Dinosaur Flash

I have had the same digital camera (a Cannon S50) for the past six years. It's bulky by today's standards, and is by no means a High Definition machine (5.0 megapixels!), but it's reliable and I like the quality of pictures and videos it takes, grainy artifacts and all.

But one thing I've always wished it did was store more pictures. Don't laugh, but it only recently dawned on me that I could solve this problem by just picking up a new, larger memory card.

Until earlier today, I had two Flash memory options-- a 32MB one and a "big" 128MB one, both of which are hilarious numbers to say out loud now (who uses megabytes anymore? I have a pen with a built-in 1GB USB stick), but in their day they got the job done.


So imagine my excitement when I found an 8GB Compact Flash card this morning! What a ridiculous upgrade! Now if only my battery would hold more than 20 minutes worth of charge...

Open thread: what turn-of-the-century pieces of technology do you have and should have upgraded from years ago but, for whatever reason, can't get rid of (first generation iPod, anyone)?

The Dustys are playing!

D.C.'s own The Dustys (featuring Peter H. of Thee Iran-Contras) are making their New York debut at Public Assembly in Brooklyn on Monday, August 3rd.

Pete has the keyboard/tambourine/Nastanovich role in the band, and should be a ton of fun to watch, cheer on and buy beers for. We encourage you to go to the show and do any combination of that list while there.

See you at the show!

Poisoned by food

I was sick yesterday. Really sick, in a gross way. All signs point to food poisoning, and most of those signs point to the cheap knock-off jar of peanut butter I bought on Wednesday:


Super A is a grocery store near where I work-- I don't know if it's a national chain, but either way, AVOID SUPER A PEANUT BUTTER. It will fuck you up.

On a related note, because of this, I missed last night's Handmade Music night at 3rd Ward, which promised to be the best one yet. Did you go? Have any stories to share?? I apologize to the people I said I would meet there who I did not get in touch with beforehand. I hope you had a good enough time for the both of us.

Doepfer A-118 Noise module

Here are a couple of videos of patches centered around the newest module in our synthesizer, the Doepfer A-118 Noise (& Random Voltage). It's a pretty simple machine-- two "tone" sources (white noise and blendable red-and-blue colored noise) with a random voltage output (which mimics the colored noise settings)). A lot of fun and much more useful than I thought it would be (I almost always have the Noise Generator on our Rogue switched off).

What should we get next? I'm leaning towards the A-134-2 Dual VC Crossfader, but am open to suggestions. In the meantime, on to the videos:

Charlie Slick hijacking parties

Charlie toured with our friend Patrick Elkins a few months back and put on what was probably the highest production value show the free stage at Pianos has ever seen. You should catch him live if you get the chance and, even if you're a hermit, get his records-- they're good.

Dead Moon Night

The next "Full Moon" night (see below) is August 6th. Pet Cemetery--as a werewolf gang--is going. Meet us there!!


(via the Cyclone blog)

I rode my bike to Coney Island earlier this week. Despite the fact that the batting cages have been taken down, it's still a great place to spend an afternoon:


And just because they're on my mind...

Pet Cemetery

Pet Cemetery (The Speers + Shannon & Kelly from The Dark Horses) had its much anticipated first practice last night in Bay Ridge. We recorded 8 new "songs" and should have an EP out on Colonial soon!

New Mexicoe "Second Rehearsal"

New Mexicoe's debut EP, "Second Rehearsal." 33 minutes.

Jess, Kyle, Lindsay, Peter, Scott

Audio: 6/24/09
Video: 6/26/09 (begins 1 minute in)

Songs:

New Mexicoe [by Rick Danko]
Street People [by Bobby Charles]
Touchdown
Over the Hill [by John Martyn]

This is Colonial Recordings USA #084.

Scene from NM practice

Part of our cover of Bobby Charles' "Street People":

The first New Mexicoe CDEP will be out NEXT WEEK! Four songs, recorded on a dictaphone at rehearsal June 24th. The clip above should give you an idea as to what it sounds like.

RIP Sky Saxon

Sky Saxon was my favorite singer. He died today in Texas.

Here are two clips of him on American Bandstand:




...his only big hit, "Pushin' Too Hard":



...and Jess mixing drinks to the tune of "Travel With Your Mind":

Rest in peace, Sky Saxon.

New Mexicoe Tumblr

Scott, New Mexicoe's bandleader and former titular member of The McDowells, has set up a Tumblr blog for the band. We will not be using social networking sites for promotion, so either look here or there for info on shows/records/MP3s/etc.

I've put a link to the site in the list on the right.

New Mexicoe, rehearsal #2

We had rehearsal #2 with New Mexicoe last night, and all agree: it felt more like rehearsal #8. Things are really coming along! We hope to play our first show some time in July-- I'll post the details on that front as soon as I have them.

Also worth mentioning is our string of good-luck in finding rehearsal spaces. We had our inaugural practice at WFMU; this time, we were in the Clap Your Hands/National/Radical Dads (Lindsay from NM's main band) space which had not one but two DX7s in it:


One more time, with a flash... there they are!

RAST hack, pt. 2

Picked up another one: