Top Ten What Ev's.

Top Ten Purchases of 2009:

Soul Step Dance Studio Multiple Class Card
Clothes from UNIQLO in New York City
Bed mattresses from Woman's Resource Center
Plane Tickets to New York City
1 terabyte external hard drive for my computer
Vegan Boots from Mooshoes in New York City
Compass from Back Country Outfitters in Traverse City
Headphones for my IPod
Synthetic Down Northface Jacket that can bunch-up into its own pocket
Fair Trade Tapestries to cover the windows in my bedroom.

Top 10 concerts I went to in 2009:

Devandra Banhart at the Ark in Ann Arbor
Binary Star at Union Street Station in Traverse City
Warp20 (Flying Lotus, !!!, Battles) at Terminal 5 in New York City
Detroit Electronic Music Fest (RJD2, Z-Trip, Afrika Bambaata, Flying Lotus, Busy P)
Burning Fight (Unbroken, Converge, Betrayed, Bane, Trial) at the Metro in Chicago
Bane/Have Heart at the Static Age in Detroit
Cool Kids/Clipse at the Intersection in Grand Rapids
Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars at the Opera House in Traverse City
Forfeit at the Inside Out Gallery in Traverse City
Flaming Lips at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Traverse City

Top 25 Concerts I went to in the past Decade:

The Advantage/Tanooki Suit at the DAAC in Grand Rapids
Planes Mistaken For Stars at the American Legion Hall in Traverse City
31 Knots/The Planet The at the American Legion Hall in Travers City
Dillinger Escape Plan/the Locust at the Intersection in Grand Rapids
Battles at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor
Tool/Tomahawk at Cobo Arena in Detroit
Cursive/the Blood Brothers at the Majestic Theater in Detroit
Girl Talk at the Eagle Theater in Pontiac, MI.
Make Believe at the DAAC in Grand Rapids
Russian Circles/These Arms Are Snakes at the Apollo in Barcelona, Spain
Sigur Ros at Calvin College in Grand Rapids
Thunderbirds Are Now/The Locust/Yeah Yeah Yeahs at the Magic Stick in Detroit
Have Heart/Verse at the Inside Out Gallery Traverse City
Animal Collective/Wolf Eyes at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor
Dakota/Dakota at the DAAC in Grand Rapids
TV on the Radio/The Faint at the Majestic Theater in Detroit
The Building Press/Tanooki Suit in a garage in Traverse City
Nine Inch Nails at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit
Verse/Ceremony/Anchor/I Rise in Rosswien, Germany
Krazyfest in Louisville, Kentucky
Animal Collective in Lansing
Russian Circles/Maps and Atlases at the DAAC in Grand Rapids
Airborne or Aquatic at the State Hospital in Traverse City
Breath Owl Breath / Akron/Family at the DAAC in Grand Rapids
Bear Vs. Shark at the DAAC in Grand Rapids

Top Ten What Ev's.

Top 10 Things that I ate at Restaurants in 2009:

Chicken Teriyaki: Soy and Sake in New York City
Steak Dinner: Chicago Diner in Chicago
Eggs Benedict: Pick Me Up Cafe in Chicago
Ravioli: Atlas Cafe in New York City
Crazy Pizza: Vinnie's Pizza in Brooklyn, New York
Burrito: Chipolte in East Lansing
Mint Chocolate Cookie: Atlas Cafe in New York City
French Toast and Scrambled Tofu: Counter in New York City
Indian Food: Wellington St. Market In Traverse City
Sweet and Sour Chicken: Soy and Sake in New York City

*Please note that all foods were vegan.

Top what ev's of the past decade...

so the year 2009 is almost done, that means the year 2010 is about to start. And what does the number 10 represent when speaking in the matter of years? The end of a decade and begining of a new decade...or something. Well this one is pretty significant cause its the end of the first decade of the 2000's, the 21st century. So what comes with the end of a decade? Lists...lots of lists. Top 10, top 20, top this, top that, blah blah blah. A whole bunch of lists.

For me, this list making was started when my good friend Arron asked me to do a top 10 albums of 2009 or top 10 albums of the past decade, cause she owns the best record shop in Traverse City, Mi. that i frequently visit. And she wanted to put my lists up on their websit...awesome................

So, now i will begin to create lists:

My first one will be the lists i submitted to Arron:

top 10 of 2009:

Speech Debelle - Speech Therapy
Nosaj Thing - Drift
Converge - Axe To Fall
Trapped Under Ice - Secret Of the World
Benoit - Demo '09
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Finale - A Pipe Dream And A Promise
Hudson Mohawk - Polyfolk Dance EP
Soul Control - Cycles
Set Your Goals - This Will Be the Death Of Us


If you were to ask me, the year 2009 was a pretty weak year for music, in an indefinate limbo between all the different formats and media acceptance of music. Some of the best independent artist being signed to huge major labels, some of the best independent labels trying to act like they are a major label, major label artists dropping back to independent labels. Downloading, Itunes, Digital Radio, Podcasts, Videos, blah blah blah....but with all the crap and mediocre music being released it just made the good releases EVEN BETTER! So when you listened to it, within the first song you were like "Wow, this is so much better then everything else right now, already!"

Top 10 of the Decade

2000 up to 2004


Q and Not U - No Kill No Beep Beep (2000)
North Of America - Brothers and Sisters (2003)
7 Angels 7 Plagues - Jahzmynes Lullaby (2001)
the Locust - Plague Soundscapes (2003)
Planes Mistaken For Stars - Up in Them Guts (2004)
Sigur Ros - ( ) (2002)
Dilute - Grape Blueprints Pour Spinach Olive Grape (2002)
Converge - Jane Doe (2001)
Tortoise - Its All Around You (2004)
Wolf Eyes - Burned Mind (2004)

2005 up to 2010

Flying Lotus - Los Angelas (2008)
Modern Life Is War - Witness (2005)
Converge - No Heroes (2006)
Battles - Mirrored (2007)
Daft Punk - Human After All (2005)
Animal Collective - Feels (2005)
Burial - Untrue (2007)
the Cool Kids - Bake Sale EP (2008)
Ceremony - Still Nothing Moves You (2008)
Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)

So, i started making a top 10 list of the decade, i had it all ready and good...and then i started thinking about the FULL 10 years. I mean, i went through almost all of junior high and all of high school through the first part of this past decade and those are filled with huge musical expiriances, loads of discovery and finding new music and everything. I worked in a record store for almost 4 years for pete' sake! I discovered so much new music that i am in fact, STILL laughing about it. So i had to split it up, early half of decade and late half of decade. And still then, they are all personal preferances. Now if you were to ask me about the more political side of these lists and have me make a lists of music that i feel benefited and expanded the entire music culture, bands and albums who pushed boundries, created new levels, and who really taught the listeners the TRUE meaning of music, then i can do that too. But what you see up there, are simply the albums that i feel benefited me. When i think back on a special time of my life, what was i listening to most? Or how can i leave an album out of the "Top whatever" lists that i listened to every single day for two years straight? You might not have listened to that album as much as me, you might not even like it, but for me...Its in my top 10 lists...But even then, if i were to sit here and make a lists of groups and bands who pushed boundries its still personal preferance, its still my opinion, your opinion probably differs from mine.

So thats the first of the music top 10 lists. Oh, and i guess i will tell you now that they are not in any particular order, there is no #1 or anything.

Rousseau and the Meaning of Life.

So, this morning on my walk to class i thought of something really interesting and i was like "Hey, that would be cool to type about in my BLOG!" but of coarse, the time is now here and i have forgotten it...

So, lets try back track and start and the potential roots of what may have birthed the idea i had this morning. It had something to do with finding the meaning of life...

"Wow, Lance, what a way to start your day!"

I know i know...its just a random reoccurring thought i get every once in a while...no big deal....

But it may begin with what i was talking about in my last post: Iv been getting into alot of philosophy and currently I am reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract and the First and Second Discourses. One idea of his i have attached to most is his idea that WE the people are enslaved by ourselves. How are we enslaved? Well basically how we have built our society and how much we depend on other people. Just think of ONE thing that we can do without having to depend on someone else....

I'll give you a couple of seconds to think about this.....

Nothing....We depend on someone to something for us always....to fulfill simple or natural needs like going to the bathroom. Yeah, we are in TOTAL control of our own baldder...sometimes, but where are you going to go? Someone needs to do the plumbing and set up a toilet for us right? Or perhaps be a spotter while you pee behind a parked car...

Even eating, we have people make our food for us and go grocery shopping for us, and how do we do this? Cars, roads, utensils, everything made by another person who is depending on that job that you depend on him/her for so that they can put food on their table...

Do you see where i am going? Now im not singling myself out either, saying i dont depend on anyone, i mean, iv lived on my own since i was 19 or something and i still have my mom do my laundry, so there!

Very seldom are we able to complete a task without someone else hands helping us.

