new FBJ mp3

Today's Friday Breakfast Jam, available to download below.


The Black Keys

FBJ, 7.29.2005: (right click, "save target as")

Track 1
Track 2
Track 3

And, this morning's playlist.

These mp3s have been taken down to make room for more recent additions. If you absolutely need a copy of this show, contact DMo.

Christmas in July

If it was Christmas in July and I could only offer newish music as gifts, I'd buy all my friends these records, each one of which has become quite close with my iPod. But it's not Christmas, so you have to buy them your damned self.

(If you are internet-impaired, some links below lead to other sites, while others are downloads. Windows users, right click and select "Save Target As." Mac users, Control + click.)


Harlan T. Bobo, Too much love, Goner records
The result of "six years of modern love sans god or government" comes this fine, fine recording. I've spent a great deal of the past week with this one. It's quiet when it needs to be, warm and rocking in the other spots. Even some good use of spoken word, which normally, I can't stand. Don't believe me? Check out some mp3s here on the Goner website.




the boy least likely to, the best party ever, Rough Trade
Chances are, if you like the poppier side of indie pop, you already know this English duo. If not, shame on you. Here's a cut called "Paper Cuts" - pun intended.
Want to know more? Go straight to the horse's mouth, or in this case, blog.




Shout Out Louds, Howl Howl Gaff Gaff, Capitol
They're Scandinavian. They're hip. They make my feet move. Definitely one of my favorite records so far this year. Stream samples here.




Devin Davis, Lonely People of the World Unite, Mousse records
Devin comes to us from Chicago, via Florida, where he moved to find some loneliness. Recording the majority of the instrumentation himself, this is a quirky record featuring lots of good guitar and comical lyrics. "Iron Woman" is the first track on Lonely People of the World Unite, and can be streamed here.




Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, s/t
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are so last month, which is about the time that a co-worker (who is also responsible for the next record) introduced me to this Brooklyn band. Chances are, if you have internet access and enjoy music, you know them and the story, but it deserves repeating. These guys put out a self-produced, self-titled record that within two weeks, was everywhere and anywhere -- all without a record label or distribution company. This album received a 9.0 rating (as in, 9 out of 10) from Pitchfork Media and may have earned an 11.0 (as in, 11 out of 10) from DMo Media. Check out "Upon this tidal wave of young blood."



Devandra Banhart, Cripple Crow, XL recordings (due out in September)
This young man may be a crazy hippie who doesn't, or at least didn't, realize the impact of his music until XL asked him to move to New York from the West. Without any money, or really, any body fat, he couch-surfed the Boroughs while recording Cripple Crow, a beautiful and diverse record due in stores September. Check out "Long haired child" or stream the upcoming release from XL's site here.



Sufjan Stevens, Illinoise, Ashmatic Kitty
Ah, Sufjan. Thank goodness you started back on your promise from a few years back of making a record to chronicle each of the 50 states. Otherwise, I'd be down right screwed when it came to history and lore regarding the fine state of Illinois. For instance, are you familiar with "Casimir Pulaski Day"?

Tonight, at SLC's LoFi Cafe:

I can hardly wait.

It's the nighttime, baby.

It's twighlight. This is where I live. This is what I do. I walk.

Or, at least for the past few nights anyway, with the temperature approaching comfortable. I put one foot in front of the other, trying to shake away the atrophy that's come from four weeks of playing hide and seek with a heat wave.

And it's wonderful out.

Free of office stress and silliness, I forget the magnitude of my workplace sins, like having the girth to end a sentence with a preposition. (What's that about! No one should do that! Not even the Lord above.) Instead, I can let my mind wander onto important things like bunkbeds, lilac and the hope that my mom enjoyed her birthday.

Harlan T. Bobo as my soundtrack, pinks and oranges on my pallet.

