Weezer

As an avid weezer fan for most of my life (no joke I remember loving the blue album in the 3rd grade, not to sound pretentious or anything, but I've always had great musical taste... not true at all), I've been pretty disappointed by their last couple releases. So I refuse to let myself get excited about a new Weezer album in April of '08. However, I feel like it's at least worth mentioning that it will be happening.

Rivers is also releasing an album of "unheard" songs (can't really call them b-sides, but weezer fans circa 98-post green album will have heard almost all of them) in December called "Alone, The home recordings of Rivers Cuomo", which really isn't news, but... well, I got nothing. If anything, I would certainly recommend you purchase this cd if you're a fan of early Weez. It'll have some stuff post-blue and pre-pink. Buy it, it'll be good. It'll be much more raw and less produced than Weezer's last three albums, which is what we all love.

copelame? copelawesome?

b-sides albums are inherently bad. if the songs were amazing, they would have made it onto a full album. that said, b-sides are fun for the fans and can contain something amazing (tisbury lane by mae would be an example of this). despite this, there are good b-side's albums and really bad ones (anyone who bought anberlin's recently released b-sides knows that pain all too well. and if we find out you paid money for it, we'll feel bad for you, but we will tease you too. seriously, what were you thinking?!).

in truth, dressed up and in line is a fair compilation of my personal experience with copleand and is a pretty good b-sides project. the militia group would want me to talk about how some of the tracks were re-recorded and they really spent time and effort instead of just slopping together a bunch of demos. real copeland fan's won't care one way or the other though and i don't care either.

some tracks are impressive and amazing. "may i have this dance" was one of copeland's first recorded songs and it's great to have it and i know it will be played often in my home. i will love it like i loved beneath medicine tree, which in my opinion is one of the best albums the militia group has released so far (if ronnie day reads this, he'll be so pissed). other tracks like their cover of soundgarden's black hole sun are really not anything special and sum up the way i feel about eat, sleep, repeat - an album that for me, was disappointing.

other tracks are just what you'd expect on a b-sides: early demos, alternate versions and covers - some of them you'll love and others you will really hate and maybe even delete them off your itunes. copeland fans will want to buy this album. for the casual fan though, i would still just suggest buying beneath medicine tree. either way, your money will be better spent on this cd than on the anberlin b-side that curiously was released on the same day as copeland's.

as for copeland, who knows? with the recent friendly departure of bassist james likeness and their recent booting from columbia records, copeland's future isn't as rosy as they are portraying. i am sure that they'll land on their feet and keep making music; i just don't think it will be as easy and quick as they're saying. i hope this isn't the last copeland cd that comes across my kitchen table, but if it is, it is a fair remembrance of copeland.

per lauralee's fabulous ideas...

here's la blogotheque's video for menomena's wet & rusting. lauralee mentioned it in the comments (see, we read and we care) so i thought i'd post it. pretty much any excuse to post about menomena and we're going to do it.

#62.3 - Menomena - Wet and Rusting
Uploaded by lablogotheque

tim wishes he found this first

here's a video of surrogate from a show they played a few weeks away with the format and brighten.



bookmark the ship because all next week we'll be reviewing our top albums of 2007. each day will be a different staff writer along with a guest submission from people in bands you love.

how come no one ever comments on my posts?

Seriously, is my musical taste not good enough for you people? Or am I just the Solid Ground Cafe version of Andy Kauffman and no one gets my jokes?

These two bands are made to get your feet moving. Actually, I don't really know how much I would listen to either one long term, but they're fun for a little while, if you just want to get your body moving to the beat that just won't stop, take you to the top, make you wanna pop (that's a dance move right? I don't know).

Anyway, heard these two bands while driving along listening to some sirius blog radio, which in its own right is a beautiful thing. Muscles reminds me of a dance pop version of TV On The Radio. They're on the verge of being strange, but it's still good. Listen to the song Ice Cream, it'll get your feet moving.


