kings crossing

so i totally dropped the ball on writing a memorial post on the 4 year anniversary of one of my favorite singers. monday was 4 years since elliott smith took his own life. this morning, while sitting in traffic on the new jersey turnpike admist the rain and the red break lights i had on from a basement on the hill and everything just sort of made sense. elliott was the type of musician who doesnt really come around all that often. he had this magical sense of melody, and the way he was able to whisper into a microphone and than layer and layer vocal tracks on top of it singing all the different ranges was unbelievable. a devout beatles fan, elliott was without a doubt all 4 beatles thrown into one. the pop sense of mccartney, the shredding of a guitar from george harrison, the lyrical genius and techincal song writer that john lennon was, and the sorta ok drumming skills of ringo starr. the man could play every instrument, but the way he finger picked a guitar could just cut straight through your soul. his albums were the kinds that you would start at track one close your eyes and before you knew it, track 12 was over. and the progression, oh man. roman candle was just him and an acoustic guitar, same with the self titled. either/or saw the introduction of drums and a bass. these were the songs that would propell him to the next level, with a handful of the tracks used in good will hunting and also penning miss misery at this time. xo, my favorite record, is just a beautiful portrait of a man living in park slope. these songs are so well developed, including string arangements, and hanful of piano tracks, and even the last song which was just tons of layers of just his vocals. figure 8 followeded which i believe was written and recorded in los angeles, and you begin to see the darker side of elliott. and than from a basement on the hill. its weird listening to that record now because its so fucking brilliant yet it wasnt finished, and you could only imagine what the double disc white album inspired record would have really sounded like had elliott finished it. and second, its both very sad and very weird to listen to someone on record say look, here i am. i am a fucked up junkie. i have nothing left to give. and i am going to kill myself. its going to happen. it has to happen. and than it did happen. rest in peace elliot.

23

i try my best to keep this blog about things that are interesting - music, baseball, tv, comedy..whatever, and not make it to be like a livejournal. today im going to break the rules. 23. 2 years after 21. 17 to 40. 13 from 10. it feels weird. to be honest, i got home from the gym around 10:30 last night and have felt like shit since. maybe because when i was younger, i was a very happy, obsessive compulsive child. i would count down months until my birthday. the day would come and i would pick out something special to wear. i thrived for the all day attention fest, from everyone on my school bus to my class. getting the best spot on the line, being the captain at recess, whatever. my mother and i would bake something and if i had party i loved making goodie bags. my younger sister jade wouldnt pay much attention and would put two lollipops in a bag when she was only suppose to put one, and i would flip out. but i was happy. i loved every second of it. that part of my life is completely over.

this morning i woke up, showered, and headed into work. nobody on the bus to the city had a clue. same for the office. a handful of friends know, and i recieved a couple text messages. several from people i havent talked to in over 6 months, saying they hope im good or know we dont talk or whatever. the fact is that birthdays make me feel so uneasy. i hate them. i hate the attention, i hate someone singing me a song and writing to me saying that they care about me when i havent spoke to them in 6 months. i hate presents. i hate having to fake liking a present. i really hope this day goes very fast. wow, i just reread the paragraph i just wrote and im acting like a real whiney bitch. but i dont care, im gonna go with it. i hope this day goes fast. and its terrible to wish days away, but its the truth.

a weekend in the city

ok so the title of this post is going to be a little off, because im going to start midweek. CMJ this past week in NYC. started tuesday where I caught one of my favorite singers of all time, who you can read about in previous posts, jesse lacey of brandnew at the mercury lounge. I cant think of anything fun or original to say about it, he is just fucking great. He has such a unique approach to songwriting and the man has never written a song i didnt like. great set which took a bunch of songs of the devil and god, moshi moshi which i can not get out of my head, a neutral milk cover (oh comely) and a couple of deja entendu (boy who blocked, me vs maradona).

thursday i had the music lawyers conference. as an up and coming lawyer i attempted to network and ask lawyers in the industry for advice. one gentleman described himself as ky jelly, because the artist is going to get fucked no matter what, and he just tries to make it as smooth as possible. far out!

friday after work i headed to new brunswick to check out my boys in jerk city. after waiting for 2 hours they set up, played a cover warm up song and the cops showed up. great. kinda fucking sucked. but whatever, they recorded a bunch of new songs and they put them up on myspace which i suggest everyone going, i believe the link is below in a previous post but if not check them out at www.myspace.com/jerkcitydude. i than headed to this italian restaurant bar to meet some girl i used to know when i was younger. what i didnt know is that at night this said bar turns into a fucking club, filled with terrible techno music and half staten island kids and half all of the jerkoffs from high school that made my innards curl (thats a max reference, review coming next). so nevertheless, after realizing i would rather put nails into my eyes, i said peace out. it took me longer to find a spot and park than i spent inside.

so i got the new saves the day and the new say anything records. the new saves the day i half assed listen to last night, but i dig what ive heard and cant wait to really get into it. chris rules, and they consistantly have put out different, original and rocking records. say anything on the other hand is a huge let down. call it what it is, say anything is a real boy was a perfect piece of music. maybe it was becuase max was depressed, wrote the record alone or had his entire life before that to write the record. but it was fucking flawless. and thats how you judge a perfect record..how many songs do i skip when i listen to an album. and with those 13 songs, you dont. and the first time you heard belt, and those fucking churning chords and those gang vocals at the end of the track, you just want to fucking break something. it rules. this record falls short. its a complete record of very ok songs that are a step above filler. there are handful, and i mean 2 or 3, rocking tracks. but after 4 listens im pretty positive i am let down. i really believe if he focused on writing 12 or 13 good songs rather than 30 the record could have been stronger.

