Floating Away

AOL's Streaming Albums

I cant speak enough about how odd it is to have a desk job.  My only previous employment was teaching seven, eight and nine year olds how to read and occasionally showing them why Belle and Sebastian is just as cool as Jay-Z.  (Trust me, it was a lesson that didn't go over well.)

That being said, I have enjoyed actually listening to must while I work.  Coming from a professional world where this could never be done, it is great.  In the beginning, I found myself putting my iPod on shuffle and enjoying the day, but more recently, I have been streaming KEXP and KCRW.  Then, a few weeks back, I remembered that AOL streams entire albums.

This is a great feature that everyone should take advantage of.  Every Tuesday, AOL loads up 20 or so albums for streaming consumption.  This week, I enjoyed new works by Yo La Tengo, Brazilian Girls, Justin Timberlake, The Rapture and the new REM compilation.  (Speaking of Yo La Tengo, I love them and like duke, feel their best work is behind them, but this album is really good.)

I know for a fact that I am really late to this boat, but just wanted to let all of you know how much I am enjoying this feature.  If you haven't played around on it yet, please do so, you won't be disappointed.

On Sale Now

First off, mazels to Mr. Figgins for really stepping it up the last week and becoming a blog maestro.  If only he would focus that energy on hitting the ball and the Angels might make the playoffs. 

Moving on, I haven't done one of these in a while and there are lots of good shows coming up that I feel should get your attention.   Some of these should be sold out, so take advantage when you can:

9/21: Andrew Bird @ The Fonda [Buy]
9/28: Rogue Wave / Jason Collett / Forein Born @ Vanguard [Buy]
9/28: M. Ward @ The Fonda [Buy]
9/30: Silversun Pickups @ Echo [Buy]
10/5: Man Man @ Spaceland [Buy]
10/12: Long Winters / What Made Milwaukee Famous @ Spaceland [Buy]
10/14: Ghostland Observatory @ Echo [Buy]
10/16: Hold Steady @ Troubadour [Buy]
10/18 and 10/19: Badly Drawn Boy @ Troubadour [Buy]
10/21: The Decemberists @ The Wiltern [Buy]
10/21: Glen Hansard (of the Frames) / Doveman @ Largo [Reserve]
10/21: Beirut @ Troubadour [Buy]
10/23: Yo La Tengo @ The Fonda [Buy]
10/27: Figurines @ Spaceland [Buy]
10/28: Forward, Russia! @ Spaceland [Buy]
11/1: Voxtrot @ Troubadour [Buy]
11/3: Love is All @ Echo [Buy]
11/28: Hidden Cameras @ Echo [Buy]

and because Chone loves those Grey's Anatomy spots:
11/14 and 11/15: The Fray @ The Wiltern [Buy]

Keith Olbermann: Where Have I Been?

I don't know why it took me so long to discover Keith Olbermann.  I've always known who he was, I just haven't known how relevant, witty, and fresh his perspective is.

My perspective had been that he was an ex-SportsCenter anchor who washed up on MSNBC.  I could not have been any further from the truth. 

His show, Countdown, is right up there with the Daily Show and the Colbert Report.  May I even suggest that you add it to your TiVo schedule.  Now that my internship if over, and I've got a couple weeks until school starts back up, I've been watching it regularly; it's great.  Unlike Katie, who can't decide on a sign off, Keith ends each show with a "mission accomplished" update:  "Today is the 1,223 day since the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq."

I also caught Keith on 710am last Friday with Dan Patrick.  The two host an hour of sports talk from 11am to noon.

Still don't quite understand my admiration?  Is Olbermann the present day Edward R. Murrow?  Check out Keith calling out Bill O'Reilly:

Your Band Could Play with Axl

Are you an unsigned band? Do you think you have the chops to play an outdoor festival put on by KROQ? The unsigned bands I love in LA (Great Northern, Division Day, Sea Wolf, Ferraby Lionheart, Lavender Diamond, Let's Go Sailing) definitely do not read this or probably listen to KROQ but should totally enter this contest.

KROQ is having an open tryout for an opening slot at their Inland Invasion Show in a few weeks.   Bands have until this Wednesday to submit an MP3 and a photo themselves.  KROQ will choose 10 songs by Friday, September 15th and you, wise consumer of good music, can choose one band to open their 2006 Inland Invasion show featuring Guns N Roses. 

This is a great chance for KROQ to prove to me that they are the taste makers they claim to be, but sadly, I think they will choose 10 bands that will be bland.  We will see. I would love to be proven wrong.

Friday's YouTube Video: Olbermann on Colbert

This past week, I've become a huge fan of Keith Olbermann.  Check out this video of Keith on the Colbert Report talking about his feud with Bill O'Reilly.  This clip is from March!  (Where have I been?)

