sometimes very high pitchedand all very forceful. The lyrical content is very primal and fucked up, lots of sexual imagery, lots of violent imagery. At first the albums lyrics might seem offensive but it is all delivered with a tongue in cheek wit. Some of the more upbeat tracks remind me of the cramps and the eighties matchbox b-line disaster(who you all should check out!) and the slower stuff reminds me of flipper and the jesus lizard.

Every note rings perfectly on this album, every note conveys some sort of dark evil socially awkward and paranoid mindset. Anyone who is a fan of angry music that is actually fucked up and angry and not the "angry" bands of our generation like nine inch nails or limp bizkit or any other angsty bullshit band that basically is laid to waste as kid's stuff when compared to this real portrayal of the dark and horrible side of life. But dont get me wrong this album is a lot of fun, a lot of fun! it is kind of a perfect album to play in the fall especially leading up to halloween.

if you like any of the bands i mentioned minus the last few please pick this up, you would be doing yourself a great favor...and um alex you need to put this on your playlist

track by track:
1. New In Town-Dark, dirgy, long and drawn out in the best way possible 9/10

2. Vomiting Mirrors-Might be the best track on the album, starts off with an awesome looping low voiced laugh that has to be heard to be appreciated 10/10

3. When My Ship Comes In-Another slow burner full of long anunciation and fucked up imagery and lyrics, very slow and brooding. 8/10

4. Caliente Queen-Fucking amazing fun dark halloweeny stuff very reminiscent of the cramps and tight shit like that. 10/10

5. Human Pigeon-Starts off very effects laden and then develops into an awesome stomping rhythm, very repititive but with guitars swirling all around and awesome drumming it's like krautrock filtered through a drunk guy at a bar. 9/10

6. Man Across the Street-More sound effects surround a very nick caveish delivery pretty fucking amazing kind of halfway between the slow dirge and the amped up stuff on the album "where's my house? where's my wife?" i dont know but this song is tight 9/10

7. Daddy Issues-like a 60s surf song gone bad, very reminiscent of the cows with easily the most fucked up lyrics on the album, people who are easily offended might not like this one, people who love offensive shit in their music will love it. 10/10

8. Out Of the City-Another slow one that sounds a lot like flipper and is all the more amazing makes for a great closing song 9/10

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

sorry for the wait

but i have some new album reviews coming up in the next few days, i have just been busy having fun....and working.

reviews to come:
The Fiery Furnaces-Widow City
Clockcleaner-Babylon Rules
Blitzen Trapper-Wild Mountain Nation
Okkervil River-The Stage Names


once again sorry for the wait

Friday, October 5, 2007

food dude fridays

so tonight i made this pretty excellent cauliflower curry soup and a not so awesome but with additions could be great yellow thai coconut curry.

i will post the recipe for the soup

INGREDIENTS:

1 yellow onion
3/4 of a cauliflower head
1 1/2 tbsp curry powder
tsp of black pepper
tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups non fat plain yogurt
1 cup water
1 can vegetable broth

METHOD:

get a pot, heat it up over medium heat. place diced onion with curry powder in pot and sweat for about 5-7 mins. chop up cauliflower into little pieces. place water and cauliflower into the pot with the onions and curry. grab a blender and take everything that was in the pot and place it in either a blender or a food processor. blend all that up. take the yogurt and place it in the pot with no heat. take a whisk and slowly pour in the veggie broth and turn the heat on low. take all the contents of the food processor or blender and put them in the pot. stir until warm enough to serve!

Monday, October 1, 2007

i'm not gonna lie, i stole this from pitchfork

Okay people! Take a couple deep breaths, count to 10, switch the caps lock off, clean up the triple espresso you just spit all over the computer screen, and check this: that new Radiohead album, In Rainbows? The one that the world knew practically zilch about 24 hours ago? The one that drops digitally (DRM-free, no less!) in nine days, for a price of your own choosing? The one that's also coming out in a deluxe "Discbox" in December? Well, it's also coming out in good, old fashioned CD format early next year.

No word on when exactly or through which label-- if any label at all-- but that's the news thus far from the band's publicist.

So, let's sort this whole mess out, shall we? You will eventually have three ways to pick up the seventh Radiohead LP, the Nigel Godrich-produced In Rainbows. It all depends how much you want to pay, which goodies you'd like, and how soon you want the tunes. Observe:

1. As a DRM-free mp3 download, beginning October 10 (and available for preorder now), via www.inrainbows.com (interestingly enough, last week's RickRoll, www.radioheadlp7.com, now directs here as well). This version contains the 10 tracks that comprise In Rainbows, and you can pay whatever the hell you want for it. This is basically the band leaking the album and asking you for a donation to access it.

2. As part of a deluxe "Discbox", available for preorder now and shipping in December. In addition to the 10-track In Rainbows on CD, you also get the release on LP and as a digital download, plus an enhanced bonus CD packed with eight more tracks, photos, and artwork (and an LP of the bonus tracks), plus art and lyrics booklets and some nifty looking packaging. This thing costs £40.00/$81.00.

3. As a traditional CD, available in early 2008. This will presumably cost as much as traditional CDs tend to cost.

What Radiohead's doing here is actually pretty cool. Rather than preface their new album's release with the usual three months of press ballyhoo, only to have it leak at some random time before it comes out, they've kept it completely under wraps, then essentially gone and leaked it themselves. What's more, they've turned this into a moral question of sorts, by giving us the freedom to pay actual money for what amounts to an album leak.

Only a band in Radiohead's position could pull a trick like this. Well played, gentlemen.