The tracks lyrics are below and they are a either a tribute to Christopher Hitchens, (famous atheist, author). Or he’s referring to himself. Either way, I like it, the fact that someone could be so self indulgent as to declare himself king. Which I think he is because of the reference to King or Queen depending on your mood. He’s been known to enjoy drag. Or to have had the balls to write a song saluting atheism and what some would argue, is one of the most militant atheists.

Update: It really is an ode to Hitchens, IAMX confirmed it on his Facebook.

This is our tribute to one of the greatest writers and thinkers of our time. Spread the message to everyone you know.

Sleigh Bells – Treats

(more to come later)

I predict next year will be the year La Roux, Florence and The Machine break onto the US scene. Do yourself a favor and experience La Roux visually by viewing her music videos. Her label stupidly doesn’t allow the embedding of her videos from Youtube or I’d post them here.

Send me an @ on twitter or comment below with songs you think should fill in the last 4 to make it a full top 20.

Albums/Artists that aren’t on the list but are worth a listen:

Wolfmother
YACHT
Esser
Boy In Static
Ishi (local)

Other lists worth taking a listen to include @weeklytapedeck & @gorillavsbear

I’ve been a long time fan of Imogen Heap, as in, I had iMegaphone on cassette tape back in 1998 and my old friend Ryan Obermeyer did the art work for Speak For Yourself. When I heard that she had chosen the Granada as the venue for her Dallas performance I had an internal SQUEEEEE! Think flaming gay man with flailing arms excited running down a hallway excited. But as most know me, I am a calm natured in real life and not so ready to start fires with my gayness, so I kept my cool but with a big smile.

The Show

I unexpectedly managed to get in during the sound check for Immi. When I say unexpected, I mean I didn’t realize she’d be doing sound check so late. She literally left the stage minutes before people entered the venue.

My good friend Eva and I sat and watched as Immi tested various equipment and songs in her non-stage clothes and her simple hair up in a bun do. It was one of those “damn this job is so awesome” moments.

Then in a unbelievably packed to the hilt Granada Theater I watched Back Ted-n-Ted and Tim Exile play with what I like to call “toys” on stage, working their craft to the delight of the crowd.

When Imogen hit the stage she did as I expected, wonderful. She’s got a charmed presence on stage that is endearing to fans of her music. Her tinkering with the equipment, song restarts and mumbling to herself into an open mic during the show never felt like a disappointment, it just added charm to the show.

She played nearly an equal amount from both of her mainstream albums and nothing from iMegaphone. One of my favorite songs from Eclipse, Bad Body Double was presented as almost more of a rap version than the album’s version. With Buffi Jacobs of Polyphonic Spree Immi performed another favorite, Aha! which I have always thought of as very much like a Tim Burton/Danny Elfman composed song with Imogen Heap doing vocals. Come to think of it, even the tree and lighting for the tour almost seems like early Tim Burton (but a little more feminine).

During Hide and Seek and Just For Now Imogen “played the crowd like an instrument” # which admittedly sent chills through me as I heard the perfectly synchronized voices of the people below rise up and meet with Imogen’s vocals. It was one of those moments I live for when seeing an artist perform live.

Behind the Granada I waited in the cold along with many other fans to get an autograph and a photo with Imogen. While it was chilly, it was worth the wait. She’s just as pleasant in person as she is on the stage. She even got the group of fans to sing Happy Birthday to a girl named NayNay which I’m sure made for one super happy fan and a wonderful birthday present!

The techie in me took the time to put together an RSS feed of links to postings all over the web about the show using Yahoo Pipes and Imogen’s ingenious idea to use hashtags/tags for every show on the tour. You can click here to view it. Also embedded below are some photos and videos I took. Enjoy!

Imogen Heap at Granada Theater youtube playlist

Top 5 Albums of 2008
I pulled these from my play counts compiled by my Last.fm & Zune.net accounts.

