Kevin Devine, Invert, and Rachel's

Just got back from the Rachel's show.

Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band

Were I in charge of this band, I'd fire the vocalist, have the backup vocalist sing, and let the drummer, bassist, and pianist play.

It takes a lot to play on stage. It takes more to play bad music on stage. I applaud this band for that.

Invert

Fucking good. See them and buy their shit.

Rachel's

I'd like to thank Rodan for Jason Noble, Rachel Grimes for having musicians as friends, and Eve Miller for being so fucking hot.

Rachel's was "Punk as fuck", to quote Jason Noble. I mean, they kicked over a music stand. Can you be any more punk?!

See this band and buy their shit. Perhaps more-so than with Invert.

Party Music Outcome

I made three CDs worth of music for Mike Distuala's party. Overall, it sucked, but it was much better than the alternatives.

This write-up is split into two parts; the playlists, and comments on each song.

The Playlists

1. Guns N' Roses - Welcome To The Jungle
2. Les Savy Fav - Who Rocks The Party
3. Liquid Tension Experiment - Acid Rain
4. Tight Phantomz - Ninja Talk
5. The Flaming Lips - Kim's Watermelon Gun
6. Scissorfight - Blizzards, Buzzards, Bastards
7. Wesley Willis - Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost
8. DVDA - Now You're A Man
9. Big Black - Precious Thing
10. Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
11. Wack Ass Egyptians - Rub Your Legs Like A Cricket
12. Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right To Party
13. The Vandals - I've Got an Ape Drape
14. Green Jelly - Chewbacca, What A Wookie
15. Anal Cunt - Tim Is Gay
16. Turing Machine - Don't Mind If I Don't
17. AC DC- TNT (live)
18. Matt Burns - Howard Dean - Unchained

1. Trans Am - I Want It All
2. Einstüerzende Neubauten - Negativ Nein
3. Underworld - Dark And Long Dark Train
4. Front Line Assembly - Comatose (Grisha Mix)
5. Front 242 - Religion (Bass Under Siege)
6. Rotterdam Terror Corps - Sieg Heil Kanker Zwarten
7. Daft Punk - Around The World
8. Benni Benassi - Satisfaction(Radio Edit)
9. Fischerspooner - Sweetness (Mike Burns edit)
10. Underworld - Mmm Skyscraper I Love You

1. Fatboy Slim - Fucking in Heaven
2. Astral Projection - Kabalah
3. Underworld - Two Months Off
4. Flying Lizards - Money (That's What I Want)
5. Underworld - Rez & Cowgirl
6. Aphex Twin - Windowlicker
7. Front Line Assembly - Big Money (Remix)
8. Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers + Queers (Mike Burns edit)
9. Devo - Jocko Homo
10. Hot Butter - Popcorn
11. Kompressor - Kompressor Does Not Dance

Comments

Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle

Keep it, and at the beginning.

Les Savy Fav - Who Rocks the Party

Mixed reviews. I want to try it again, but next time don't put it so close to the beginning. Can't follow something like Welcome to the Jungle.

Liquid Tension Experiment - Acid Rain

Too long, but well-liked.

Tight Phantomz - Ninja Talk

Ignored. Remove.

The Flaming Lips - Kim's Watermelon Gun

A crowd-pleaser. Keep.

Scissorfight - Blizzards, Buzzards, Bastards

Too quiet; normalize. Also didn't fit here. Consider replacing.

Wesley Willis - Casper the Homosexual Friendly Ghost

Well-liked. Keep.

DVDA - Now You're a Man

Keep, but shorten.

Big Black - Precious Thing

Remove.

Suicidal Tendencies - Institutalized

Remove.

Wack Ass Egyptians - Rub Your Legs Like a Cricket

Keep.

Beastie Boys - Fight For Your Right

Keep. Ooooh man, keep.

The Vandals - I've Got an Ape Drape

I think keep. Probably.

Green Jelly - Chewbacca, What a Wookie

Keep. Maybe make it longer, if I can.

Anal Cunt - Tim is Gay

Either keep or replace with another AC song. Keep AC, though.

Turing Machine - Don't Mind If I Don't

Replace with The Doodler because it's shorter and has more of a beat.

AC/DC - TNT

Doesn't fit here; move closer to Welcome to the Jungle.

Matt Burns - Howard Dean - Unchained

Keep.

Trans Am - I Want It All

Good transition; keep.

Einstürzende Neubauten - Negativ Nein

Remove.

Underworld - Dark and Long Train

Keep.

Front Line Assembly - Comatose (Grisha Mix)

Keep. Remove the end part with the lyrics.