Junior Senior is a hip hop group from Denmark who has actually been around for a couple years, and we're just now starting to catch on here in the states. They have a little bit of an old school hip hop feel to what they do. It's good, check it out. You can play them at your christmas parties, and watch Grandma get down.

Last, but not least, for you Jason Mraz fans, La Blogotheque just did some stuff with him. I don't really listen to a lot of his stuff, but in usual Blogotheque form, his videos are really cool.

oh! the review

i hung out with tate from the lionelle today. if tate were a mommy, the lionelle would be his baby. to call him the lead singer is like coloring a picture with only two crayons. calling him lead singer also assumes that much of what he does as front-man is singing, which is a highly discussed point of contention.

in the few lionelle shows i've been to, i've noticed that a portion of the crowd simply cannot handle that tate chooses to warble and shout when it's plainly obvious that he can sing normally. the difference here is that tate isn't aiming to sound like mae (or what mae tries to sound like after an afternoon with the auto-tuner). he could if he wanted. he just doesn't want to. if i'm not mistaken, isn't that rock and roll? knowing you're different and not caring?

at any rate, if tate was the mommy and the lionelle was his baby, oh! the company that we keep would be the babies' shiny new toy that isn't just shiny and new, but is actually a really great toy like one of those learning toys from germany that helps kids learn.

oh! isn't a local cd. the lionelle just happen to live here and record here. oh! sounds like it was made by people that make music for a living. it has rich textures, multiple layers, guest musicians, guest vocals and lots of fun in between. if it were a soup, it would be equal parts appleseed cast and mewithoutYou with a bit of bright eyes (bear in mind that i hate comparisons like this).

so here it is. they're throwing a FREE cd release party this saturday at slowtrain (i can't wait until they know we exist!). they'll have oh! available for $10 and the lionelle are playing with calico, tolchock trio and paul jacobsen. it's free and you should go. i can't.

This "Is nice"

Weatherbox is a very lovely band composed of Brian Warren, Lowell Heflin, Dave Silverman, and Cory Stier. These San Diego boys are a part of Doghouse Records which includes bands like Meg and Dia, The All-American Rejects, and Say Anything. Impresive, yes? I would most definitely like to think so. What is also impressive is the music. I'm not quite sure how to describe it in any other way than a little different with a little of the normal. But, like many things, different and normal in very good ways. Brian Warren's vocals are, thankfully, not like everyone elses, and they hold your attention. The instruments work with his voice and each other to create a (can i say it?) catchy sound that actually sort of reminds me of The Early November. Maybe I'm all wrong here but with two EPs and one LP, I'd say they are on their way. But if you MUST decide for yourself you should check them out at the cafe tomorrow evening (Tuesday November, 27) with Get Back Loretta, The Lauderdale, and Paxtin. OH yes, how is that for promotion?

P&L sexys.

i apologize for my delay.