But, within this I have focused a lot of attention on questioning MATERIALISM. Buying things we don't need strictly to boost our appearance to others. Why do we need leather car seats when fabric does just as good? Why do we need these expensive blue jeans when all pairs of blue jeans look pretty much exactly the same? Now i dont know where im getting with all this, but its certainly something to think about, how pretty much our own worst enemy is ourselves and there is really nothing to do about it...

And that's where it all begins, the meaning of life. I dont know the meaning of life, but I'm pretty sure its probably something really close to exactly what you (WE) are doing with our own lives right now. But how, amongst all this enslavement and dependence on other people and materialism, do we get our own meanings in our own INDEPENDENT lives? I feel this is why I have chosen to be vegan or why i have chosen to be straight edge. To keep me grounded in my own life on my own world. Not as a campaign against the meat industry or anything, but its something i can hold onto, stronger then any pair of jeans i have bought or larger then any house you can buy. Its who I am. Break dancing, or any form of dancing is an expression stronger then any expression you will find printed on a t-shirt. I believe these are what give us meaning, our personal endeavors, not our personal property or belongings. And it's just too bad that there are actually people out there who are so caught up in how they appear to others that they forget the more organic importance of individualism and of life and they focus more on how they want their hair to look like.

And thats that...i guess. Take it how you want, if you take it all...

How about some more basic stuff...

Breakdancing is doing real well, we are performing at a real big halloween party at the Terminal. Its probably going to be the biggest party on hallween night, so thats good. Oh and who will we be performing with? Lyric Born...i know, no big deal really...
This performance is definatly way better then the last one too. I think i have learned more about breakdancing while practicing and running this routine than at the actual classes that Im taking. While doing this performance i have also gotten into a couple more styles of dancing, one is popping and locking, kind of like moving like a robot and stuff. The other is House dancing, i have been taking House classes for a couple months now but its becoming more of an interest now.


Just check out some of this house dancing...one of the best videos of house dancing on the net!


And then this is an awesome video of some old school kids doing some popping and locking


Alright, well, im going to end this now.

I was listening to the new Tiesto while typing some of this and I usually dont like Tiesto or techno really...but his new album is pretty cool, has a bunch of guest appearances, one of which is by Jonsi of Sigur Ros. Awesome.

Other listens have been:

Rise and Fall
Nosaj Thing
Bibio
Pivot
Flying Lotus...Ha, i just keep listing him, cause he is that good, i do always listen to him...

Things a lil different...

Been doing things a bit different Priorities are changing, you know...

I think it is just the fall season....the season for change. It happens every year i think, no matter what. Its just when everyone starts going to school, moves back to the big city, starts working more, or whatever, you just automatically feel the need for change too.

Because of my "Intro To Political Theory" class i have been reading a lot of philosophy books, all different philosophers, and all of them are pretty much about governing yourself, people, and the state of the nature around you. So, with this I have been trying to find relevance and relation with this, im going to say, perspectives on life. Im trying to take a different perspective on life and try learning a few new things about myself. Its difficult, yes, but its all a learning experience, right?

I'll dive further into this in the future, but for now im tired and will keep it easy and simple.

Lately iv been doing the usual, going to school full time, trying to work at the same time. Still break dancing, iv even got another performance coming up, halloween night at the opera house, it will be an awesome awesome performance with all the best dancers in TC....oh and we will be dressed as zombies.

I went through a bunch of old clothes and i am looking to sell a bunch of old t-shirts and pants, a lot of band t-shirts that iv aquired over the years, some stylish expensive t-shirts that i bought without thinking....just a bunch of shirts, and some pants and sweaters. Most of it is pretty gal darn new too, barely worn. Selling them cause i dont wear them cause they probably fit funny, or whatever. $2, $5, 10$?? I dont know, but if YOU know, then talk to me...

Im going to Boston in a week or so....the weekend of the 16th...Edge day.

iv been making rounds at the library again, they've got a bunch of good stuff there....
so...im going to list a few things iv been listening to lately and then im going to bed....typical ending, right?

Steve Reich - Music For 18 Musicians
Philip Glass - Solo Piano
Flying Lotus....OBVIOUSLY!
Trapped Under Ice - Secrets of The World....This is an AMAZING hardcore album....blew me away, iv always been on edge about liking this band but once i heard this album i listened to it for a good 2 weeks straight, non stop. BLEW ME AWAY.

And currently I'm listening to Burial, to fall asleep.

Enter a new season

Today is actually my last day of summer, and i have it off from work....tomorrow morning i start classes....but i cant log into my account because i cant remember passwords....ever. So i cant find out where any of my classes are till early in the morning....boooooo

Oh well.

The weather is awesome. Chilly and sunny...its like nice fall weather, which is what i like. I hate hot weather, i hate cold weather, and i hate wet weather....so i guess fall is my season. Last fall, i was on the other side of the world, woo, not bad huh?

This coming thursday Amy and I will be flying to New York City, yippy, im excited. I dont know what to expect....just another good time in a big city seeing good music and eating good food, right?

Alright im going back outside...

Video/Picture Post.....

Breakdance from ReMiXMuFFiN on Vimeo.

That is what I am practicing to become. If you want to see what I have become so far, I will be preforming here next weekend:



I have been working alot....



But it never seems to be enough! But thats okay, I have something to look forward too...



3 Musical Artist I will be seeing in New York City, while i am there for Labor Day Weekend....







And while I was looking for those videos I found out that THIS artist has been added to the line up...potentially making this show the most PERFECT show ever!



Unfortunatly I cant post the video by this artist, but at least you can listen to him!

And the night after that i wil be going to a party with these DJs will.



and



So thats going to be pretty fun right???

Flog

Iv been busy, alright? Thats not really a good excuse i know....oh well though. WHAT EVER.

Two weeks ago Amy and I went to Chicago for the Pitchfork Music Festival. Its a 3 day long music fest and out of all the big summer fests like Coachalla and Lollapallooza and Banaroo and stuff Pitchfork is definatly the smaller of them all. They say its like Lallapalloozas little sister or something, i dont know. But one thing Pitchfork has that all the other festivals have is the price! Woo, three full days of music for $75, come on, you cant beat that, all the other festivals are over 200 to go to! The bands who all played were awesome too, I saw MF Doom, Beirut, Matt and Kim, ***ked Up, Ponytail, the Mae Shi, the Flaming Lips, M83, DJ Rupture......and like...a ton more, so, it was an awesome weekend. Along with the awesome music Amy and I somehow aquired more free or cheap stuff than any other weekend outside of TC, it was amazing. I left to Chicago with one bag, half full of clothes, I come home from Chicago with 3 FULL, very FULL bags! AND along with all the good music and all the cheap stuff we, clearly, ate at all the awesome restaurants in Chicago. There was even one night we ate at the Chicago Diner and i had a vegan steak and mashed potatoes dish, it was great, just great....

And sometime between now and the last time i posted on this thing i signed up for classes. A full schedual, 4 classes, full time student working a part time job. Im taking Pottery, English 112, Intro to Political Theory, and Nutrition in Human Health. Full Load, Im excited. I hope I will do good in these classes...like...REALLY GOOD.

At the beginning of September, for Labor Day Weekend, Amy and I will be in New York City for a few days. Its my first time in New York City, same with Amy, and its also Amy's first time on a passenger plane....well, its the first time she will be on a plane with out jumping out of it.

We are going to NYC for a show on friday the 4th. Its a Warp Records celebration show for their 20th anniversary. We will be seeing !!!, Battles, Prefuse 73, and Pivot. Battles is one of my favorite bands ever, especially live. !!! is a band iv never seen before and iv been listening to them for SOOOO long now, and iv only heard good/fun things about their live show. and Prefuse 73, well he's a DJ and it was his beats that pretty much got me into Hip Hop and while ago. So im excited for the entire show basically. Iv never really listened to Pivot, but thats okay, the other three are already showing enough potential for being one of the best shows EVER.

We fly into NYC on the 3rd and we will leave the 7th. So we are going to have a while there, its going to be fun i think. We are also staying with Morganne. The last time i saw Morganne we were in Paris, she was flying back home the next day and I was leaving to Berlin. So, thats going to be exciting!

Oh yeah, I think its been so long since iv posted in this that i dont think Iv typed anything about me sky diving again! Earlier in the post i mentioned that Amy and I are FLYING to NYC and how its her first time being in a plane without jumping out...well, Amy, Me, and our friend/breakdancing crew member/co-worker Rachel went skydiving one day up in Harbor Springs, Michigan. And it was Amys first time actually BEING IN AN AIRPLANE! So untill we fly to NYC, she has never been on an airplane while its landing....she has taken off in an airplane, but then jumped out. Awesome. It was Rachels first time skydiving and it was my second time skydiving. It was amazing, obviously.

Alright, its a nice day outside...


