Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Just a reminder

Coachella streams this weekend. That means if you've got an internet connection and access to Youtube, this is a free festival you can watch in yer jammies. I have a real life event I gotta go to, so I'll be missing most of the live feed, but I'll catch up. I might even try the AXS TV thing.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Planning for Fun is Better than Accepting Boredom

Ok I have a few things, none of which is worthy of a complete post-
First, unless something magic happens, I've got my concert-going planned for the next six months. I was going to see Red Fang, but when I saw that Channels was playing the night before, I debated- I couldn't do both, for multiple reasons, but I went with Channels because Red Fang will be back- I suspect in the fall- but it's definite that they'll be back. Channels on the other hand? Well, I can think of about a dozen reasons  why they won't- and don't get me wrong, most of them are damn good reasons, I can't believe they're playing at all. So, Channels is show one. Show two is the Bloody Beetroots. Why them, again? Because they do the best EDM show going- and it's because rather than go for the lasers and projections of the typical dance show- which hasn't changed since the days of Raves in the late 1980's, he ( and yes, Bloody Beetroots is a "He", ultimately) went farther back- to glam rock - his shows are more like a punk rock Queen or a hardcore Elton John than say Deadmau5 or Skrillex. There's a lot of Artifice, but at the heart of it, it's about real players, playing music for an audience to entertain. The connection to punk rock through dance music is that it's not about elevating the band, or the Artist, but about elevating the crowd- a course correction, if you will, for Rock and Roll. So, on the other end of that, I'm seeing a Festival in September- it'll be the Shindig. I'll be there to see Clutch, Gogol Bordello, and Jane's Addiction. It won't be a loss to see Rise Against, Fishbone or the Mahones, but if I miss their sets, it won't be a loss, either.
Second, I don't write about visual Art much because I'm an admitted neophyte on that stuff, but thanks to the prescient Jonathan, I've got a piece from one of my favorite current Artists- John Dyer Baizley  - in specific, I have the Australian version of the "Swan" Tour poster.  What I like about Baizley's art is that it references decorative art from both archaic, and more current sources- while pushing Figurative Art into Abstraction, as opposed to surrealism- Surrealism is still trying to be "real", but in a psychological sense. What Baizley seems to be going for is making real things, in this case a swan into an abstract object, into a visualization. That's much more intriguing to me.
Third, and finally, for now- I'm looking forward to several things in the works- all of which adds up to creating something for myself that I should have done awhile back- you could call it a work station, but if it comes out like I want it to be, it'll be more the realization of a dream of mine- a little pod of my own reality- a little place that's my expression. Now, even if I fail ( and it's about 50/50) it's worth it to try because that's what life should be about, right?