Gnarls Barkley – The Odd Couple
Santogold – Santogold
Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
IAMX – The Alternative
Dead Confederate – Wrecking Ball

Mixtape from http://favtape.com/got80s/top 5 08

Top 5 Movies

The Dark Knight – The last, and a great performance by Heath Ledger, can’t say the same for Christian Bale.
Milk – Great look into GLBT history, Harvey Milk is our MLK.
Wall-E – Simply the MOST stunning Sci-Fi film ever.
Kung Fu Panda- Another out of left field, really funny movie that appeals to adults and children alike.
Hancock – Surprisingly funny, refreshing to finally see Will Smith be a dick.

Top 5 Fun Movies

Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay – A must see for those who saw the first, or if you are a current or former pot head.
Wanted – No holds barred action film with the same director that did Night Watch / Day Watch.
Step Brothers- had me ROFLOL in the first 5 mins and for the rest of the film.
House Bunny – Seriously, it will make you laugh.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall - Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars), and Russell Brand, who was actually funny in this movie, unlike his appearance on MTV.

Top 5 Software / Tools

Twitter - After having an account for 7 months before I actually started using it, I’ve finally figured out how to use it and now I’m hooked. my account

Launchy - I don’t need icons anymore thanks to this free piece of software.

Digsby - I ditched the bug laden IM program Pidgin for this all in one piece of add free software and now I’m loving it.

Firefox 3 – If you are still using Internet Explorer on your home computer you are an idiot. ( I understand if you can’t use it on your work computer) If you need to be educated on why Firefox is awesome watch this video.
Google Reader – Forget actually visiting sites to see new content, make your own “newspaper” with Google Reader & the RSS feeds from the sites you visit, you’ll get addicted.

Top 5 (nah, just 2) Concerts

Both of these concerts were visually stunning, they will stick in my mind as some of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

Nine Inch Nails – Lights in The Sky Tour

Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping Tour

Top 5 TV Shows

Little Britian USA – The UK version is just as funny.

The I.T. Crowd – UK is on season 3, but you can catch it on IFC currently showing season 2.

Dexter - I promise, you will be cheering on a serial killer by the time you finish your first episode ( you can rent the first 2 seasons, season 3 just finished airing)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - This show is a little over the top with drama, but the visuals are great for a TV series, plus it’s available to watch in full on Hulu.com

Chuck – Currently on season 2 (you can watch on Hulu.com ), rent season 1. It’s consistently funny and well written.

Until next year, toodles..

I had a temporary period where my Creative Zen died on me and I had to hear the world around me minus my personal soundtrack. Never realized how uber-boring and quiet it can be on campus and in my cube at work. I quickly made with the spending of money that I didn’t have and broke my longtime tradition of buying Creative players and got a Microsoft Zune 2.0. I emphasize the V2 because V1 was an absolute EPIC FAIL. Except for the awesomeness of sharing songs which was dubbed squirting .  I have to say aside from some little uber-tech speak problems, the player is quite usable.

I’m in the market for a new cell phone and the new iPhone looks promising but the plans are just wayyyy out of my $$$ range. Plus I’m with T-mobile and currently contract free so if I’m ever booted out the door at my temp job and times get tough I can drop my phone without paying an arm and leg. Phones contract free are freaking expensive and to be quite honest they all just suck. I text and call, maybe use the web once in a blue moon on my phone. I’d like to get a “qwerty” phone because I do 90% texting and 10% calling. I just can’t find one that I like, that I can afford. I think they consulted Barbie when making the latest Blackberry because the keys are so small I can’t even use it. I’ve gotten so frustrated by trying to find a phone that I like that I’ve almost just given up and said fuck’em all together. For now my phone is getting some glue since it’s all sorts of cracked.

I’m listening to music like crazy lately. Found a bunch of new artists and some old ones that dropped new albums. You can see what I’ve been into by checking out my Last.fm account, friend me if you are on it. They are still working on making the Zune work with it (they=hackers). Matt got me into The Office, of which I’ve now seen every episode. I myself revisited Weeds and found that I can’t miss an episode now and nor can Matt. Aside from that, nothing in the glorious world of TV has pulled me in.

