My buddy’s opening and reception was last night at the Red Shift Gallery. So you missed out on the free beer, wine and finger sandwhiches but you still have a chance to see his photography today on the First Friday Art Walk. His work will also be showing through the rest of the month so go check him out if you get a chance.

My birthday week (last week) was so full of kickass it’s hard to comprehend.

It started out last Friday by heading over to a friends for drinks and then going to the Murray Farm Massacre. I haven’t been to a haunted house since I was a child but The haunted house was certainly frightening and well designed. I’m no stranger to corn mazes though, and this one pretty much sucked - way too easy (even at night) and not all that freaky.

Saturday we threw a raging halloween/costume party at our house. G made seven crockpots worth of homemade, slow-cook, goodness. The were black lights, and costumes, and spooky sounds to boot. The night finished with a big ole dance party that devolved into everyone dancing on the furniture. This resulted in one broken kitchen chair, a burning wig in a chandelier, snack carrots ending up in mysterious places, and one skull nearly cracked open. It was all worth.

Sunday mostly involved laying on the couch and recovering from Saturday’s debauchery.

On Tuesday we got the new Tivo hooked up. This thing is absolutely brilliant. It has already started changing the way I watch TV and I haven’t watch a commercial in over a week. Not to mention I have all kinds of great movies lined up that I’ve been waiting to see.

For my birthday, G and I hand bacon cheeseburgers (from my very favorite hamburger shack down the street from us) and champagne for dinner. I am also now a real art owner. G gave me a signed and numbered Audrey Kawasaki print called “Nest Hair”. Number 55 of a limited print of 100. I’m in love with it. It’s one of the coolest gifts I have received in a long time.

Thursday we met my Dad, his wife, my bro, and pandy out for a sushi dinner. Johnny Holly’s has great sushi and fantastic service without the pretentiousness. If you are ever thinking about going to the sushi den, drive ten blocks further south and go to Johnny Holly’s instead. You’ll be glad. If you are hankering for any sort of asian food that isn’t on the menu, just ask for it, and the kitchen will fix it up for you.

Thanks to everyone for making my week be so tremendous.

Cirque Du Soleil’s show Corteo was gravity defying amazingness - completely brimming over with incredible acrobatics requiring superhuman coordination.

I have never been to a Cirque show before but I had a bit of an idea of what I was in for and it didn’t let me down, it fact it far exceeded my expectations. This was nice. Basically the show is a rumpus of gymnastics, costumes, emotion, live music, and humor.

Tickets are pretty expensive but worth it and there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. I’m really excited to see love in vegas sometime in the not-too-near future. There are a few youtube clips of favorite acts after the jump.
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These girls are WORKIN’ IT.

I created this video last night. The music is a song called “Zukunft” by Estonian band Fuck Yuo I Am A Robot, which I also discovered while surfing around the web last night. Fuck Yuo I Am A Robot’s newest release “Compensator For The Accelerator” is available for download for free (as in beer) on their website, which, of course, is worth an additional 100 cool points. Their cover art states:

We praise the mp3 for giving the creative mind an opportunity to unleash itself from the established hierarchies of music distribution and bypass spoonfeeding by opinion leaders.

The website also contains a .pdf download of the cover and CD art that actually folds into a sleeve that will protectively hold your newly burnt disk. Anyways, cool music, nice design, and great attitude.

The video is of Gwen Verdon (Cacoon anyone?) shaking it to a dance choreographed by her husband, the talented Bob Fosse. The original dance was choreographed to a song called “Mexican Breakfast” by Pat Williams. As you can see Gwen really knew how to move and Fosse was way ahead of his time. Seriously, did Bob Fosse invent the bootyquake? Now go rent “All That Jazz” and “Caberet”, or just watch these videos.

As a bonus, here are three additional Fuck Yuo I Am A Robot songs courtesy of Jazzotheque:
Fuck Yuo I Am A Robot - Nina Robots That Shoot Laser Beams And Stuff
Fuck Yuo I Am A Robot - The Ride Ripoff
Fuck Yuo I Am A Robot - T.A.T.U. Remix

When you simultaneously play the two Nickelback songs “How You Remind Me” and “Someday”, which were released two years apart, you will soon discover that they are 90% the same song.

Nickelback, you lazy, talentless bunch of wankers. What, did you think nobody would notice that you’re recycling your hideous dirge and selling it all over again to your deluded fan base? You bastards, you’re taking advantage of those tone deaf MTV brainwashed twats who are too thick to notice you’re releasing songs that are EXACTLY THE SAME as the ones you recorded earlier.

NPR has a great take on this as well.
Here is a link to an .mp3 of the combined songs by Nickelback.
As an added bonus, this is a link to two Linkin Park songs played over each other.

But all this song similarity stuff is really nothing new. If I have any advice for a budding guitar player, which I don’t, it would be to learn how to play “Louie Louie”. The chord progression known to musicians as I-IV-V (The Eternal Medley) has been used in so many hit songs it should be considered abuse. A popular use of this progression, I-IV-/V-IV-/ad nauseum, is known as the ‘Louie Louie’ and is used in songs such as “Hang On Sloopy”, “Twist and Shout”, “Wild Thing”, and a ton of other songs with very little variation in rhythm.

So I guess, in the end, it’s not all that strange that Nickelback has songs that sound similar. What makes it nerve wracking is that Nickelback has actually plagiarized themselves (if that is even possible). What makes it disgusting, is that Nickelback fans don’t really seem to care and they continue buy this piece of crap music.