This new design and updated version of Wordpress sure won’t count for much if I don’t post things.

So I have these two, new, nice-sounding, song-ish songs that I’ve been working with lately. On one of them I even attempted to sing, which was a disaster. No Auto-Tune can even come close to fixing the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing. I’d like to post something here, but I’d like to set it up as an embedded thing to make it at least a little more difficult to download the file. Once I figure that out, I’ll get some samples up here.

Yesterday, while waiting for dinner, I stumbled into the Aroma Tea Shop on Polk Street. The owner was running the place and gave us a very informative tea tasting. This morning I am having a cup of my Lychee Black Tea. Good stuff.

… It’s just rust.

I’ve determined that my acoustic guitar is terrible. The intonation is out of whack, tone is awful, and it sounds nothing like I want it to when I record it using the other equipment I currently own. That being said, one option is to buy better microphones, preamps, and revamp my DAW to work with the instruments I own. I prefer the approach of replacing the guitar. And, of course, by “replace” I simply mean “buy a new one”. I still own the first guitar I ever owned - some no-name brand electric - and don’t ever plan on ditching any of my instruments.

Basically, the music I’ve been recording sounds like crap. So, in a slightly related topic: see here.

I’m going to use this post to draw your attention to a cool little website, called MixTurtle. It’s similar to The Hype Machine without any extra information or news or whatever. If you want to just play a song, check out MixTurtle.

Also, I have this song stuck in my head:
http://mixturtle.com/song/529381/3/peter-gabriel-down-to-earth…

A very special thanks to Dan for the heads-up on the upcoming Sigur Ros’ Fall tour! Thanks to him, I a) learned of the tour, and b) was able to get tickets during the presale for the October 3rd at the Greek Theatre.

As an aside, I finally have California license plates for my car. I feel official now.

Or “Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust”, the title Sigur Ros’ fifth studio album set to be released later this month. My dad and sister just saw them perform last night in the Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center in New York. It was a fantastic show, apparently.

Listen to the new album at last.fm (the audio is better quality compared to sigur-ros.com)

This should be another “fucking finally” post. What started on March 13th was finally completed this weekend. I have listened to my iPod (in alphabetical order, by song). Hooray for me!

Now I can go back to playing whatever I feel like.

Add another New York-based concert that I’ll be missing: some MySpace Secret Show with Gnarls Barkley and Battles.

Hey, at least I got to see Crudo!

AND TODAY IS MY VIRTUAL FRIDAY, AND THE 2 HOUR LOST FINALE IS TONIGHT!!!

Last night marked the world debut of Crudo. A brand new collaboration between Mike Patton and Dan “The Automator”. As of writing this, the only decent information is available on the band’s Myspace page and a brief note on the Ipecac Recordings website (Patton’s record label). You can hear one track so far, “Let’s Go”, but an EP is definitely in the works.

The show was fantastic. Very enjoyable. I forgot to grab earplugs, so unfortunately today my ears are ringing.

The band performed a few treats, for those in the audience familiar with other Patton works. Two Lovage tracks: “Anger Management” and “Book of the Month”, and the Peeping Tom, Patton/Automator, track “Mojo”. Both acts I would highly recommend a listen.

I’ll never understand the point of encores. I think it’s a very rare occasion when a band leaves the stage, audience still cheering, and a wave of panic sets in: “Oh no, what are we going to play? We played everything. If we go back out now and do another song, it will be something that we haven’t rehearsed or anything! What are we going to do! They’re still cheering! Aaagh!”. Chances are, the encore is written into the set list. Why waste the time of exiting and re-entering the stage, just play a set and finish! Anyway enough ranting.

Crudo performed 2 encores. The first was one song. The second was 2 songs, ending with a David Bowie cover of “Life On Mars”. It was hard to film things, but I got an incredibly short clip, up on my Flickr, along with the other pictures from the show. Enjoy.

Pete: Well, the presence of Mike Patton doesn’t guarantee I’ll like something - or that it’s even good, and not just shouts, growls, clicks and whistles.
Adam: Right.
Adam: “Adult Themes For Voice”.
Pete: Good ol’ that.

My reason for not writing frequently this month is a short array of reasons. We’ll call it excuseArray.
   excuseArray[0] = “I’ve been busy”
   excuseArray[1] = “I haven’t been able to think of anything decent to write about”
   excuseArray[2] = “The times I have ‘worked’ on the site, it has been strictly to make an upgrade. Which has only failed miserably”
   excuseArray[3] = “I really want a website makeover (a small one) before I get back into the habit of writing stupid posts again”

Sigur Ros is slowly announcing shows for their summer tour. One of the 4 total United States dates is in Manhattan. The closest venue is in Omaha City, Nebraska. This is a very disappointing thing.

I’m not sure which is the worst way to not see a touring artist: 1) The artist is not performing anywhere near you. Or 2) Realizing the artist is on tour and searching for tickets after the date in your city has already passed. I think #2 sucks more, but they both definitely suck.

It’s nearly the weekend! I’ll have better updates after I can learn how to write CSS.

Since MG was a disappointment, 3 people I want to meet: Steven Wilson, Mike Patton and Trent Reznor