Lately iv been listening to

Finale - A Pipe Dream and a Promise
Set Your Goals - This Will Be the Death Of Us
Kid Koala - Some of my Best Friends are DJs

Beans: The new cat.

Meatless Content

So, if your reading this then you know who i am...and you know that i am AT LEAST a vegetarian, and i havent eat'n meat in such a long time that i have completely forgotten what meat tastes like and feels like. But if you dont know me, then let me give you a few fun facts about me:

Im Vegetarian, have been since i was 16 years old, so thats 7 years strong right there. But last march i decided to take my diet even further. For over a year now i have been a Vegan. In the last three years though id say i tried to be vegan at least a couple times, failing after just a few days. But the last time i tried it felt very natural to me. It was when i was coming out of a cleansing period.
When i cleanse i drink a mixture of Grade B Maple Syrup, Chayanne pepper, Lemon juice, and a lot of water. And thats it, for a week. I dont eat anything at all, i just drink that mixture. So when you start eating after a week of not eating anything at all you obviously dont want to shock your body by eating a burger or anything like that, right? Well when i was breaking the cleanse i kind of knew that it would be a good time to try a vegan diet again, so i did. I started slow with just fruits and veggies and worked my way up from there, and i just never got back into cheese and eggs and stuff like that.
So now I'm vegan. NO animal products at all, i'll do some honey, but other than that...No animal products. Its to the point where just thinking about eggs is kind of gross to me, and scrambled eggs used to be my favorite. But now, just the sight of scrambled eggs turns my appetite....OFF.

But, along with the package of this diet comes the very little ability to eat out and also what is the real thorn in the foot is the ridicule and ignorance from other people around me that i have to deal with pretty much on a daily basis. From people asking me where i get my protein to all the arguments from people seriously trying to convince me that my choice is going completely against human nature. Well, the reason why i am bringing this up is because i recently read an article that, well, proves all those people wrong who think that eating meat is just human instinct. And even though the people who read my blog might not be the ones who have a problem with vegetarianism or veganism or any of that, this is a good way to get this particular ball of information rolling around so that maybe it will roll or be talked about or read to someone who does think that humans need meat to survive. Because they dont...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/shattering-the-meat-myth_b_214390.html

Begining of Summer, a New Age.

At the beginning of this past week, on Tuesday, I celebrated the coming of a new age and the accomplishment of past age. I turned 23 years old. I am officially in the "early to mid" twenties of my life. Certainly the age of 22 marks a lot in my life, perhaps it is an official marker of the ending of a chapter and the beginning of a new chapter. Having backpacked half of Europe on my own for a quarter of the year and overcoming a lot of confusion and emotions about the future of my life, the year of 22 was certainly an accomplishment....id say.

To celebrate my 23rd birthday i hung out with my good friend Betsy, we drove up to Suttons Bay and walked around up there after getting lunch at Mustards. Then Amy and I went to my parents house and at dinner and visited. Then my grandparents came over, which was nice. Im glad they were able to come over and get out of their house for a bit. This is when we had cake and ice cream. There were 5 candles on my cake, i only blew out 4 of them. Which is okay to me, because directly after i made the wish and started blowing the candles out i forgot what the wish was. After cake and ice cream we looked at old things my mom kept when i was growing up, everything from the bracelet that was on my wrist directly after i was born to old school work of mine through pre-school, elementary, and some junior high. So that was fun. That was my birthday.

Today i worked from 7 in the morning to 3, and it is the first day in a while where it was actually nice ALL DAY, so when i got out i walked around town for a bit and went and laid down at the open space while listening to music, which was awesome.

This weekend Amy and I are going to grand rapids to see a show at the DAAC (The Division Avenue Arts Cooperative). Its an old venue that i used to go to.....ALOT back in the day when i was putting on shows and promoting bands and stuff. The guy who ran the DAAC often did show trades with me, cause any band he would get he would tell them about TC and any band i would get i would tell them about the DAAC, often resulting in a Grand Rapids then Traverse City like schedule on their tour. It was nice. And this weekend is kind of...eh i dont know. A few old bands are playing there, ha, old to me maybe, but when i saw them and booked them they were still trying to get signed, now, a few years later, they are not only signed but going on big tours of the nation. Cool. The line up is Maps And Atlases, So Many Dynomos, Victor! Fix the Sun, and a Paschal Circus. Cool. Im excited.

Then on Wensday, i hopefully will be going back down to the DAAC cause Anchor is playing there. A swedish hardcore band that i saw when i was in Germany. They played with Verse and Ceremony. Well i got to know the vocalist pretty well there and kept in contact for a little bit, and i even talked to him at that show in germany about them ever touring the U.S. and he acted a little bleak about it. Well, now they are on their first U.S. tour, and i hope to see them. They are awesome awesome. They are a strong Vegan/Straight Edge hardcore band, and Clause (the vocalist) is a real cool guy and he is really smart and awesome to talk to. So hopefully it all works out and im able to see them!

So, that is all that is on my schedule for the next week or so. In Grand Rapids will be good vegan food of coarse which i am excited for.

Okay, well, im going to start to prepare for my break dancing class. Im going to end this on a common note:

Currently Listening to...

Mushman: Eddie Do
Snapcase: End Transmission
Flying Lotus: BBC Essentials
Rusko: Fabriclive 37

I cant get enough Rusko, he is a DJ from the U.K. and he is awesome, he is actually only 23 years old also. I dont even know how to describe his sound and style, everyone calls it "DUB STEP" but, from what iv heard of "DUB STEP", the only thing "DUB STEP" and Rusko share is the bass, but other than that Rusko has his own style that is so much different then all the other "Dubstep" djs. Flying Lotus included Rusko in his mix at DEMF and Flying Lotus also has Rusko in his BBC Essentials mix. So, he's good enough for Flying Lotus, he is good enough for me!! And Rusko was just picked up by an American booking agency, so soon enough he will be touring the states and I will go see him!

Okay, break dancing class. Bye. Maybe sooner or later i will include some pictures of me break dancing or something.....MAYBE.

Shortee Detroitee

This past week has been good. Or since the last post, it has gotten better. Been spending a lot of time with the parents, this past weekend i went to Detroit with Amy and got to see a couple of my cousins. The rest of the family was gone, but thats okay, I feel comfortable enough that if i were to want to drive down there again and find their houses i could. Thats one of my favorite feelings of all, is going to a big major city, or really anywhere that you are unfamiliar with, and just explore and become familiar with it. To a point where you are able to get lost and find your way back home. Its like meeting new people, but your meeting a new city. And Detroit is a city i have been driving to and visiting my whole life and im just NOW getting familiar with it and comfortable with it....I got more familiar with Western Europe before i got familiar with Detroit, now that says a lot about Detroit right there....or maybe about me.....

Amy and I went to DEMF this past weekend, also known as techno fest, tech fest, movement, and/or the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. A lot of it was bad....im not to into techno or house or electro whatever. But the stuff that was different was AMAZING. I saw people like Busy P, RJD2, Krazy Baldhead, Glitch Mod. And then my top two favorites were Flying Lotus, a hip hop dj/producer/remixer from california. I started listening to him maybe a little over a year now, I like to think that the music he makes is kind of like a little representation of myself....like if my personality was music, it would sound like Flying Lotus....or something like that. Another cool thing about him is that his mom is Alice Coltrane and his dad is John Coltrane, both legendary Jazz artists. He's keeping the music alive and well in his family. Then my absolute favorite was DJ Z-Trip, he stole the entire festival, for sure. He is a "mash-up" DJ like Girl Talk, but better, and he is like...the originator. His big thing was taking like 70's or 80's pop sensations like Phil Collins or Michael Jackson and playing them along side with current hip hop artist like the Pharcyde or even House of Pain. He was awesome live. You wouldnt think that a dude just spinning records...not really moving much...just staying behind a table, would be that much fun live, but these dudes can do it, and its awesome when they can do it well!

But other than those people at DEMF, it was pretty much all the same...and just...blah, same beat same song...a three day long music fest full of the same sound....i dont know how they do it. Well, for the first few years the fest was free, then they started charging...i dont think there is any other three day long music festival of ANY kind of music out there that you can get into for $40...its the stuff that sounds different that keeps the people coming back, like Z-Trip or Flying Lotus.

Well...thats it for now, lets end it on common grounds:

What iv been listening too....

Currently:

Snapcase/End Transmission

Lately:

Viktor Vaughn/ Venomous Villian
Flying Lotus/ Discography
Cool Kids/ Bake Sale EP

Warning: Proper use of a blog entails in the following message.

This is how i feel lately:

Tired
Confused
Self Righteous
Melancholy
Mediocre
Jealous
Challenged
and there is a pain in my right knee, just above the knee cap...it makes me feel like an old man.

