Guardian of the Non Sequitur

California Punk

I love how California Punk means Teen Pop.

Exhibit A: Army of Freshman, Ventura, CA.

Co-founders of the “Get Happy Tour”. Why are they listed at SXSW as Punk?

February 29th, 2008 Posted by bshirley | sxsw | no comments

Bearsuit

I don’t know why, but UK’s Bearsuit [mp3], with it’s orchestral poppiness is reminding me of Houston’s Black Math Experiment, which is neither orchestral or poppy.

I think perhaps because they both wear their geek on their sleeves.

February 28th, 2008 Posted by bshirley | sxsw | no comments

Poppy Schlock, I Love You

“OMG, he broke up with me…”

“… who’s that girl on his myspace?”

Emo Phillips (it’s the name of the song)

Carl and Arrah signed up for open mic night back in December of 2005 without having any songs written. They quickly gathered to prepare (while a certain vegan friend of theirs was being dumped in the other room). To their surprise, they made a little “evan on earth,” thus wanting to share the experience with their best friend in the whole wide world, David Segedy. With much cajoling, Arrah and Carl got Dave to join the open mic adventure. One would think it ended there but no, it was just the beginning. Shortly after, the bandname was prescribed–making it official. It was a band. It was love.

And then they added a forth member, a swanky bass player, in the summer of 2007. His name is Joey Patrick. He’s orange and everyone loves him. He makes a great fern (the tallest fern of them all), and hopefully you will agree.

February 28th, 2008 Posted by bshirley | sxsw | no comments

Barack Sleeping with Hillary?

Heard on NPR this morning.

“Barack Obama woke up this morning in Cleveland, site of last night’s debate, with Hillary Clinton.”

Now, there may have been one fewer comma in that sentence, but that’s not what it sounded like. Maybe you should have reworded that, NPR.

February 28th, 2008 Posted by bshirley | inthenews, media, politics | no comments

Gasoline: Up, Economy: Down

A friend and financial analyst was over last night for some socializing. On his way out the door he quipped, “better trade in that car soon; $4 gasoline is a month away”.

My dislike of staring at tail lights has almost led me to study the bus schedule, this could be the last straw. 34 to the 65 (or the 2): bus routes.

And Ben Bernanke – new chairman of the Federal Reserve – said the Economy is worse than previously stated. Surprise, surprise. Perhaps he and the Bush administration have successfully extracted their long necks from the sand.

February 28th, 2008 Posted by bshirley | friends, government, inthenews | one comment

SXSW 763

The last few years I’ve downloaded the bittorrent feeds from the SXSW site, and listened to (at least to the first 30 seconds of) every song. The Metal is usually quick to be culled.

This year they didn’t provide one, but someone stepped up to the plate, so I’ve pulled it from him. I put the pictures and the text from SXSW’s site into each song - I’m debating providing that back to the hard worker.

So, a listening I will go. There’s 763 songs in the feed. If it’s like the past, more will get released closer to mid March.

February 28th, 2008 Posted by bshirley | sxsw | one comment