Front 242 - Religion (Bass Under Siege)

Keep. Normalize.

Rottendam Terror Corps - Sieg Heil Kanker Zwarten

Keep.

Daft Punk - Around the World

Keep.

Benny Benassi - Satisfaction (Radio edit)

Keep.

Fischerspooner - Sweetness (Mike Burns edit)

Cool song, not hated, and works well followed by Mmmm Skyscraper I Love You.

Underworld - Mmm Skyscraper I Love You

Keep.

Fatboy Slim - Fucking in Heaven

Keep, but: too long and remove the final spoken words.

Astral Projection - Kabalah

Keep, follow by Two Months Off.

Flying Lizards - Money

Put elsewhere, but keep.

Underworld - Rez & Cowgirl

Keep.

Aphex Twin - Windowlicker

Undecided. Breaks the mood, but could be useful for when the mood has become too repetitive.

Front Line Assembly - Big Money

Remove.

Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers + Queers (Mike Burns edit)

Keep.

Devo - Jocko Homo

Remove. More of a crowd favorite than a good party song.

Hot Butter - Popcorn

Keep.

Kompressor - Kompressor Does Not Dance

Keep.

I might move many songs to a separate "Favorites" disc, with just often requested or funny songs.

By the next release I hope to mix the techno songs and provide a better transition between the rock songs.

Also, it should be noted that CD-RWs will not play in CD players, but CD-Rs will. I need to buy some CD-Rs.

Party Mix

What music should be at a party? Here's the beginning of a list. I try not to include doubles of a band at a party, since there's a lot of music out there, but there are some bands that are really good for parties.

Music that is good for a party (the kind that I throw and go to, at least) is music that has a driving beat and exciting. For example, the genres goa or speed metal are useful, while the genres classical or blues are not. Also useful are short party favorites, but the music at a party shouldn't be noticed unless someone is trying to fall asleep.

AC/DC - TNT
Anal Cunt - Tim is Gay
Astral Projection - Kabalah
Big Black - Precious Thing
DVDA - Now You're a Man
Devo - Freedom of Choice
Einsterzende Neubauten - Negativ Nein
Fatboy Slim - Fucking in Heaven
Fischerspooner - Sweetness
Flaming Lips - Kim's Watermelon Gun
Flying Lizards - Money
Front 242 - ?
Frontline Assembly - ?
Green Jello - Chewbacca
Guns N' Roses - Welcome to the Jungle
Hot Butter - Popcorn
Howard Dean - Unchained
Kraftwerk - Pocket Calculator
Kompressor - Kompressor Does Not Dance
Les Savy Fav - Who Rocks the Party
Liquid Tension Experiment - Acid Rain
Pink Floyd - The Nile
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers, and Queers
Rotterdam Terror Corp - Sieg Heil Kanker Zwarten
Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
Suicidal Tendencies - Institutionalized
They Might Be Giants - How Can I Sing Like A Girl?
Tight Phantomz - Ninja Talk
Trans Am - I Want It All
Turing Machine - The Doodler
Underworld - Spoonman
Unwound - Scarlette
Vandals - Ape Drape
Ventures - Misirlou
Wesley Willis - Casper The Homosexual Friendly Ghost
Wack Ass Egyptians - Rub Your Legs Like A Cricket

Updated: Based on ideas from Konstantine Mandrika (Astral Projection) and Fred Howland (AC/DC).

Beavis and Butt-head Music Collection

A goal over my Spring Break (wooo!!!) is to collect all the songs played on Beavis and Butt-head—illegally, of course. If someone knows of an existing, complete collection let me know.

Five Day Weekend!

Party

Moga, Fred, Nate, Mosier, Anne, and myself threw a party at Jeff's. I'd like to thank Jeff for organizing it.

Boink

If you are college-aged and have not done so already, go buy Boink.

Railroad Gates

Railroad gates are made of a fiberglass material. Do not handle them with your bare hands unless you want itchy hands.

Another Person's To-do List

I've come to accept that I will not do a single thing that I want to do until next semester, and perhaps until I graduate. So here are my really simple ideas that I want to do but do not have the time. Can someone please do a really freakin' good job on these for me, so that I don't have to rewrite them?

guploadr

Simple drag-and-drop Flickr photo uploading program for GNOME with clean support for multiple photos at once, an account, etc.

RDF library for PLT

Port Python's rdflib to PLT and post it to PLaneT.

GNOME Syndication Aggregator with Planet View

Straw sucks because it has bad programmers. Blam! is okay but has no Atom support and a language that runs poorly on non-GNU/Linux. I'd love a user-interface that is just a single view of the aggregation of all feeds, much like Planet, but entirely client-side (no server needed). For GNOME, of course.