wednesday night i went to the avalon to see straylight run perform. the opening bands for the night were cassino, dear and the headlights, and the color fred. friends of mine wanted to get there early so the front row is where i ended up. and considering how little standing room seems to be left in the venue after poor re-modeling this was a very good thing. cassino came on first. their music was very chill and relaxing, but their performance was somewhat disappointing. my friends argued amongst themseleves about whether or not the band actually was happy about being there. personally, i'm on the side that they weren't. the most energy from the band came from their drummer. i loved watching her play. apart from that they came on, played, and went off - minus a few attempts at self-promotion. telling everyone the location of their merch was all that they said. i didn't even know who they were until dear and the headlights went on and process of elimination came into play. the other side of this argument was: hey, maybe they have just had a bad night and they aren't really up to playing a show right now. it's possible. the show was moved back an hour and a half to begin with due to weather conditions the bands went through to get to ol' utah. also, the keyboardist was drinking/drunk the entire time. so i guess we'll never know. anyway, moving on. dear and the headlights went up next. from the moment they stepped on stage the entire atmosphere changed. they were all energetic, plus looking very excited and happy. they were a really good surprise. i'd heard the name before, but unfortunately until the other night i've never had the pleasure of hearing them. they have an upbeat indie sound with clever lyrics. this music is also good for some dancing, if you're into that. frontman ian metzger was really getting into it: dancing and clapping, you know - putting off a good vibe. i also really enjoyed watching how pj waxman (guitars, vocals) and chuckie duff (bass, keys) interacted with one another. it was like a brotherly sort of thing and they were just having a good time. needless to say i did purchase the cd and now it's my recent obsession. the color fred was after them and he was another one of those bands i'd heard of but not heard. i was looking forward to it because a side project of taking back sunday has to be interesting, right? and he was very good - an alternative/powerpopish (can i say that?) sound. fred mascherino even played one of his songs acoustic without his band. the only problem i had with this set wasn't anything to do with him at all, just the sound. the mics seemed to be turned down and the guitars were turned up. a very killah guitar solo was thrown in there, but making out the lyrics the rest of the time was difficult. in a way i still have yet to actually hear fred. so to start off for straylight run: i really wanted this show to be better. the last time seeing them was just...alright. nothing compared to what i expected after being in love with their self-titled album that was so powerful and amazing. can i throw in really fast that i find this band beautiful? they came on looking great and responded to the crowd in a very cool, collected, and caring manner. after every song john nolan wouldn't waste time genuinely thanking everyone for showing up and and listening to their music. the set couldn't have been better, unless of course they played "another word for desperate". but, besides that, the set was a good mix of old and new material. their newer songs are more...cheery (i suppose you could say) and poppy than the old, but still very nice and with an upside of more vocals from the ever lovely michelle darosa. my favorite song played was "hands in the sky (big shot)" and an acoustic version of "your name here (sunrise highway)" played solo by mr. nolan. maybe it's just those songs with parenthesis that i like so much. they finished by peforming the songs they would've used for an encore. this way when they actually did come back on for an encore it was more spontaneous. for this spontaneous encore they played "the perfect ending" (i'd say so...ha) and "tool sheds and hot tubs". those are two songs i didn't expect to see live so all in all their set was very much appreciated by myself and the rest of the crowd. the power that was lacking in the last straylight show i saw was made up for in this one by a long shot. i just noticed how long this article turned out to be. sorry for that. if only i could put this much effort into my english papers...

Let's Call It Dumb Luck

so for whatever reason (let's call it dumb luck), industry types have started to send us music to review. this definitely (i use that word too much) makes us happy. i don't personally want to be a shill for the industry and just promote whatever they send (although seriously, the new thrice album is worth listening to), but when music's good, it's good.

with that in mind, please consider: kate tucker and the sons of sweden. if you're a fan of kate nash or rosie thomas you'll find kate tucker to be a nice middle ground between the two.

click here to give her a listen and i promise, we really don't mess around here at the ship.

the militia group is sending the new copeland, we'll give it a fair review as soon as we get it (or as fair as we can considering how personally let down most of us are from their last album).

and in a rare case of total agreement, tim and i are united in our love for the new iron & wine. we like it so much that we're going to buy tickets to his salt lake show. considering how broke and cheap we are, this is really something.

happy late thanksgiving from the ship; thanks for reading.

let me tell you a story about a man named finn

Let me just say that I should be writing some kind of paper right now, school is still ridiculously busy, but this semester is almost over. Regardless of my intense end to a semester, I'm writing this post because I love you all so much, and you just need more, MORE!