I built my bike. I rode it around a little bit with Dave and the hole time i was riding it my knee was killing me. Then my right pedal fell apart while i was riding it and it came to me:

"Oh yeah, thats right...i'll put a lot of money into this thing and then within the first ride it will fall apart. That sounds about right to me..................................................................."

So, i have decided that i am going to put my bike up on Ebay. With the money i get from selling it i will put towards a better way of getting from point A to point B...and that will be a new pair of shoes. Nothing too special though...probably just some white pair of vans....nothing to flashy...

Lately i have been concerned with the topic of self righteousness, mainly because i feel i have fallen a victim and ultimately it has sent me into a downward spiral of confusion and jealousy.

But...thats okay, im sure i will overcome this hole and become normal again...what an exciting way to think...

Until then I will continue to feel how i feel, think of sales pitches for my bike, break dance, not do drugs or alcohol, not eat any animal products, feel annoyed when someone stares at me, be conscious of the materials i buy, take full advantage of the fixed gear trend, break dance, eat peanuts and avocado which is a totally normal way for getting protein, get annoyed when someone makes an obviously sarcastic statement about the ways i choose to live my life, and do head stands....in preparation to break dancing.

Thanks for reading my whining and ranting....isn't that what these things are for though?

Boy oh Boy...

There is quite a bit of stuff thats is to be said about this past week of my life. Not just this past week or past couple days or whatever but i am giving it more importance by saying "this past week of my life".

Last Thursday, April 30th, I moved into a new house. Well, its an apartment that is in a house. Well its a mansion actually. This house is so large that it is split up into at least 5 appropriate sized apartments, with the apartment that i just moved in being the largest. It is the entire main floor of the house. There are two bedrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and a mud room. With the main entrance of the house and a side entrance. That is just one apartment right there. I am living in this place with two of my friends. Dave K., who is in the band TIGER and Alex G. who i work with at Oryana. They both get the bedrooms and i get one of the living rooms as my bedroom. The dining room is actually just a living room to us and the other living room is now called the "Break Dancing Room" because it has wood floors....and a fire a place. And because Amy and I need a place to practice our break dancing moves when we are not at the studio. Oh, and speaking of break dancing, along with moving into my new place i also had break dancing class, which i was able to convince Amy to come and also Alex. It was so awesome to see them both there having fun, but unfortunatly due to financial problems Alex cant continue with the class, but Amy can, which is totally awesome and im SOOO happy she is taking the class with me. Then after the class Amy, Alex, Katy (Alex's girlfriend) and walked to horizon to get some drinks and there we ran in to Brian and Kelly (Brian's girl friend) and they ended up coming back to our house with us to see it and hang out, which was awesome. It was nice seeing Brian and im glad to hear he is going to be here this summer.

On Friday, May 1st, Dave K. and I drove down to Detroit...well Romeo, Michigan, which is basically Detroit....its like what Grawn is to Traverse City, Romeo is to Detroit. We drove down there for a show, it was a hardcore show, featuring a local band called Louder Than Bombs, a band from Boston called Have Heart, and a band from Worcestier, Mass. called Bane. This was my fourth time seeing Have Heart and it was also the best performance iv seen from them. This venue was small and it was packed full of kids and hardcore is certainly a genre of music where the live shows arent good just because of the bands performance, but also on the crowds performance too. Its the dancing, the singing, and just the energy that is brought by EVERYONE that makes the show good. Iv heard alot about Bane show, about how they never disappoint. This was my first time seeing them, and i was blown away. They were really good, the only thing that they could have down was just change the order of their set list. They opened with their song "Swan Song" which i was kind of hoping would be a closer, because it is the closing song to their album "The Note" and i think it is the perfect song to end anything really, its an amazing song. Before i saw them, i was never really THAT into them while just listening to them, i liked them, i REALLY liked "The Note", but it just took my a little longer for me to warm up to them, unlike with other hardcore bands like Verse or Have Heart or Modern Life Is War, where, at first listen, i was turned on. But seeing Bane live pretty much set it in stone for me, I can listen to any of their albums at any time and it is perfect. After the show Dave and I left Romeo (Detroit) and drove to Grand Rapids to stay the night at his friends house, Britty. She was a really awesome girl and it was totally awesome for her to let Dave and I sleep on her couch for the night. She also had two really awesome cats, Squibs and Charles. Both black cats but one big and one small. This night, starting with the show, was the start of one of the best weekends of my life. The Bane/Have Heart show was a pre-show to the Burning Fight Book Release/Hardcore Festival that was held in Chicago at the Metro.

The next morning: Saturday, May 2nd, Dave and I woke up and left for chicago around 10:00 to get there around 12:30. We had to look a bit for parking and then it was about a two mile walk to the Metro. We got there and walked in probably in the middle of the first bands set. From then on it was two days of Hardcore/Punk rock music, with dancing, stage dives, head walking, sing alongs, speeches, straight edge, and vegan food. The metro was conveniently located near a couple of awesome vegan restaurants. The Chicago Diner and the Pick Me Up cafe. Surprisingly though i never got to eat at the Chicago Diner, tried twice, but never actually making it in cause of the wait.

Okay, so, Saturday night i got picked up after the show by my awesome friend Matt H. who i grew up with, beginning in elementary school. He went to NMC a little bit after high school but then moved to Chicago, and he has been living there for a couple years now. So, since Dave was staying in a hotel with a bunch of his friends, i took it upon myself to not pay for a place to stay in chicago and to visit an old friend...most importantly, to see an old friend. Usually whenever i go down to chicago i only see Matt for a couple hours and thats it, so this time it was awesome cause we were actually able to hang out. So, i was picked up by him and his girl friend Nikki, they then took me to the Pick Me Up cafe, i have never heard of this place before, they were just like "We are going to take you to the vegan restaurant that is in this neighborhood" and i was like "Awesome" and then we get there and i see the menu and i was like "WAY AWESOME" they had vegan mac n' cheese, breakfast foods, and then the typical burgers and stuff. So, i started my meal out with a small serving of vegan mac n' cheese and finished it with a huge serving with Pancakes with a fruit topping, yeah, sounds like a weird meal but i was excited they had vegan mac n' cheese and pancakes, so its like....i couldnt NOT get those. It was perfect. After we ate we drove around for a bit and decided that we were going to go see Fast and the Furious, which is, incase you dont know, the sequal to The Fast and The Furious, Too Fast and Too Furious, and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. The movie was exactly what you would expect it to be, fast cars, girls in skimpy clothes, and explosions. Needless to say, the movie met all expectations and i was not disappointed. After the movie we went back to their apartment, matt and I hung out for a bit and then we both went to bed.

We woke up in the morning on Sunday, May 3rd and we went to this vegan cafe called Atomics...or Atomix...and then it said "The Future In Coffee!". Well because of that statement i was immediately disappointed when we walked in and it wasnt an exact replica of the cafe in "Back To the Future". Actually i was just disappointed in the lack of chrome, really, because isn't chrome all over the future? Well, i had a chai and a bagel with vegan cream cheese. Bagel and cream cheese is nothing new to me, considering i eat that almost everyday at oryana. The chai certainly burnt my tongue though, which left a sensation on the tip of my tongue that lasted the rest of the weekend...so, mediocre food aside, i had a good time catching up with Matt that morning. We then walked to catch a bus. We got on the bus, the ride was maybe 15 minutes long and then we parted ways, he left to go to the recording studio that he works at and i went to the train station where i could continue my journey back to the Metro for the second and last day of Burning Fight. I sat in the train station waiting for the red line to come and i couldnt help but to reminisce back to all the times and places where i was waiting for all the different metro lines when i was in Europe, in London, Rome, Barcelona, Lisbon. I remember a time when going to the metro station in chicago i would have gotten lost pretty much just looking at the train. I had no idea how to use those things and i had no idea how to read those maps, it was just all a big mess to me. But when i went to Europe i just kinda of jumped into all kinds of uncomfortable situations like that, forcing myself to learn how to deal with tough situations, like which metro train i need to get onto....now i laugh at that...after being in a city like London or Rome, Chicago is just another city now...its just i can understand people a bit better in Chicago.

So, i get to the show after the train ride and it was perfect. I get there at the beging of the first bands set. This was the day i was most excited for in the festival. I saw Blacklisted, who has been a band iv always wanted to see, they played a good set but i wasnt exactly blown away. The vocalist said some pretty good things though, mostly about marriage, not just the typical same-sex marriage deal but about how we should be able to just marry who ever we want. Even though marriage isn't exactly an institution i strongly believe in, some of us do believe in it and because of these "laws" some people cant marry who they want to marry, and that's more then ridiculous, its straight up disrespectful. Its not so much keeping a man from marrying another man, its keeping a man from marrying who he wants to marry. If some yuppy skum bag dude can marry his "trophy" wife and expect dinner to be on the table for him and his kids cleaned up and taken care of when he comes home from his office job where he is having an affair with his secretary then i think and i believe that a man should be able to marry a man. Not for the sake of same-sex marriage but because that is who he really wants to marry.