These two are fantastic.

Happy Friday.

Brian France and Bud Selig Coming to LA

I just got word that USC's Marshall School is bringing Bud and Brian to Los Angeles.  They will be speaking as part of USC's Sports Business Institute's Commissioner Series. 

I'm sharing this news because 1) this is a unique opportunity, 2) I'm pissed that I can't see Bud due to another obligation that night, and 3) as an open question to the public:  why does USC provide much better community programming than UCLA?  As a current student at UCLA Anderson, this especially perturbs me.

That aside, if you can attend, you should.  Bud will be speaking on November 9th and Brian on February 22. 

If you're asking yourself, who are these guys?  No, they are not some new indie band that Dan discovered before the OC did.  Bud is the Commissioner of Major League Baseball and Brian is Chairman and CEO of NASCAR.

If you want to learn more about baseball, click here.  For more on NASCAR, click here.

 

"Kicking and Screaming" by Noah Baumbach

Finally. Finally. Finally.  One of my favorite movies of all time (thank you Jordan) finally gets the DVD treatment it deserves.  I can not talk enough about how great this movie is.  This is Noah Baumbach's writing and directing debut.  He made this, then the also underrated Mr. Jealousy and then took 10 years off and made "The Squid and the Whale" for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay.  Noah Baumbach knows how to tell a story and what better story can I relate to than a group of college friends who graduate from college and decide to live in their small college town for one more year.  Ah, what a life that would be. 

"Paralyzed by postgraduation ennui, a group of college friends remain on campus, patching together a community for themselves in order to deny the real-world futures awaiting them. Academy Award–nominated screenwriter Noah Baumbach’s hilarious and touching directorial debut was one of the highlights of the American independent film scene of the nineties, speaking directly to a generation of adults-to-be unable to reconcile their hermetic educational experience with workaday responsibility, and posing the eternal question, where do we go from here? Stingingly funny and incisive, Baumbach’s breakthrough features endlessly quotable dialogue, delivered by a stellar ensemble cast." [Criterion Collection Description]

Please see this movie and then email me and tell me what you thought.  I love talking about this movie and more people need to see it.  It's that good.  This is a movie that grows on you and grows with you.  It gets better as you get older.  It's a movie that you will remember and yearn to watch again. 

When the screen goes black at the end (after my favorite scene in the movie) and Freedy Johnston's Bad Reputation starts playing, you already feel nostalgic for a movie you just finished watching.

MP3: Bad Reputation - Freedy Johnston

$35 Massage Leaves You Smiling

Too much family time is never a good thing.  This labor day left my back in knots, so I decided to try out the $35 massages from the California Healing Arts College.  It was fantastic, and I highly recommend it.  For only $35, you get a full hour massage from a massage student.  I imagine that the experience can differ greatly based on who you get, but my experience was great.  If you go, ask for Aimee.

Because it's a "Teaching" facility, you can't tip.  So it's $35 out the door.  You can easily make same day appointments by calling 310-826-7622.  If you live on the westside, there's no reason not to check it out at Bundy and Santa Monica.

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players @ Troubadour

Saturday night marked the third time I had seen the Trachtenburg Family and lead singer / father said it best: This will be the oddest thing you will ever see.  And he's not far off.  The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players bills themselves as the only "indie-vaudville conceptual art-rock pop band".  As I have metnioned before, they are a family.  Dad, Jason, plays guitar and keyboards and writes the songs.  Mom, Tina, plays the slide projector, sings some backup and makes the costumes.  Daughter, Rachel, plays drums and sings some back up too. 

It's hard to explain to someone the genius of what they do, but once you see it live, it all makes sense.  Some people will say what they do is not genius, but rather extremely bizarre.  I totally disagree.  They buy slides from old dead people and write really good, poppy songs about them / to go along with them.  When you watch them live, you really watch the slide show, and not so much the band.  Standing there at the Troubadour watching Jason Trachtenburg talk and sing, I wondered how many people there actually were there to love them (as I was).  I had the feeling that many there were there to watch a train wreck.  Jason was exceptionally chatty during our show and I felt like they could have played a few more songs if he didnt talk as much as he did, but its all good.  I would have loved for them to play "Eggs."  They didn't, but it is below.  Enjoy!

The Long Winters at Spaceland: On Sale Now

One of my picks for album of the year will definitely be The Long Winters' Putting the Days to Bed.  I was extremely dissapointed to find out at the show that lead singer John Roderick was not performing at the 826 LA Benefit.  But, good news.  The Long Winters will be here this week opening for Feist at Avalon and then coming back on October 12th to play Spaceland with What Made Milwaukee Famous and Oakley Hall.

Buy tickets here.