OK, since Chad has been on his world wide tour of music lately I thought I'd join him. Liam Finn is pretty much the hottest thing in the southern hemisphere. His album, "I'll be lightning", is what I like to call "the cat's meow" in Australia, New Zealand, etc... It was released this past year to other parts of the world, and we'll be getting it in the U.S. in 2008, so you'll have to buy it as an import if you just can't wait. Finn creates, simply put, pure pop genius. If you don't believe me, well then I hate you... OK I love you, I'm sorry. Either way, here is a video of one of his singles so you don't have to do much searching to see how awesome he is.



Hopefully we'll be able to see some tour dates in the U.S. after his album is released here.

the bird and the bee

the bird and the bee is a beautiful duo made up of Inara George and Greg Kurstin. also, Greg Kurstin produced, mixed, and engineered the entire album. they are a unique little jazzy/electronic band i found out about not too long ago. i got their self-titled album as a gift and after hearing "again and again" and "i hate camera" i was excited to listen to the rest. i, personally, wasn't disappointed. their songs are very upbeat and catchy. however, i will warn you, that if you can't stand those songs with repeatative lyrics you may not like this cd much. but, i'd advise you to try it out anyway. my favorite songs off this album are "i hate camera", "because", and "f*cking boyfriend".

Zookeeper

we've discussed zookeeper enough on the ship so i'll bypass that and just post some links to songs off their new record. if you're a cafe supporter, you probably caught them earlier this year with lydia and umbrellas.

ballad of my friends
mindnight in berlin
becoming all things

"i like the way you groove."

last night i went to see of montreal at in the venue. when i arrived 30 minutes before doors i was worried the show wouldn't be good at all due to the small size of the crowd; the venue was near empty when i got inside. i wasn't sure what to expect from the two opening bands because i'd never even heard of them. mgmt went on first. frontman andrew vanwyngarden was a skinny skater-esque boy with brown and blond hair - headband included. he started singing and i didn't expect his voice at all: higher and definitely more unique. their music was somewhat pop-ish, but more alternative, and overall their set was very good. next band up: grand buffet. a hip-hop duo - believe it or not. if you wanted to see a band where a good time is guaranteed and is funny too these are your guys. they had songs about tree houses ("that song was about the government!" they proclaimed) as well as imaginary joints where imaginary guitars and basses were played. in my opinion, i thought both opening bands were wonderful and a good match for the show. for of montreal a friend and i moved up into the crowd so that we could dance. their set was fantastic; complete with three costume changes from frontman kevin barnes. the stage had light-up platforms of different sizes and some spiral stairs in the back where the rest of the band played. i wanted them to play their whole set full of songs off their newest album "hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?", but even the songs i didn't recognize were energized and fun. of montreal's music is dance-able, unique, and catchy. after they finished with "heimdalsgate like a promethean curse" the yelling of "come on, chemicals!" turned into "one more song!". a man in a wolf mask/white suit combo that had come out at the start of their set came out once again provoking more screaming from the crowd which led to, yes, an encore (sorry chad). all in all this was one of the most fun shows i've been to in quite sometime and made the end of the week very good. also (in case you were dying of curiosity) the size of the crowd did, in fact, get bigger.

Svergie Part 2 (Still With Love...Lots Of Love)

iv. the kissaway trail - with such catchy song titles as "smother + evil = hurt" and "la la song," what's not to love? i should clarify that technically the kissaway trail are from denmark. i try to avoid lumping separate countries and peoples into the same group, but in this case, at least musically, i think we can blur the scandinavian borders just a bit.



if you love hollister and abercrombie style advertising, also check out this video from the kissaway trail.

v. juvelen - if prince and abba had kids (ew), the smart-alec, brainy kid of the family would be the guy behind juvelen. everyone refers to him as the prince of stockholm, but you get the impression he coined the term himself.



vi. asha ali - it's frustrating that in this modern age that you can still find people online criticizing her for being somali and a swede (or a somali living in sweden?), but regardless, she's real good at singin'.



again, all thanks to paul for being obsessed with music from all over the world.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...

congrats to dear stranger for winning our online poll of favorite local bands. larusso and paxtin rounded out the top three. someone suggested we do a show with all three and we like the idea. we have a pretty good line up of shows in january and february and can't wait to share the schedule with you soon. for now though, check out our new survey which should be up soon.