And I feel so terribly for those strange fools in cars at this moment. Worse yet for those locked deep behind Ziploc-ed windows, breathing conditioned air, while just outside their windshield is a whole lot of perfect, blowing right by 'em. They don't smell the charcoal near the park, nor the distinct scent of pot rolling out from a house adjacent the Mormon ward. But I do.

It's twighlight. This is where I live. This is what I do. I walk.

The customer is king... The customer is king...

I write copy for a pretty major client that has passed down a ruling barring the use of sentence fragments -- even as an intentional literary device -- and has also requested that I refrain from using contractions.

Contractions? I did not realize that this client conducted its business in the 19th Century calling everyone Mr. or Mrs. So and So, raising their pinky finger during the required tea times and forcing the men to wear knickers with argyle socks pulled high.

The best part about these formal requirements is that unlike my last job, where the writing was designed for engineers, scientists and intellectual property attorneys, the text here is generally aimed at an audience that reads at or below a sixth-grade level.

A fine day for a parade

In 49 states across the country, today is simply July 25th. In Utah, however, it’s the observation of Pioneer Day, a celebration of those brave founders of the state and Mormonism. It’s craziness.

In fact, it’s one of the biggest holidays of the year as far as Utahans are concerned. It kicks the shit out of Independence Day. Don't believe me? I offer you exhibit A: For July 4th, there are no parades and within Salt Lake City proper, there's one good display of fireworks.

Now Pioneer Day, on the other hand: The soccer/football stadium has an extensive firework display, as does nearly every green space within the city. There’s a rodeo. (Seriously.) Several concerts. Street vendors in the park. My cubicle neighbor even reported waking up this morning to a man dressed as Ronald McDonald distributing candy to children via the use of an ATV in his neighbor. And there is roughly an ass-load of parades.

One of those parades in particular stands out. The big cheese, the mothership, aka, the Days of ’47 parade. It runs today, and yet, last night, when I happened to be downtown, near some of the prime parade-viewing-real-estate, I had to make a detour along the parade route. Why? Because I had heard rumor that some families actually camp out in preparation for the parade. This was more than an understatement.

By 10pm last night, the four or five blocks I drove along the parade route were already littered with Mormon families; blonde children fighting sleep and rolling around the sidewalks in sleeping bags. Literally, there was no more room for an additional family to squeeze Grandma's lawn chair in at that time last night. One family had set up an open-air tent and placed a queen-sized bed beneath it.

What is most entertaining about this is that just a few blocks away is Pioneer Park (coincidentally, named for the same valiant few that crossed the Mississippi) where the majority of Salt Lake’s homeless population calls home, and where many of these same families look with disdain at the fact that people sleep on the city streets.

What is most confusing to me about this is why anyone in their right mind would want to do this, regardless of age or whether or not they happen to be a member of the Mormon Church. Or, at least, why anyone in their right mind would opt to camp out for it more than once. After all, it’s a frigging parade. And chances are, it’s the same damned parade that rolled through last year. And will next year. Clearly though, there are a lot of people that see it differently.

While there are other things or events that I can understand someone camping out for, a parade is really just not one of them. In fact, I have been thinking all day about this and I have only come up with two instances in which it would be (or would have been) acceptable to camp out for a parade:

1.) The Red Sox parade after the World Series.

2.) If a parade of beautiful, nude mermaids came tail-flipping down the street in my honor to anoint me with gills, name me Mer-King and provide me with a key that unlocked more than just their city.

Seriously, this could be me! Well, sans the plaid pants. No, I'm not judging you man. I'm just saying. Just saying.

Why not?

A man ahead of his time.

In the eternal words of Walter Sobchak, "Fuck it, Dude. Let's go bowling."

Except, in this case, instead of bowling, we're talking about posting another show from that rousing program, Friday Breakfast Jam. So, here you have it; a full show from July 1st. It's two discs worth, each about 92 MB and available below:

UPDATE, 7.29.2005: This download has been removed to make room for more recent MP3s. If you absolutely need a copy of this show, contact DMo.