Okay, so that was a tangent. So after Blacklisted played Have Heard played, and this was my second time seeing them in one weekend and also the 5th time seeing them all together. It was another awesome set, it seemed a little short though. It seemed like Blacklisted played a longer set and because of that Have Heart played a short set...to be honest i would have preferred it the other way around. After Have Heart was Threadbare and Split Lip. Threadbare was awesome, they were a bit different, but i really liked them. They kind of reminded me of a heavier version of Far. Then was Split Lip, who again was a bit different but good. Then came Reach The Sky, really blew me away, iv never really listened to them much but i really liked them. After Reach The Sky came the three bands i was MOST excited to see out of the entire festival. Bane came first and again, they were nothing short of amazing. Every song they played was perfect, everything the vocalist said was awesome, and the energy was amazing. Id say out of every band at the fest Bane was the band that really connected with me, from the passion, the words, the energy, everything. They even closed with the Swan Song, right when i thought they were done playing their last song, which i am pretty sure the vocalist said "This is out last one! Have fun and a good night!" they ended that song and went right into the Swan Song, which is exactly how i would of wanted them to do it. Just another reason why they blew me away. After Bane came Converge, which if you were told Bane was a hardcore band and listened to them, and then you were told that Converge was a hardcore band and you listened to them, you would still have no idea what a hardcore band sounds like. Converge, to me, coming from a i guess a more analytical point of view, would be a metal/grind band. (HERE COMES ANOTHER TANGENT) But, coming from....i dont know what kind of point of view, i understand how they are a hardcore band. Its not so much the sound of hardcore, hardcore cant be defined by the sound. Its the belief in hardcore and the aspects of hardcore. Hardcore means more than heavier punk band, its the words, and its the members of those bands. Kids dont come together and say "Hey, lets start a hardcore band" after listening to one Have Heart song. Hardcore brings the kids together and they say "Hey, lets start a band, where we can express our emotions about these topics that we feel so strongly about we will travel from coast to coast on a single dime so we can play and talk to and meet as many people as we can who share the same emotions as we do"....well its probably not like that, but lets just keep it at hardcore brings the kids together and the kids bring hardcore together. So what Converge is, is they are a hardcore band expanding the boundries of hardcore, keeping the emotion and keeping the passion but expressing them with a different sound. And Converge has been a 90's hardcore band who came with a different sound, stuck to their guns and they are still recording new albums. In fact their last album they released, "No Heroes" has been one of my favorite albums in the past 5 years and it still continues to excite me. They are currently recording a new album now. With all that said, this was my first time seeing them live and i think out of everyband i listen to iv probably seen more live videos of Converge then anyone else so i had some expectations from them and they were all met, and they were exceeded. With their closing song, i never once thought id ever hear them or see them play this song live, out of every video iv seen from them not one of them has them playing this song. The energy was different during the Converge set, it was a more darker and a more negative feel, which is what you would expect after hearing them. They have a darker sound. No one really danced during their set and there wasnt much singing along, i think the mood in general was just kind of an In Awe kind of mood, like we were all looking at a bad car accident and we couldnt look away from it. Kind of a weird comparison, but thats kind of how it was. They were amazing, their sound, everything, but that was just kind of the mood. Even with what their vocalist had to say about hardcore, it certainly wasn't as positive as what all the other bands had to say about it, but it he was just pointing out the reality side of things. People can talk and talk about how positive this was and everything but there is always another reality. And I feel what he said about hardcore was good and that it kind of had to be said.

"I dont have much to say about 90's hardcore...i certainly grew up in it, but, the fact of the matter is, i felt kind of alienated by hardcore. There were a bunch of cliques that i just didnt feel like i fit into."

What he said has kind of stuck with me. Id say, after this hole experience i can safely say im still a new comer in hardcore. Well, iv been listening to it for years and i have beliefs or ideas that certainly fit in with being hardcore for years now but i think the reason why what he said has stuck with me more than what anyone else said at the show is because i think that is the reason why i still think of myself as a new comer to hardcore, iv felt alienated by it, that just some how, i have the same ideas as these other kids, yet for some reason i just havent felt that accepted...

Now, this can be an excuse, but thats all this is. Just an excuse. I can get stuck to what he said but i can also start to think beyond it and i think thats what he was trying to inlfuence the audience to do. How he finished his speech was kind of saying like, its the people who lived past those cliques and trends who were real, who, despite everyone else, stuck to their ideas and beliefs, no matter what anyone else said. Like, being straight edge, it isnt a trend to me, its not being straight edge to me. Its choosing not to do drugs or alcohol. Being vegan isnt a trend to me, its a choice, that i made on my own, not under the influence of anyone else, but by myself. When and if these are ever trends and they pass, im going to stay vegan or i am going to stay straight edge. It was my choice to live this lifestyle and it will be my choice to end it. Regardless of any hardcore band or what anyone ever says, these are always my choices. So with that said and with me learning and looking back now on how i was feeling alienated, i call that only an excuse now because it was my fault i was feeling alienated. Because, to me, feeling alienated essentially means that you feel you are not good enough to cooperate with this other group of people. And because of that feeling you choose not to go over there and talk to them. Its not what they are doing, its what you think they are doing, and untill you go over and find out for yourself what they are doing you will continue to think like that, and you will continue to alienate yourself out of ignorance. And this pans out, more than just you against the popular crowd, or whatever. Its you against your partner, its you against, the college you want to get into, or it you against getting your dream job. Its lifes everyday struggles that you have to fight to overcome, not so much fight, but learn. Otherwise you will continue to feel alienated by these struggles. And, yeah, it may seem like i just realized that i have to work to overcome my struggles, something i should have learned a long time ago, but its more like, because of this experience, because of what everyone had to say, and because of everyone i met, i have just gained more passion in my fight and in my struggles.

And i dont think Converge could have portrayed this any better in their set, with every song and every word, untill they closed with "Jane Doe" which is an 11 minute epic that i think, in its sound, is the epitome of overcoming struggle.

So the Bane Set was perfect, followed by a perfect set by Converge, next was Unbroken. Unbroken reunited for Burning Fight. And after the Burning Fight show in California they are done. So this was kind of a big deal. Now for me though, i got into Unbroken not because of hardcore, but because of the line of bands i started to follow. I got into a band called the Locust a while ago, when i was in high school. The Locust is kind of a super group of members with long histories through punk bands steming out of California. One of which was Unbroken. None of the members of the Locust were in Unbroken, but memebers of Unbroken went on or came from bands that had members that went on to form the Locust. So with that, i got into Unbroken because i started listening to the Locust, there. And from the Locust i got into a TON of new music that wouldnt have gotten into without the Locust. So, it was cool seeing the band in this LONG line of other bands that i thought i would never ever ever ever get to see, ever. Unfortunately though, I really do feel i was able to appreciate them enough i was certainly feeling exhausted just from everything leading up them, and i think for everyone, to an extent, Unbroken kind of represented the end of a long amazing weekend.

So, after Unbroken, the show was done. Dave and I talked to Mckaig a bit (Who was on the stage taking pictures the WHOLE time!) about going to get something to eat after the show. So, after Unbroken finished, we went outside to wait for him. Eventually he found us and we were able to venture down the streets of chicago, with my second attempt to going to eat at the Chicago Diner, the wait was too long and they stopped taking names cause they were going to close. So we walked back and I ate at the Pick Me Up Cafe, again. There we joined a group of kids that we knew that were from michigan that also went to the Burning Fight festival. They joined us at our table and it was awesome meeting these kids and talking to them. Unfortunately i dont remember any of their names. Except one of them was named David, and he was actually the one i talked to the most. But they were all cool people. From the Pick Me Up cafe Dave and I were meeting up with this other kid named Kyle who was going to join us on our drive back up to Grand Rapids cause i guess he is dating Britty, the girl we were staying with in Grand Rapids. He also went to Burning Fight, but more importantly he is also the vocalist of this really awesome band called Black Teeth.

So, it was around midnight when were done at the Pick Me Up cafe and we were finally on our way back up to Grand Rapids, its just we couldn't figure how to get out of Chicago! So, we were lost in Chicago for at least an hour, which sucked. But the deal was that when we finally got out of chicago Kyle was going to drive us to Grand Rapids and Dave was going to go to sleep, and I was going to help navigate for Kyle and also keep kyle awake. Talking to Kyle was totally awesome, talking to him kind of set the weekend in stone that it was one of the best weekends of my life, with all the awesome vegan food i ate, seeing old friends, listening to all the bands, hearing everything that everyone had to say, and with all the people I met. Kyle and I talked about so much that we actually kind of got lost and we ended up taking the long way back up to Grand Rapids. We got to Britty's house at sun rise and totally crashed.