The Good, The Bad, The Facts of Life?

Two things:

1) free andrew bird downloads thanks to the good folks at daytrotter. live versions of fiery crash and lull.

2) where does ap magazine get off giving zookeeper a poor review? last time i checked zookeeper wasn't heading out on warped tour with cute is what we aim for or say anything (not that there's anything wrong with that). the review honestly seemed like they just had unresolved issues with lead singer chris simpson for mineral and the gloria record breaking up back in the day. this is what i get for killing a few minutes in the magazine section of barnes & noble. i guess any press is good press, but seriously, i just don't get it. so let me say this: the cafe LOVES what zookeeper does. we think they might save us all. that's a maybe though. we were gonna road trip to austin to sleep on seth's porch, but it upon thinking about it, it seemed kind of creepy. click here to pre-order zookeeper's full length and if you hustle, they'll even autograph it.

100 days, 100 nights

For those of you Amy Winehouse fans out there, check out Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. Yet another band remaking that older sound.

Believe it or not this video was shot in the 21st century.

Free Music Monday

click here to download a free b-side from surrogate's "love is for the rich" called popular mechanics. in case you missed it, love is for the rich came out earlier this year and is near the top of my list of favorite cds from 2007 (look for that blog post after thanksgiving).

there's not much else to say here unless you don't own love is for the rich. and if you don't: graywhale during your lunch hour (again, the nice one, not the jerk ones).

From Svergie With Love...Part 1

for some time now, sweden has been quietly creating seriously good indie rock. sure, the hives and the sounds are great and i know everyone can whistle along to peter, bjorn and john but just beyond that you'll find a veritable treasure chest of indie waiting to be listened to (did i really just write "veritable treasure chest?).

and to be fair, paul (cafe sound man currently living in vanuatu-new zealand-australia-japan-china) is the one who really brought my attention to it.

so here's a quick rundown and a few hyper links from now, you'll be as caught up as i am (and there's definitely more to uncover, these are just the bread crumbs at the start of the trail; have fun gretel).

i. loney, dear -emil svanängen is bonafide. he just finished touring with athlete and also with andrew bird. that says enough. his new album "sologne" is out now and available at graywhale (go to the nice one, not the jerk ones) or on itunes.



ii. i'm from barcelona - the upside: tons of friends singing along together. downside: had a song featured this season on grey's anatomy.



iii. the shout out louds - those of you with more money than me probably caught the shout out louds as main support on the interpol show that played in the venue a few weeks ago. for the rest of us though, you'll have to settle for just buying their cd or juicing from your friends' itunes. anyway you get it though, it's good stuff. to be fair, about half is amazing and the other half is just good.



look for part two soon...part two will feature glen hansard & marketa irglova, juvelen, asha ali, and the kissaway trail.

can I tell you sub-pop that I lub you?

Let me just first say that this November is one of the busiest months in my life, so the hours that I can normally spend on the internet searching for music that has yet to make its way to my ears is currently being spent on reading books on the middle east, teaching history, ancient christianity, the civil war, and early 20th century america... Plus I've got to write papers on all them. ugh.

The point to my random complaints of the joys of attending school at a university is that I realize my posts are lacking adequate flavor, and that's the reason why. However, I think I've got two bands you will really enjoy for today. They're both off Sub-Pop records, and they're both giving me happy little music bumps (don't ask what those are).


The First: Tiny Vipers. The name says it all, they are actually four miniature vipers that play mandolins and create beautiful old-timey folk music... Really though, Tiny Vipers is Jesy Fortino, and she really is small. Despite her size (cause that really matters), I think her music is very good. She sort of has a touch of Joanna Newsome or Jolie Holland in her voice, but maybe a little more ear friendly for those that are less adventurous. Her music is soft and calming, which you know I love, and I could pick her up with my pinky, which is also nice. Her full length album, Hands Across The Void just came out in July, check it out.