Poor Man's Podcast

Ok, let's give this a go.

I'm flirting with some legalities here, so please play nice with this. Also, because of those legalities, I'm not going to hand you a playlist (although you could pretty easily find it on the KRCL website). All that crap aside, here is my virgin attempt at an MP3 recording of my show, Friday Breakfast Jam. To get all the hipsters interested, I'll toss in the word "podcast," although that would be a misnomer: there's no actual subscription feed, but maybe -- just maybe -- if you behave, we'll set one of those suckers up. Or at least post some other shows.

I haven't even listened to this sucker myself, so hopefully it isn't 1:19 worth of poop. It's only one disc's worth instead of two (my program is three hours) because it's a community radio station, which means that we have wack-ass equipment. Like a CD burner that sometimes burns (Disc 1) and sometimes offers cryptic messages like "Check Disc" (Disc 2).

PC Load Letter! What the hell does that mean?


Update, 7.23: Eh, to heck with it. Playlist for yesterday's show is available here.

UPDATE, 7.29.2005: This download has been removed to make room for more recent MP3s. If you absolutely need a copy of this show, contact DMo.

Translation, "The game is up, Ferris."

Thanks to Kathleen who sent over this fine link. Are you familiar? Am I living in a shack? Either way, while I have not had much time to blog over the past couple of days, I have done my damnedest to let Gizoogle translate several of my favorite sites. Try it on for size; I think you'll like it.

The sample that she sent: a Gizoogle translation of Finding DMo available here.


A screen shot from the fine tranzilatin' folks at Gizoogle.

Leaky wizards, kids who speak bat and rich apples

Apparently, last Friday a British Columbia retailer sold 15 copies of the sixth installment of J.K. Rowling’s series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Canadian publisher of the series actually sought a court injunction forbidding those lucky 15 souls to speak at all about the book until Saturday morning, 12:01 a.m., the official release time. (You can read all about it here.)



Clearly, this was the idea of the kid dressed as Ron, not Harry.

Is anyone really surprised about this? And are we honestly supposed to believe that a retailer called “Real Canadian Superstore” that is essentially a Canuck Target, was unaware of the release date of Book Six? A book that will no doubt be a very big revenue-contributor for the store this coming weekend? A book that on the U.S.-side of the border has a first edition print run of 10.8 million scheduled by Scholastic, according to the New York Times. T-e-n-p-o-i-n-t-e-i-g-h-t-m-i-l-l-i-o-n! For a first edition. Pretty much rules out the chances of that first edition being worth anything 50 years down the line.



"It didn't take long for Billy to realize that wearing his new Harry Potter Quidditch costume to school was a mistake."

According to that same Times story, more than a million copies have already been ordered at Barnes & Noble alone, along with an additional 900,000 via Amazon, including mine, which will be delivered directly to me Saturday morning, ensuring that I don’t need to show up at a bookstore at 11:45 p.m. Friday night and take part in the awkward social experiment that is adults pining for the tales of a 16-year-old wizard, potentially wearing Hogwarts house colors and discussing their pet owls. No f-ing thanks.



Ok, dude, aren't you a bit old for this?

No offense, if that’s your bag. I’m sure that screech owls do make a fine urban pet; it's just that I’d prefer to keep my geeky anticipation of the book to myself -- or, at least keep it out of a crowded bookstore. If you are planning on spending your Friday night in line for hours for a book you reserved months ago, you may like this site.



I am willing to bet that this young woman will be at the bookstore at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Hopefully she remembers the rule about stripes and plaids before then.

Speaking of crazy talented young boys, while sitting on my stoop last night as dusk fell and the local bats appeared, I distinctly heard one of the neighborhood boys telling a younger one that he could talk to the winged rats.

“It’s true,” he said, standing in my driveway, neck bent back, head pointed straight up at the sky and a rock hidden in his hand. “My friend taught me. Listen.”