We woke up Monday morning around 11:30 and we went out to eat at this place called Brickroad Pizza, which is a vegan resteraunt that Brian has been talking about alot lately and so i was so excited to eat here. We ended up meeting some dudes there that were in a band called Dead Friends who played in Grand Rapids the night before. I looked at the menu and it all seemed kind of mediocre at first, untill i learned about their buffet, a VEGAN buffet, with macaroni salads, pastas, pizzas, salads, and cookies....all you can eat for under $7....amazing. So we were at Brickroad for at least an hour, eating and talking. It was awesome. Dead Friends was actually playing a show in Indianapolis that night with Bane, Have Heart, 108, I Rise, and Soul Control. It was kind of a post-Burning Fight show. Dave, Britty, and Kyle actually ended up driving down there that night for that show. I couldnt go cause i had to work at Oryana the next morning, there was no way i was going to make a drive down to Indianapolis and then back up to Grand Rapids in one night and then leave Grand Rapids early enough to get me to work at 11. So they dropped me off at Vertigo Records where i met up with Brian and we were going to hang out untill Mckaig came through Grand Rapids on his way back up to TC from chicago, all three of us hung out for a little bit and then Mckaig and I drove the rest of the way back up to TC. It was an exhausted drive for us, thats for sure.

And that was the weekend. the was THE weekend. Then came the week, more moving into my new house, picking up more hours at oryana, and more break dancing. I love taking the break dancing class....

okay, bye....

Really Cool

Breaking Sane

Okay, so. I understand i am going to be here in TC for a tad bit longer than what i anticipated so I have joined a break dancing class....and i plan on sticking with this as long as i am here in TC.
A few months ago i joined a gym and i worked out....at least 5 times a week, everynight after work except fridays and saturdays. But lastnight i started break dancing lessons, and i tell you what, that was WAY more of any workout i had at the gym and i am WAY more sore than i ever was when i was going to the gym!
The class is an hour and a half long, and i kid you not, we did not stand on our two feet for the first hour of the class. It was awesome.

Im moving into my new home here in the next week and then next weekend is Burning Fight. Maybe i can show off some of my amature break dancing moves at the hardcore show...

Yippy.

Backing Up...

So i just got another external hard drive. Its 1TB which equals 1000 GB. Currently, as i am typing this it is doing the duty of backing up my ENTIRE computer, every single file, every song, every picture, every movie....wait, i dont have any movies. Basically its all my music and pictures. Because, in an earlier post i informed all one million readers of my BLOG that i have completely filled up the hard drive on my computer. So hopefully with this new addition to my technology family, me and my computer can advance further together into the future with many more happy moments to come!

Alright, the moment you have all been waiting for.....I do NOT have to take the SAT's or ACT's EVER. Radical. All i have to do is get my GPA up higher. Since i have taken over 30 college credits, anywhere that i will go to next wont even care to look at SAT or ACT scores. But now my GPA is a solid 2.0 which is "base requirements"....thats what the counsler said, i dont know what that means though. All i know is that i need to get that GPA up, and if thats what i need to do, then thats what im going to do. The counsler gave me some options, he said the ABSOLUTE BEST thing i can do for myself is retake some of the classes that i dropped out of in my past college semesters and bump up the GPA here at NMC. Another thing he said, which is more up my ally, is go to the city i want to live in, live there for 6 months and get residency, then i get into the community college there and bump up my GPA at that community college and then pursue a higher college education after that. Bottom line though is that GPA has to come up. Wherever i decide to go, the main thing i will be working towards is getting that GPA up. GPA stands for Grade Point Average....its not an acronym for Grandpa.

So, as you all know.....all eighteen billion of my BLOG readers....as you all know, im not that much of a MIDDLE MAN kind of guy. I pretty much say "Lets cut the middle man out" whenever i get the chance, even if it has no relevance to anything i will probably say it just for kicks....and the way i see this finding residency and everything in a new city is kind of like the middle man. Why go somewhere and live there for 6 months THEN start building my GPA back up when i can just stay here and probably build that GPA back up in 6 months? I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want to move away from TC...like its a burning desire that has been burning for about two years now. But Iv got to fix the problem that i created myself and just get this done and over with. So I think im going to make the decision RIGHT NOW, as I am BLOGGING this, I am deciding that i will stay here at NMC and get my GPA up to at least a 2.5. But i will shoot for a 3.0. If i can get a 3.0 gpa that will open my options up a little more and make it a little bit more easier for me to get into another college or maybe even a University. If i do it this way i can get this done faster and cheaper than if i were to move away and do this. I might even be able to start over the summer and possibly be ready to leave before next summer. So....thats my one year plan i guess you can say....YUCK, dont say that actually! I dont like the sound of me staying here for one more year, thats like what iv been saying for the past couple years "Just one more year, i guess......". Just call it my plan...or call it my "MEGA HOT LAVA PLAN!!!!" I like that one more.

....so there is that. Cool, huh? Thinking about life and stuff.....

So Lollapalooza announced their line up today. Meh....probably wont go. But in honor of the line up i am listening to Tool's not so new newest cd....10,000 Days. Its been out now for a few years but iv never actually sat down and listened to it. Iv listened to it, and iv probably listened to every song on the album but never just a one on one kind of listening. So I am right now.

Okay, so, there has been a topic that i have been thinking about alot lately, mostly becuase it has been brought up at least once every day in some form for the past month or couple of years:

A Tribe Called Quest, a legendary hip hop group, once asked the question "Can I Kick It?", which, if you didnt already know, is where i got the name of this BLOG thing. They also once said "Back in the days when I was a teenager, Before I had status and before I had a pager, You could find the Abstract listening to hip hop. My pops used to say, it reminded him of be-bop. I said, well daddy don't you know that things go in cycles. The way that Bobby Brown is just ampin like Michael." And thats the lyric that i want to focus on. When he (Q-Tip) says to his father "well daddy, don't you know that things go in cycles" He is talking about history, how history repeats its self. And that has been the recurring theme through my days lately. Its almost the sign of the times....constantly, that the kids are going through one massive recycle of history. When i was working yesterday at Oryana i was talking to Chris, the produce manager, about how kids are coloring their bikes and their choice in clothing and everything and basically focusing on NEON COLORS and thats what triggered this whole thought process of history repeating itself. It seems as if we are recycling through a very bight time of the late 80's early 90's. Bright neon colors were big back then and they are getting big now. I cant help to notice that we are at the end of a decade moving into a new decade and anywhere you see large groups of kids hanging out, from ages 15 to 25, you will see at least a couple of choice bright neon colored clothing apparel. In 89' im sure it was the same exact story. Im not just talking about the colors either, but also the fashion and music too. Like hi-top shoes and flipped brimed hats and big bulky sunglasses (You know, those sunglasses that gas stations would give away free with the purchase of a footlong hot dog or something, back in 2002). Im sure that somewhere in these groups of kids, a couple of them realize they are repeating a fashion trend of the 80's, and then the rest of them are just following those kids thinking that its an awesome NEW trend sweeping through their highschool classes. You can also see the recycled history not only just in the clothes but even in music too. Especially Hip Hop. Hip Hop, in my opinion, kind of made a comeback just a few years ago with the Roots signing to Def Jam and Kanye West getting bigger and bigger with every release of his and I saw alot of smaller hip hop artists get big like Sage Francis, Atmosphere, and Aesop Rock. It seemed the comback rock of Hip Hop has been rolling for a while now. But with this bright inspiration of Neon Colors reflecting back onto the music that is being created i have taken note that even the hip hop is starting to sound like it did back in the 80's.
In the late 80's hip hop was just kicking off and getting more popular with groups like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul and Public Enemy. And back then people were saying that, like in that Tribe Called Quest lyric i mentioned earlier "It reminded him of be-bop", hip hop was kind of like a recycled new form of jazz and poetry combined. But even with the comback of hip hop happening now for a few years, its as if this comback has even taken a step back to the 80's. Just look at Kanye West, now, he is a pretty big face in the mainstream hip hop circuit, right? If you saw him in the era of his release "The College Dropout" which came out in 2004, he dressed kind of like how you would expect a "normal" hip hop star to dress. Now with his release of 808's and Heartbreaks he looks like he just got back from a vacation with Marty McFly (Main character of Back to the Future). When i look at Kanye West and listen to 808's and Hearbreaks i just see an updated "Year 2000" version of Afrika Bambaataa. Which is just one more 80's hip hop sensation thats getting recycled with bright colors.
And then there is Lil' Wayne, who is said to be the next Michael Jackson. He said it himself, he wouldnt be as big as he is now without MIX TAPES, which is just another recycled product of the 80's. Now he has been quoated saying things like he could throw a dart at a map and he'd probably have a house there. He's not contributing much to this theme of history repeating itself, BUT, mix tapes can certainly be thrown in there with neon colors and hip hop being recylced through the kids now-a-days.
Now, to talk about the group who got me thinking ALL about this whole topic. The Cool Kids, released their debut album the Bake Sale EP in early 2008. Im going to go ahead and make the assumption that if you are older than....say....28 or 29, and you never REALLY got into hip hop or "rap", but dabbled in it a bit in college. If you listened to the Cool Kids and saw a picture of them you would think that they pretty much invented hip hop right up alongside of A Tribe Called Quest. Right down to the shoes these guys wear (And dont even get me started with the shoe trend, thats a whole new story) the beats, the rhymes, the hats, the sunglasses, all of it is recycled product from the late 80's. I wonder that if you were to show a picture of the Cool Kids next to a picture of De La Soul the kids listening to the Cool Kids would understand that a mere twenty years stand between the two groups. Im sure most of them would just ask "Is this the group thats opening for the Cool Kids on their next tour?"