Second: If you really want to be ahead of the crowd and say 6 months to a year from now, when everyone is going bonkers over them, "oh, I've been listening to them forever", then check out Grand Archives. No joke, these guys are going to be huge. OK, when I say huge, I mean like Band of Horses big. Currently you can only buy CDR's from Sub-Pop's website to get their music, but no doubt soon enough they'll release a full length and everyone will go nuts over it. They're from the Northwest, like most Sup-Pop bands, and they are definitely going after that reverb + clean guitar + awesome when they play a dirty guitar + great harmonies + musical creativity sound that they do so well up there. I'm telling you, if there is one band that you want to be ahead of the curve on, check them out. It's just good music.

The New Frontiers, Con't

kendal wrote a good review of the show, and by no means do i want you to get the impression that i'm trying to compensate...








that said, i'm sitting here in my living room with the new frontiers guys and want to take this seriously since it seems like our lil blog is taking off.

so first, here are some of their answers. feel free to fill in the blanks and ask your own questions.

"and that's when we filmed the movie on mars."
"camel lights."
"seriously, anytime we see bouncy balls we buy them."
"we camp in our time off."
"in the van, we all revert back to junior high."
"most of stuff we say makes no sense to everyone else."
"we'd chuck our van tv if it meant we could put in a mini-fridge and microwave."

on a serious note, tnf pulled out of dallas with their trailer open and lost a guitar and all of nathan's clothes. so feel free to donate some blue jeans, size 29x32 (think stylish though, these boys are on the up and up). and by up and up i mean, they might actually save the militia group from their current quagmire (chad pearson, we need you).

below are photos from tonight's show at the cafe (photo credits to kendal).

Hey, I'm A Newbie.

due to my busy schedule or my scattered brain i have had yet to post a blog. cut me some slack if it's absolutely terrible. this could be brutal (i think i have picked up this word from chad). anyway, here i go. tonight the new frontiers played a show at el cafe. before seeing them for the
first time i was informed that they were good friends with the manchester orchestra, one of my favorite bands by far. so, i was immediately interested. generally, they have a softer sound than manchester, but definitely not weaker. tonight was my second time seeing them perform and i still wasn't disappointed. the vocals are what i can only describe as beautiful and calming. a perfect little band for our little cafe. a few of my favorite songs by the new frontiers are: "this is my home", "mirrors", and "who will give us love?". oh, and this was patrick dempsey night because the drummer of TNF and the lead singer of let's become actors both resembled him in some ways. i just wanted to throw that in there for lack of ideas on how to close this off. so, goodnight.

Internet Freebies

click here to hear the new cat power single "song to bobby" from her forthcoming covers album jukebox.

Collab...

here's common featuring lily allen on "drivin' me wild."

Regina Spektor From A Rookie

So after much anticipation (can i even say that?), I've decided to give in and write this blog. Last Friday I attended the sold out Regina Spektor show at In The Venue and it was worth begging my dad to use his credit card and the three months of periodically looking at the ticket in my drawer. Little Regina had everything set up just right, Christmas lights on the stage, huge light bulbs hanging down from the celling, a chair to bang on for a few songs, and a rather large man standing in front of me preventing me from seeing her at all. The major downfall, was the fact that the bar would not shut up. Apparently drunk people don't respect Regina but she did a great job of quieting them down by dropping the F bomb repeatedly, catching most of us off guard. Only Son opened the show; he was this little skinny guy with the facial features of Adam Sandler and the voice and style of Ben Gibbard (The Postal Service vocals more so than Death Cab). OS played solo; however his Ipod doubled as his "band" and personality of his performance. Over all the show went smoothly and surprisingly, the typical In The Venue wait was actually tolerable.