As I mentioned long ago, I’m taking 2 summer classes. The film one is almost done and the Digital Photography class is almost useless. The best part is the tax write off for the Canon Rebel I had to buy for the class. I’m still on Flickr and uploading most of my homework alongside regular photos, so if you are interested head on over and check it out. If you want to just track everything I do online you can join me on FriendFeed or just subscribe to my feed. I read a lot of articles and hear a lot of music online and sometimes recommend something to read. FriendFeed is a timeline of all of my online activities, including this blog. I live under the reality that Privacy is Dead so I willingly jack myself into the net and let it know my thoughts.

In the real world, stuff has happened.

There’s been two new additions to the family since I last blogged. Matt’s sister had her baby boy Jacob and his sister-in-law just had her boy Ian. I’m kinda over babies, I mean seriously, I’m now an uncle 12x’s over. Not to mention my friends got into the whole baby thing (Will/Bethany). I’m just excited that I’m baby free, they’re cute, but they are quite the handful. Plus, I’m a smidge ADD and tend to get into something that’s new and then get bored with it. That might be problematic if Matt and I adopted. I mean you can’t in all good sense return a baby. They don’t come with receipts do they?

Here’s the video

When I’m at the pearly gates
This’ll be on my videotape
my videotape

When Mephistopheles is just beneath
And he’s reaching up to grab me

This is one for the good days
And I have it all here
In red blue green
Red blue green

You are my center when I spin away
Out of control on videotape
On videotape

This is my way of saying goodbye
Because I can’t do it face to face

No matter what happens now
I won’t be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.

Concerts, as you know, per my pasts posts, I’ve been to quite a few shows and seen a lot of bands this year. I promised myself that I’d just do Austin City Limits. Well, that just didn’t happen. Here’s my top 5 concerts.

1. ACL – Ghostland Observatory, Bjork, Regina Spektor, Muse.

2. Rufus Wainwright & Neko Case

3. Rilo Kiley

4. The Black Angels

5. TOOL

This year has to be the year that too many bands released too many good albums. It was hard to choose, but my number one is my number one because it was just that good. The marketing, the websites, the CD it’s self, the go fuck the music industry attitude of the lead singer just made it that much better.

1. Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero

2. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

3. Tori Amos – American Doll Posse

4. Amy Winehouse – Back to Black

5. Beirut – The Flying Club Cup

As I said, there has been a whole lot of really really good music released this year. My favorite new discoveries this year are bands that I found via various podcasts and word of mouth.

1. The Black Angels

2. Rilo Kiley

3. Yeasayer

4. Animal Collective

5. Band of Horses

If I’ve kept you here. Then now onto non music top 5′s.

Movies

1. The Bourne Ultimatum

2. Transformers

3. Knocked Up

4. Superbad

5. Hot Fuzz

Mentioned time and time again, I listen to and watch video podcasts like TV shows. I actually spend more of my time listening and watching them then regular radio & tv broadcasts. So here are my top five Podcast & Vidcasts this year.

1. Wait Wait!! Don’t Tell Me – http://www.npr.org/programs/waitwait/

2. Feast of Fools – http://www.feastoffools.net

3. Dan Savage – Savage cast NSFW

4. SModcast – Kevin Smith’s Podcast – http://quickstopentertainment.com/smodcast/

5. Midwest Teen Sex Show NSFW Videocast

Due to the nature of my job and my school and side jobs, I do a lot of web surfing. I have to thank the all mighty master Google for creating and updating Google Reader to where I can use it. I honestly can surf 10x faster and find stuff that really interest me via RSS feeds, rather than actually reading everything and going to the sites.

Here are my top 5 website discoveries

1. ColourLovers – Lovers of color and mixtures – http://www.colourlovers.com/

2. PSDTuts – Photoshop Tutorials – http://psdtuts.com/

3. Explosm.net / Cyanide and Happiness – http://www.explosm.net/comics/

4. Hypem.com – The Hype Machine <– Firefox + Download Helper = Free Mp3′s

5. Design is Kinky – About all designs, real world and digital.

There could be many many more 5′s in this list. But for now, this will do. Let me know what you think by commenting.

Coffee for me is either a triple or quad shot of espresso with a half squirt of chocolate syrup. It’s like having a liquefied dark espresso chocolate bars. I <3 my Starbucks for the simple fact that I only have to hold up fingers for how many shots I need. No talking, just fingers and an exchange of money. It works best that way when I’m really not awake. People generally annoy me in the mornings and when I say people, I mean Matt. j/k.