This whole 80's thing, Its in the music to. Their lyrics are playful and kind of back to basics, referring to normal everyday scenerios and relationships. Not so much about gang fighting and drugs and "pimping" like they were through the 90's and early 2000. Even in the beats, im not going to say they sound like 80's HIP HOP beats....but its almost as if these hip hop artist are discovering the synthesizer for the first time, I mean, it sounds like Duran Duran produced the newest Kanye West album. So its not quite 80's hip hop beats, but its certainly 80's music influenced!


But who am I to say all this? I always make claims and assumptions like this all the time as if this is actually happening all around the world just like a plane flying through the jet-stream, when really im just getting caught up in this very VERY specific sub-culture that barely 1% of the worlds population is involved in...so someone out there should be saying to me "Pffffff, speak for yo self, LANCE!"
And sure, iv done some stereo typing here, but even i can be....i guess you can say, guilty, of wearing bright colors and listening to this music. But im not saying its a bad thing, I like the color purple and I love how simple and easy it is to listen to the Cool Kids. So, im just as guilty as everyone else iv stereotyped in there.....(alright, enough if finding a safe ground)
When i was speaking to Chris at work the other day about neon colors he said "I dont know what the deal is with all these kids getting bright neon colored bikes and shirts....i was in that stuff a little bit in the 80's...but its just not my thing, i just dont get it." And i DOUBT he knows who the Cool Kids are, but he can certainly see this trend sweeping through this sub culture of kids wearing neon colors. Im just taking it a little further and....analyzing it........mmmm

Wow.....I guess you can say im practicing for my return back to english class....OR you can say i learned more about writing on my own then i EVER did when i was actually in school..............Ehhhhhh.........

Either way you want to say it. Iv definatly kept my eye on this whole "History repeats itself" theme and i just like the thought of Duran Duran getting back together just to help produce the new Kanye West album....thats a WAY more entertaining thought than Lil' Wayne releasing a rap/metal album.....

UN-BAH-LEE-VVVVV-UH-BUH-LLLLLLL

Thats right...the last time I BLOGGED this frequently I was on the other side of the world...whud up wit dat?

Well, i was just reading other blogs and i figured "Eh, im already on here, i might as well type something..."

So, just to warn you now i will probably lose interest in this typing pretty quick and think "Whats the point in this? im just going to go check out pitchfork......" But instead of leaving directly after that without posting this, i will fight the urge and click on the "Publish Post" button before i head to my next site.

Currently my front tooth is hurting.....i need to keep better care of these things in my mouth...if i had health insurance the first thing id do is go to the dentist....but i dont have health insurance...so im just going to go brush my teeth.

yippy.... im typing this with one hand while the other hand is busy brushing my teeth.....

.....
.....

Alright, back to business (With both hands)

Tomorrow i finish up my tattoo that i have been working on (Slowly but shirly). Dad, i'll show you it the next time i see you, probably sometime over the weekend. Either Sunday or monday. I bet your excited....

Another exciting piece of information:

Im moving out of this apartment that i have been living in since i got back form Europe and into a 3 bedroom apartment on the other side of downtown. It is HUGE, its on State st. and its one of those MASSIVE oldy time houses thats really close to downtown. Im moving in with my friends Dave K. and Alex G. Im pumped to move in with these guys and im excited to go back to living with other people rather than by myself like i have been for the past 4 months.

May is going to be a busy month. Especially the first week of May. Not only will i be moving into this new house....which actually wont be that hard at all since i literally have just 4 bags of stuff that i have kept packed for the past month. But, on May 1st I will be going down to Detroit to see the good dudes of Have Heart play a show with BANE. This will be like my hundredth time seeing Have Heart but my FIRST time seeing BANE, so i am especially excited for that. From Detroit I will be heading to Chicago for the ultra exclusive Burning Fight show. Actually im not too sure how exclusive it is, but tickets for this show sold out.....very quickly after they went on sale.

Burning Fight: First and foremost, is a song by the hardcore band Inside/Out, which is also the first band that Zach De-la-Rocha was in before he went on to form the might RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE. But NOW Burning Fight is a book, this is what the site has to say:

"Burning Fight: The Nineties Hardcore Revolution in Ethics, Politics, Spirit, and Sound draws upon the memories of many who played influential roles in the scene and understand what made this era of hardcore so unique in its ability to synthesize music and ideology into what for many felt like was a powerful counter-cultural movement, where change was just around the corner."

The book is going to be released May 2nd, at the Burning Fight show in Chicago. Which will be a two day long hardcore celebration featuring not only Have Heart and Bane, who i mentioned earlier, but also Converge, Betrayed, Blacklisted, Soul Control, Convicted, Damnation A.D., Reach the Sky, and reunited 108, reunited Trial, reunited Split Lip, and a very awesome reunited Unbroken who are only reuniting for this show and the California Burning Fight show....and also bunch of other hardcore bands from the 90's. Im just going to say right now, the closing three bands of the celebration are Bane, Converge, and Unbroken........all i can say to that is...well, im speechless really...so i cant say anything, but just know that im pretty excited for those three bands.

I was luckly enough to score a pass to this show from my very awesome friend Brian L. who i can not thank enough for this! Not only do i owe you $50 for the ticket, but i owe you more than that....like....i dont know, i'll make you some awesome vegan no-bake cookies....and i'll get you a book.

Another awesome thing about this book is that my good friend John Mckaig is featured in it for being a hardcore promoter and photographer.

So Burning Fight and moving to a new home, first week of may. Kind of a big deal....

Through out May i will be picking up more shifts at Oryana. Well hopfully sooner than later hopefully i will be going back to 40 hours a week. Awesome. And not just in the Cafe, i have recently been hired into the Produce department of Oryana. Yippy!! So, by a result of that, my time sitting in at the Fixed Gear Gallery/Hell Yes! retail shop will probably be coming to an end here soon. But I will continue at Porterhouse Productions because that schedual doesnt really conlfict with anything else, well...mostly because i dont allow anything else to conflict with that. My call of duty for Porterhouse only occurs when there is a show, and if iv got any free time. And i usually know well enough in advance about a show so i am able to pen it into my calender.

So....i would have liked to be able to give a better update on any education updates, but i cant. Simply because my next day off when i will be able to get to NMC isnt untill Monday...and well its been like that for the past couple months. When my only days off from all my jobs are Sunday and Monday, im forced to do ALOT of things on Monday cause everything is closed on Sunday. So, Monday, i am giving my whole day to NMC, if i have to sit and wait 3 hours to see a counsler then i will do it. But i am going to get an answer on Monday to a question i have been asking myself for a long time now, and that question is "How hard is it going to be for me to get into different college?"

......

Yikes....

In two weeks I will be working at the Ani Difranco show as stage manager. Im pretty excited for this because i understand that Ani Difranco is sort of a legend. I havent really gotten into her music too much, but i know she plays guitar and sings about power and freedom. I also know that she has been a growing independent artist for at least the past decade, with little to no help from record companies she has kind of created her own empire. So with that said, no matter how tall she is, i will be looking up to her.

So there is my take on that.....

The other night I had the idea of incorporating pictures back into my blog of just average everyday things i do through out my days. But when i grabbed my camera to take pictures of the first instullment, i quickly found that the battery was dead. I dont think iv used my camera once since iv been back from Europe...but the battery was dead. I would have documented the second creation of vegan No-Bakes, with a speacial appearance by Amy. But instead, here i am just telling you about dead batteries instead of posting pictures of the delicious vegan no-bake cookies that Amy and I made. Oh well, there will be a next time. The cookies have been turning out a bit greasy, so the next time we make them we are going to expiriment with using bananas instead of the vegan butter to thicken them up. I dont see why it wouldnt work really....we would have tried the bananas this time while making the cookies, but i guess i just wasnt feeling edgy enough...