Broken Social Scene

Alright Chad you want a blog? You get a blog. I'll have you know however, you don't get the extremely modifiable wooden life-size model of Steve McQueen that I was going to whittle out of the tree in my backyard during these exact 10 minutes that I will now use to write this blog. Your loss.

Last Thursday a couple of friends and I jumped in the car and headed to Boulder, CO for what I expected to be an extremely memorable Broken Social Scene show at the Fox Theater. I can sum up the show by simply saying that it was worth the drive.

Needless to say, they were awesome. I'm not going to waste your time by talking about how awesome they are, or were, etc... If you don't already know, then just trust me they're awesome. Instead, I'm going to give you some reasons why I totally dig them, cause that's totally different (sarcasm, gotta love it).


First and foremost, Justin Peroff, their drummer, is incredible. His drum beats aren't incredibly difficult, and it's not like he's trying to take over the song, but he so clearly does in so many ways. In almost every one I find myself shaking and bobbing my head like no one's business. He drives the songs in so many ways, and in my opinion are essential to the Broken Social Scene "style", if they actually have one.

Second, and this is something that I absolutely love about BSS, they're so open to collaboration. It's almost as if BSS is it's own entity, as if the band will continue on forever, constantly making incredible music and it doesn't matter what musicians you throw in there. If you're not following me, let me explain. For this particular show we had the pleasure to listen to Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Justin Peroff, Andrew Kenny (from American Analog Set), and a couple other guys who's names I can't remember play the lovely sounds of BSS. However, the next time around half of those guys probably won't even be there, or they will, but there will be 4 more people on stage helping out. Just run a goog-shot on BSS members and you'll see people from bands like Do Make Say Think, Apostle of Hustle, Feist (Leslie herself), Stars, The Weakerthans, and tons of others. The massive amounts of musical talent that runs through the creative process of this band truly is a beautiful thing, and I don't care how corny that sounds. The nice thing is, whoever is playing on stage, you know the show and music is going to be good, they're like a super band, that can't be stopped.

The Fox Theater is a cool venue, very old-school bricks-esque, but without the the balcony. Kevin Drew was recovering from a cold but still sounded great. They played a lot of old songs, which pleased me a great a deal, and they also played for over two hours, which was very much appreciated as I had just driven 8 hours. The opening band was sort of boring, and I can't even remember their name. They closed the show with a good old-fashioned crowd sing-along.

So yeah, it was awesome.

Callin' Out

so tim went to broken social scene in boulder this weekend. vanessa went to regina spector. both said they'd write about it for all of you who read this. but did they? nope. yeah i'm calling you guys out. too busy? really? really? cause i feel pretty busy...

so now, per usual, it's up to me to write something about something that someone will read.

i turned thirty this weekend and threw a party. brighten played the show and we raised $1000 for invisible children, a non-profit that helps kids in uganda. brighten has toured with cute is what we aim for, eisley, this providence, hawthorne heights and more, but remain relatively unknown. that's about to change though as they're real close to finally breaking through and signing a nice record contract. and since you asked, jimmy, justin and alex are some of the nicest guys around.

the lionelle also played the show and i love them. a lot of people hate them which isn't surprising (tate's unkempt, airy vocals attract some while driving others away). neon trees played (they're moving to california) and so did john allred. it was perhaps the best thursday night show we've done in a while.

speaking of good thursday night shows, this thursday the cafe has the new frontiers coming through. the new frontiers are the new militia group darlings and actually have enough class and style to possibly stave off tmg's complete nose dive into mediocrity (see mobile, see driving east, see ronnie day). tnf are heading out with manchester orchestra and if their album came out in 2007, it would be in my top 5. as it is, it will have to wait until 2008. doors are at seven and let's become actors will be headlining the show.

and lastly, i spoke with drew, the drummer from vedera and their record is coming along and should be out in spring of 2008. they'll get back out on the road in february 2008.