Nautilus View for BSD Ports Tree

Open ports:/// and get the categories; open a category and get the programs to install. Right-click a program and select "Install" and that's it, it's done. Or something.

GNOME/Flickr integration for full control of Flickr

Never make me open a Web browser to look at Flickr. All the Flickr Web tools in native GNOME.

GNOME/RDF integration

Generate a FOAF based on the contact lists. Have Eclipse or Glade, etc., generate DOAPs. Generate Atom for every action the user takes (a friend can subscribe to the feed of the music you're listening to, for example). Automatically publish these to defaults and any additionally configured server.

Mid-week Weekend Summary

Might as well summarize my weekend now, in the middle of the week after it. I suppose that's actually an example of this semester: more things to do than there is time in the day. Of course, if I didn't do my fun little things (e.g. this, eat, sleep, etc.), I'd have the time to do everything I need. Ah, but you don't care how busy I am.

Saturday I bought a 120GB hard drive from Computer Depot in Reading, MA. The rest of the evening was spent with Charlotte. Met in Boston, ate in the North End, then went to a party at Moga's. We also watched Garden State; I thought it was an over-done genre. I wouldn't recommend it, unless you think the genre is smart and unconventional (which it never was). Note that I have no idea what the genre is.

Yeah, that's all I did.

Oh, and if you're the chick who took a photo of my socks at North Station: hello.

Party Update

In discussing the party last night with Mosier and Fred, we decided to supply a keg for the event. However, Mosier will run drinking games this time to make sure it gets finished.

Another cool idea is party t-shirts. I plan to get these made for my next New Year's Eve Party. Imagine wearing "I Survived Mike Burns' New Year's Eve Party 2005".

More party ideas forthcoming.

Weekend plans for 2005-02-11

Friday

Nothing. That is

1. go to class,
2. turn in homework,
3. come home,
4. eat dinner,
5. watch Beavis and Butthead episodes,
6. watch MST3K,
7. coffee.

Saturday

Meet up with Charlotte around 8PM at North Station, then come back to Wakefield for fun and hijinx. She wants to watch Garden State, so I downloaded it. I haven't read anything about it, just in case it sucks.

Before then, I really don't know. I'd hope to work on guploadr or Subversion, both of which are nowhere close to ready. I also need a new hard drive; maybe I'll go to a nearby computer shop and get a giant hard drive.

Sunday

Work on setting up Subversion.

How to Throw a Party

Rumor has it I can throw a party. To throw a successful party you need two things: many people, and lots of women. So when you come to The Spring Break Party, remember to help me out by bringing many, many friends. I can fit them.

However, there's more to a party than the people, and since I have a month to prepare I want to know what you, the potential party-goers, want from my party. For example, BYOB, no alchohol at all, or a keg? DEVO videos on loop? PlayStation with GTA:SA always on? Pizza? Chinese? LSD? And so on.

The party is Friday, March 25th at 9PM at my place in Wakefield. Please let me know how you want it run (use the comments, dammit!).

More Good Music

Dick Dale is coming to Cambridge (MA, USA)!

Saturday, May 28th @ 8PM
Middle East Downstairs
Dick Dale
$20

Party

In other news, I'm throwing The Spring Break party. It's March 25th, a Friday, so you have no excuse to miss it. None! Not only should you come, but you should bring your friends!

And yes, random Internet stalkers are also invited.

60 Elm St.
Wakefield, MA (USA)
9PM
Food, alcohol, and fun, with a DEVO video.

Music to Own

I'm one of the very few people who still buys music (almost to prove this I attempted to link to someone else who wrote about how he or she still buys CDs, but couldn't find anything good). I prefer, of course, to buy directly from the band, but even when I can't the quality and reliability of an audio CD is nicer than some crap stolen off the Internet.

However, I still steal music off the Internet for demo purposes. I suspect I'm not alone here, since many of the bands I listen to have samples on their Web site (some bands, like Invert, have samples in Ogg Vorbis, assuring me even more than I'm not alone in my crazy views). This weekend I went threw my downloaded music and came up with this list of bands who's albums I need more of:

• Big Black


• El Guapo (specifically Fake French)


• Jesus H. Christ


• Mermen


• Rapeman


• Sam Bisbee


• Six Finger Satellite


• Sleepytime Gorilla Museum


• Wack Ass Egyptians

Sadly, I missed the Sam Bisbee concert, since no one wanted to go with me who was over 21. I hope I don't miss the other upcoming shows for the same reason.