Recently in a rare instance I was awake on a visit to my local drug dealer aka Starbucks and I decided to ask for a quad shot. The barista gave me the look of shock that I would want so much and I said “today, I wanna vibrate”.

I then got into my car and proceeded to queue up and play to an extreme loudness “Ghostland Observatory’s, Vibrate” to kick off my vibration themed morning.

I’m glad to say that I didn’t miss the opening band called Grand Ole Party.

They were quite fun and worth seeing. One rarity for me occurred for me, I actually bought a cd from an opening band! The band reminded me a lot of The Gossip with their catchy drum beats and female lead singer. (I included a video of them from another live appearance below).

The second band wasn’t a hit with me. They were called “The Bird and the Bee” and aside from technical difficulties, they just sucked. I mean really really sucked.

Like opening band sucked, like trapped in an elevator listening to bad muzak versions of 90′s grunge music bad.

I can only assume they were put in the middle because the lead singer of Grand Ole Party was used for backing vocals for Rilo Kiley.

Now after being tortured by the sucktastic band that was up last we were privy to what had to be the longest setup ever for a band. I, along with the rest of the crowd surrounding me seriously were tired of the constant checking by the sound guy who btw really needed to re-evaluate the skinny pants. Not that he didn’t fit in them, it was that he just had no ass.

See more here

So finally, after all of that.. Rilo Kiley entered the stage to a very very enthusiastic crowd and just ripped right into “It’s a Hit”. Every last person in the crowd knew the lyrics! I felt like such a poser or something. I just got into them about 2 months ago and just sorta knew the songs but didn’t know them. They played from about 10:40 till around 12:15. Thankfully they played all of my favorite songs and for almost every major song the crowd sang along, which could have been annoying but it made the evening more fun.

Grand Ole Party Stuff

Thankfully this year they got a night time slot and were able to show off with some spectacular stage lights…

I was up towards the camera rigging and the lights were constantly blinding my camera so my shots weren’t great. I was dancing anyways because the beats were so infectious.

This performance is kind of calm compared to live shows..but you can see the energy he has in studio…it’s only say 10x’s that when he’s got the crowd he had at ACL.

Here’s a link to a 2 videos of Bjork & some photos are below…

Video 1

Video 2

Link to photoset on flickr for ACL 2007. 

Something sarcastically fun by Rilo Kiley – Breakin’ Up

The Rilo Kiley is off the new album which is really good and worth purchasing.. Also check out the lead singers side project, Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins.

Born Secular

Part of my organization is buying these bins for the trunk of my car from the new Target in town.

They were only 15 a piece and make excellent clothing & towel holders, so they get to hold my workout clothes and my after workout clothes. Along with the clothing holders I also use my small cooler to keep my bottled waters cooled and ready to use. Another item on my list of things I needed is a smaller mp3 player to make me a bit more mobile at the gym. While I love my Creative Zen:M, it’s just not light enough to strap on my arm. So, to continue my jewish like tendencies when it comes to money and to satisfy my love of technology I got me the Creative Zen Stone. Same principle of the iPod Shuffle but half the price. And going along with the other Creative players it can connect to any computer and have songs transferred on and off the unit w/o installing software.

Now I just have to pick my workout songs. I’ve already figured out that I like Rock and Rock-like techno and Death Metal as my workout music. Yeah I know, calm, collected little me loves the Death Metal. Recently I found this CD by a band called Justice via one of my many podcasts I listen to and after some searching on the hype machine I found this track that is a remixed version of one of the Justice tracks called “Stress” done by a Tokyo DJ.

If you search the hype machine you can find the tracks for many artists and if your a Firefox + DownloadHelper user you can yoink them off the media player for your own personal use .

So far I’m down 7 lbs from my start of my “diet”. I’m moving to have my scale say 15 or less % body fat and I’d be happy at 170 lbs. I’m keeping track of my weight publicly on my skinnyr log. As you can see last semester stress eating and just overall bad eating caused an increase in my weight. I’m trying to figure out how to carry extra food around since I don’t get out of class till 10pm I can’t wait to eat and fast food no matter what form is still bad.