sat i woke up and headed into new york. had the law school conference all morning. got some great tips, met nobody special. after that i was block from MOMA which i dont think i have ever been to so i took a few hours and strolled through. it was quite fascinating but i would like to go back with someone who is a little more educated and knows what im looking at. but they had a huge amount of picaso and some real nice monet pieces. took the train into brooklyn for some record shoppin and some pizza and back into the city for some more CMJ action. headed to the knitting factory, drank a bunch of beers and checked out andy from hot rod circuits new project, death in the park. www.myspace.com/deathinthepark fantastic writer who writes real cute lyrics. more beers. watched a few saves the day songs, than headed uptown to blender grammarcy for coheed at 2:30 which once we got there decided that wasnt happening and headed back to hoboken to pass out.

sunday after class i headed into brooklyn. nothing better than macaroni, meatballs, great bread, family, football...and than a nap. headed back to jersey around 6pm listening to the formats dog problems. man i used to love that record, such pop perfection. chilled on my bed, larry david killed me as usual. that man is fucking brilliant. when cheryl dumps him and he runs into her at the house and is like hey can i talkt o you and shes like whats up and he asks her to call the restaurant. jesus christ, my hero. and than trying to sleep with xena and saying he cant because he has long balls!!! well back to monday.

dictated but not read.

baseball season is over.

after a 6-4 loss to the cleveland indians, the yankees were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, and baseball season is now over. its been a long hard year. from being down 14 games in may. listening to all the met fans in the spring talk about how its their time to shine. losing pitchers and struggling batters and than the all star break and going on a run like no other team in sports. the bottom line is that it was all for nothing. all those arod home runs and rbis. worthless. because the face of the matter is that in the end, they all came up short. the majority of their starters shit the bed, wang twice. jeter couldn't get a hit to save his life. the bats weren't there. and im not even going to go into fucking roger clemens because its not worth it.

i really hope they don't fire joe torree. i know its going to happen, but he's a great manager. the same way i don't think the mets should fire willie randolph. you cant blame this on him.


oh and to make matters worse, hot rod circuit broke up. another amazing rock and roll band- dead. they were one of those bands who consistently made great records and could never break through to a major audience. catch their last tour at the knitting factory in nyc dec 9th.

its late. i have to get up early. maybe i will collect my thoughts and put more tomorrow. most likely i will just sulk.

who? wha? where? why?

Cue the Welcome Back Kotter theme song.

10/10- Radiohead- In Rainbows
10/16- Jimmy Eat World- Chase the Light
10/23 Say Anything- In Defense, Ryan Adams Ep, new Coheed album
10/30 Saves The Day-Under the Boards, Taking Back Sunday & Thursday Bsides album, Armor for Sleep (YAAAY!)
11/13- Killers Bsides, Michael Showalter
11/20- Nirvana unplugged DVD, Daft Punk live

OOH OH mista cot tayr...up your nose with a rubba hose. after a phone call this morning on the bus, mike from the awesome bands jerk city & skull motion told me to take a right turn down memory lane. I put on the Juliana Theory's Emotion is Dead and I felt like I was 16 again. It was weird.

http://www.myspace.com/skullmotion
http://www.myspace.com/jerkcitydude

show them some love. they are awesome.

look at these fucking idiots

last night after work i took a small walk down to the regal in union square to check out wes andersons darjeeling limited. i did go to itunes to download hotel chevalier which i highly suggest downloading before seeing the film. the short, which was shot a year prior to the film, takes place roughly a day or two before the film takes place. im not sure how i feel about the film. i have loved every piece of wes anderson work. the entire thing just seemed like a second rate wes production. the writing was very ok. same goes for the soundtrack or quirky yet beautiful shots that each movie has. plus each movie has that one or two scenes that are just so moving...like the jaguar shark scene at the end of life aquatic, or when margot picks up richie at the bus stop with nico playing in the background... the film never really packed the punch that the other films have had on me upon initial impact. many times i thought the movie was slow. there was also a lot of stuff that went on that in my opinion didnt make sense. maybe i didnt understand it or im just simply reading far too into it. i need to see it again. and most likely a year from now i will be eating my words and writing in a blog once the dvd comes out about how much i love it. well see.

so this radiohead thing happened. unless your living under a rock, they finished recording their new record in rainbows and will release it digitally october 10th for whatever you want to pay plus half a pound charge for credit cards. than dec 1st they will release a real pretty looking box set with 2 lps, 2 cds and a photo lyric book. for 80 american dollars roughly. once again im on the fence. as a fan i think what they are doing is so cool, saying pay whatever you want. but on the flip side, you are totally devaluing what your music is worth. i guess they are taking the approach that most will download it for free anyways so you midas well put the ball in the corner of the buyer. and i love collecting records, and i am a huge nerd for limited edition stuff, but 80 bucks for 2 lps and 2 cds is much. but if there is a band to do an experiment like this, radiohead is the band to do it. they have a huge following, their tours will sell out, and there is a reason they release tons of singles and cds- people pay for them. theyre fans love to buy their imports and whatever they can get their hands on. so we shall see.

wow. the mets dropped the ball. thats all im gonna say about that. the jets are still in the toilet. the giants are showing signs of life. but whats my priority right now? playoff yankee baseball. man i cant fucking wait. i love october. its starting to smell good outside. and everything is turning orange. its just about sweater and chai tea time.