The other day i exceeded the capacity of my hardrive on my computer. With the download of this thing called "Boxee" I now only have 1.24 gb of space left on my hardrive. And thats after i deleted a bunch of useless music out of my itunes. So, iv gotta figure out a way of opening more space on my hardrive. I have a couple ideas and what it comes down to is me getting another external hardrive and using the external hardrive that i have now as my main hardrive and transferring just about everything from my computer hardrive on to my external and then backing it all up onto my new external hardrive....This way i will have about 300 gb of more space to fill up.

Wow, it sounds like i kind of know something about computers.....

well, iv had enough of this, lets drink the juice and crack the whip, if you know what i mean.....

While i was typing this BLOG i listened to the Deftones: Saturday Night Wrist and White Pony in their entirety and i can safely say that out of everything that i listen to now, the band that i have been listening to since......EARLY junior high/LATE elementry still reign supreme. I can listen to something and be content with it but at ANY time i can put on the Deftones and be HAPPY about it. I remember when the White Poney came out, it was the summer before 9th grade....I got the normal release of it and the limited black edition of the release and i was afraid to take the wrapping off of it but i wanted to listen to the extra song SOOO bad. I also remember seeing the video for "My Own Summer" for the first time, which was also the first time i heard the Deftones, while staying up one night with my Dad watching some late night show on MTV that played like....more of the heavier stuff i guess, the stuff they didnt play during the day. I dont know how old i was...i was young though, i was also short cause i remember standing really close to the t.v. and the t.v. was at eye level.

On my ride to work and for the first half of my work out at the gym today i listened to the Cool Kids: The Bake Sale E.P. and a little bit of M.I.A.: Kala

For the last half of my work out at the gym i shuffled between songs by Job for a Cowboy, Black Dahlia Murder, and the Faceless before i settled upon This is Hell: Misfortunes

And when I came home i listend to Converge: You Fail Me

Wow, so look how far i got with this BLOG....i made it all the way....sure it was a bit of a struggle, but i was able to fight my way through.......this thing.......alright....well that killed it for me...iv had enough of this stupid thing.....

News for the Newdies....and drool for the school

So, i have been helping my parents move into town for the past couple of weeks. Its pretty exciting knowing that they are a mere bike ride away from me now. In fact i have already ridden my bike to their house once already. I cant even describe where they live, other than its near the library. Past the Library on the tart trail. There, thats how i will describe it. So thats cool. But its wierd to think that one of these visits back to my parents old house is going to be one my last visits back to the house i grew up in. Probably in about a year i wont be able to go back there, someone else might be living there. In the house that I (imagine that I being really big) grew up in! So wierd....so wierd....

Im thinking about posting more in this thing....THINKING about it though...thats all, alright. I'll post this one, giving a brief (Probably unsatissfying) update on my life or my SO-CALLED-LIFE. Then it will be at least another month before i post another unsavory update of my so called life.

I dont even see why anyone would read this thing though either, its not like im doing anything exciting like swimming in the mediteranian sea in october or riding my nike through London and/or under the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Speaking about bikes: The frames finally came in so all iv got to do is get the frame to the powdercoating warehouse and pay for it. I can pay for it whenever cause im loaded (Clearly), the hardest part is the powdercoating. Hopefully it all be done in a timely matter. Once thats done all i got to do is get a wheel set and a few odds and ends then my bike will be complete. Yippy............

I am still at the bike gallery and oryana and porterhouse.

I have currently lost interest in typing in this thing, but i am going to continue to try....


See, i only really think about typing in this thing when im sitting at the gallery, which is pretty appropriate i think.

.......

Welp, an old teacher of mine just walked into the store. She was my english teacher from highschool. Ms. Famiano. She was also one of my favorite teachers in pretty much my entire education career. If she was working as an english teacher at NMC im pretty sure id do alot better there....

Speaking of NMC and college, and education as a whole: I really do want to get back into college. I have a better idea of what i want to be and what i want out of college now. Its just due to my lack of....drive in my past school endeavors i feel i have pretty much screwed myself on all future education endeavors. Basically i just see it being really hard for me to get into a college or university outside of....NMC, also known as "NO MORE CHOICES", which holds so true to me. I never took the ACT or SAT tests, i dont know how i could have let those things slide, who ever thought that that was even just an alright idea? Because now thats pretty much what is holding me back from well...everything id say. And sure i have college credits under my name now and all but they are certainly not acceptable, for the standards i wish to be hold NOW in my life. They range between average and below average......at best. So those certainly arent going to help me get into an outside school. And with that and the no SAT or ACT scores...this is certainly a time in my life when i can safely say that Everything is going against me right now. It just seems like for me to get back into school its going to be almost impossible......

Then there are people like my sister, who has gone to school, gotten good grades and has a good GPA and has been awarded like best student or whatever and she is doing the same thing she was doing before she went to college. Its just now she is in a bigger city....working retail.....at a clothing store......in a mall.....and then i see that, and im like "oh, so thats where college gets you...alright.....".........

yippy...

But i'll admitt, after being away for sometime now and exploring my choices (knowing what i want) and boundries (knowing what i dont want) a bit more i do see the importance of college and education and degrees (i guess....) and i feel now i could benefit from them WAY more then i could two or five years ago....and im certainly ready to buckle down and take the bull by the horns and do this. But now is when the sandpaper (Reality) comes in........


So, i cant see myself trying NMC again. Its out of the question really. Basically this summer what i want to do is take my SAT and ACT. Somehow figure out how i can do that...and do it. I want to try and have a score between average and above average. That way iv got a better chance of getting into a college i want to get into. And on top of taking those tests i need to work and make as much money as i can so i can move away in the fall. To Boston. Cause thats basically a very large college town with a ton of colleges in it, so iv got to get into one of them, right? I want to get into a college, and cram as hard as i can and do my best to complete and get into a graduate school, thats when i will slow down a bit more and be able have a bit more of a specific focus. Cause what my goal is, for school is to learn everything i can about nutrition and diets and...basically everything scientifical about food and eating, i guess....not so much the creation part like culinary, but NUTRITION. And when i graduate and get out of school, well....i will just know more about food then what i do now, and thats basically the main and sole reason for why i want to go back to school. Im not thinking about a career or anything like that...iv gotta take small baby steps first.

So, for my first baby step towards getting back into school, iv gotta figure out if a 22 soon to be a 23 year old dude can take his SAT and ACT still.....and then lets go from there....


Alright, lets get out of the dreadful education hole i have dug myself into and back onto the mountain that i have built, battled, and conquered by setting it to blaze:

What i have been listening too:

Mastodon - Crack The Skye (Title track is possibly one of the best metal songs iv ever heard)
Rusko - Fabriclive
Bat For Lashes - Two Suns
Flying Lotus - Discography
Battles - DIscography
Bob Marley - Legend

Fresh Start? Got a haircut.

I shaved my head today, and when i say shave, i mean, shave and razor...to the scalp this time....
Still trying to figure out what happened up there....

Baahhhhh!!!
Alright, whatever, I'll post in this thing.

A couple days when i was under the needle, I remembered i had this thing...

Whats the point in these things? Oh yeah, to keep ERR-one up to date with what im doing in my life....

Whats going on in Lance's life?

-As i mentioned earlier, I have been putting myself under the needle, working on a new tattoo...its a suprise, but if you know where to look you will be able to find it. It is pretty darn painful.

I am a pretty good example of how addicting tattoos can be. I started out two years ago with a simple circle on the back of my leg, now iv got....a few more since then.

-Im planning on going downstate for a weekend, going to see people, music, and just to get out of TC for a bit.

-Iv been working at Oryana, clearly, three days a week. Fixed Gear Gallery two days a week. And anytime i get a chance i email Porterhouse Productions to catch any updates i may need to be informed on.

- On my days off i watch the Wire, an HBO series about the drug culture in Baltimore. Pretty darn good stuff.

- I am currently listening to Oasis - (Whats the Story) Morning Glory?

I have been listening to alot of Aesop Rock, a month ago i would have said "Eh." to him, but iv finally gotten around to giving him the listen he truely deserved. Now I say "Cool."

-My bike is in the same condition as it was the last time i made a post. Only parts still, but really there is no reason to have it assembled yet, the weather isn't exactly optimal riding weather. So i am waiting for the next shipment of frames to come in, which i think is the end of this month.

- The other day there was a Barista competition at the Great Northern Roasting Company headquarters. I was there with Elizabeth (Boss), Conor (Co-worker), and Todd (Inspirational Support). We were there representing Oryana. There were the other Cafe companies there also, Cuppa joe and Good Harbor and obviously Great Northern. Well, in classic Oryana fashion, Conors and My attention was quickly side tracked with the creation of a massive and very dangerous Fire. So rather then representing Oryana in the Barista competition Conor and I threw pallets into a raging hot fire while it was a complete white out with extreme snow and wind. Its been a while since I felt the lashing of a roaring flame singe my eyebrows off. And believe me, i'll pick feeding a dangerous flame over pretty much anything, anyday, especially a barista competition!