He proceed to make some sort of screeching sound that was loud enough to interrupt my phone conversation, arguably alter my hearing and gain his mother’s attention to call him in for the night. Apparently upset that this bat had the girth to make a liar of him and not heed his call, he let the rock fly, not even close enough to the bat to make it do the cool dive-at-it/you thing. Ah, young boys.

And in other news relating to me being a sheep (besides my being one of the few million who has already ordered his copy of HP), Apple announced its third-quarter earnings recently. According to the USA Today, Apple sold 6.2 million iPods in its third quarter alone, an increase of 616% from last year’s third quarter. Can you imagine that?

I'm sorry, a high of what?

This morning, on KRCL, Alison announced today's high in the Valley of 104 degrees. I had to verify; now I wish I hadn't. Google says this:


I would be interested to see Hades' forecast for the next few days. Couldn't be much worse than this one.

This makes me want to cry. There are few things that I hate more than the heat. It seems like another life when I wrote this post.

At night, when I lay in bed with as little clothing on as possible (read: boxers or none at all) and the AC is blasting, my poorly insulated old brick house keeps the heat in. So much so, that even with 5,000 BTUs bringing my bedroom to a remotely livable level, the walls remain hot to the touch, so that when I roll into them in my sleep, I awake startled, sure that the first nuke has landed in my backyard and melted me to my bed and walls.


Soon, I will resort to only using the pavement as my means of cooking. Hopefully, however, it will be documented in a slightly more flattering manner than this gentleman here is shown. At least he is wearing his hip pack.

I feel a little too close these days to the narrator from Shel Silverstein's poem "It's hot!" (A light in the Attic, HarperCollins 1981), which reads:

It's hot!
I can't get cool,
I've drunk a quart of lemonade,
I think I'll take my shoes off
And sit around in the shade.

It's hot!
My back is sticky,
The sweat rolls down my chin.
I think I'll take my clothes off
And sit around in my skin.

It's hot!
I've tried with 'lectric fans,
And pools and ice cream cones.
I think I'll take my skin off
And sit around in my bones.

It's still hot!

If only Allen had paid attention.

Last night, I had a fun lil IM conversation with J. Somehow, we started discussing childhood television favorites. I was appalled to learn that while living in Alaska, she was disconnected from the hijinks of Punky Brewster.

Man, I learned so much from that show.

Like to pay attention in class -- and ultimately, life. Otherwise, your friend could die a miserable death, most likely locked in a deserted refrigerator, gasping for air, screaming frantically, only to produce no audible sounds outside of the fridge. And it would all be on your hands. All your fault.


Joking around about that CPR dummy doesn't seem so funny now, does it, Allen?

If you had only paid attention in CPR class, Allen! Cherrie almost died! Almost died!


Nope. But this! This still seems damned funny.

Thanks, Punky. Another lesson learned. I'll sit in the front of the class with my eyes open from now on. And God help me, if I have to make out with a creepy male CPR dummy, I'll keep my smart-ass jokes to myself, unlike that blonde bastard.


My surrogate family.

It was only a matter of time...

... although, I have to admit, it took less than I thought it would.

Turns out that the tie-dye industry is not all that lucrative. My downstairs, nocturnal housemate who quit his job to live the dream of colorful t-shirt production, couldn't make rent this month. Instead, he is paying in small increments to our other housemate.

Man, am I happy that I had the foresight to add an addendum to my lease stating that I am only responsible for my portion of the rent.

wtf?

Oh no. No, please. No! Not a catch-up post!

Ugh.

I am looking for the last two weeks. Have you seen them? I seem to have misplaced them. I blame my forgetfulness on trabajo. I have been busy. Busier than busy. Business trip busy.

That's right, I am fresh from L.A., where I took a whirlwind tour of several clients. I am not feeling fresh though. (Insert feminine commercial joke here.)

I am tired and beaten and defeated. It may have been years since I have posted, or done several other things that I enjoy. I'll try and get back in the loop, but I make no promises.