which would you pick?

or




i'm sorry. which part of "which would you pick?" didn't you understand?? i didn't ask for my health! i KNOW that more than jesse has been to my blog. i have ways! now tell me your opinion!

Billy and the Texas Cheesecake Depository

we went out saturday night to celebrate billy and jody's birthdays. it was fun. the Cheesecake factory was cool, but uber expensive. and time consuming? granted, it was saturday night, but this?? we went in at 7pm and came out at 11pm. there were 4 circles of waiting (which when combined took 2 hrs). now that's nutrageous.

this isn't a very flattering picture of alison, but she'll never see this so who cares? :) (plus billy looks so happy. look at him. so happy.)



i just thought this was a funny angle of billy.



and there were a bunch of mirrors around the booth so i had to mess with those.

Bus Driver and the Spinning LEDs of Deerhoof

last night we decided to go see Bus Driver open for Deerhoof at the Mercy Lounge. i thoroughly enjoyed Bus Driver. the music and bass was awesome. he was so energetic. it was a bit frightening standing in the 2nd row and the speakers just way overwhelmed jesse's little mic on her camera. he was just all over the place.







then Deerhoof came on and people started getting stupid. this may come as a surprise, but i hate stupid people. particularly loud stupid people. anyway, we stayed up front for a few songs until people started jumping around and dancing (in an already packed crowd). this isn't really so much a problem for me because i'm big and can push back, but lil' jess can't, so we headed to the back. it was a wise decision. it didn't look like the crowd calmed whatsoever and it was cooler and more spacious in the back.






the awesome thing was this...






a spinning propeller of LEDs that reacted to the music. it was awesome, and as you can, i had an enjoyable time taking pictures of it.






the videos are processing at the moment.

this cat makes john karspeck's look like an angel

if you're down with Gregg, then you're down with me

wow. this weekend was something else. i couldn't have put together a better music weekend. Girl Talk and Philip Glass. unbelievable.



Saturday we just took it easy and hung around the apartment since it was snowing out like CRAZY. seriously, it wasn't sticking, but it was snowing like i hadnt seen here in a long time. i love watching it snow. so i actually sat around and scrapbooked (i dont usually get to work on that). and then that night we went to the Cannery Ballroom to hear Gregg Gillis mix it up.



that guy was a total nerd and danced almost (ALMOST) as bad as me. i loved it. he was really cool and extremely genuine. after the show he just hung around the front of the stage and talked to anybody that walked up; he just talked to them until they left; until THEY decided they were done talking. it was quite admirable. so we got our picture made with him and thanked him for the wonderful show.





we walked off for a minute and i remembered that i wanted to try and get a tshirt and cd (up to this point i had only had a downloaded copy (but i listened to it like crazy). i was waiting for the right moment to support his craft!). anyway, we walked back over to find him still there and i asked if he had any tshirts and CDs with him. he said he normally didnt sell merch at his shows and instead just gave stuff to whoever was there last. ...seriously. okay so, whoever hangs out with gregg gillis the longest gets a free shirt. yeah, i think i can handle that. so we went "backstage" with him and he gave us both sweet shirts (i'll post that as soon as i wash it) and we bought CDs and talked to him for 10 min or so (scott and jess were not so happy about our lagging around, but that's another story altogether). it was incredible. it really was like you'd just a good friend perform and you were backstage congratulating him. i really hope we can catch up with him at Bonnaroo. (and i can't wait to wear my tshirt.)





(here are the rest of the videos.)



for more Gregg, please visit Todd's Account.

then on Sunday night we went to see the Philip Glass Ensemble play at the Schermerhorn (compliments of my wife's searchery and findingness)! i thought it was just going to be the symphony playing his music but it wasn't! oh no. Philip Glass was freaking there. i was thrilled. so we went up to our $20 seats and enjoyed (most of) the first half. i say most because my love Glass's music is kind of black and white. there are a lot of his songs i just cant stand. i was telling jess i dont need much of a chord change in an 11min song, but i do have to have A chord change. i can't handle the 15min variations on one chord and various rhythms. conversely, when it's a 15min song of chord changes i DO like, i'm in heaven. anyway, during "halftime" we decided to see if we could find a seat in the lower balcony because there were many open. well, in the process of looking for it an usher asked if we needed help. well, i couldn't think of anything to say (i had already been asked not to take pictures by another usher, so i wasn't feeling the schermerhorn love), so i just told her the truth; we'd seen some open seats and were trying to find that balcony. much to my surprise one of the ushers was like, "well, i have a few boxes open if you'd like one of those instead." ...well, that was a freebie. so we went and sat in a box. it was WAY cool.



as if that weren't already enough, we walked around afterward and tried to find Mr. Glass. it seemed like a slightly ridiculous concept to me, but jess was very encouraging. we eventually wandered upon the green room. after some very timid knocking (on the door) on my part, jess decided to ask some kitchen staff where Philip Glass was. they said he was in there, did we have an RSVP? we were like, "no." and their reply? "ah just go on in." ...unbelievable. so we walked in like we too had donated a large sum of money to be there. i felt a bit out of place, but pressed on towards Mr. Glass. they had champagne and brownies and sprite and everything in there, but i couldnt let anything distract me from the mission at hand. i could be discovered a fraud at any moment. nah not really, everyone was cool and i'm cool so i blended right in. i waited in a small line and finally got to shake his hand and get an autograph. i would've loved to have talked to him for a bit but he seemed... well, old. he was turning 70 this week, i think. so he wasn't the easiest to converse with; seemed to have other things on his mind. so i told him 'thanks' and got my picture made with him and moved on. it wasn't how i had envisioned, but such is life. (he kept talking while jess was taking the picture so he looks kind of silly. nonetheless, i still felt extremely honored to have met him.)





yesterday i spent some time looking for a gig poster from saturday night's show. for some reason there had been 2 at the show. with some help i tracked down both of their creators and figured out how to get one. well, last night i decided at the last minute to stop by grimeys and catch this Christian band playing an instore (which is fairly rare). while i was there i decided to ask if they had any extra gig posters. the girl i asked turned around and grabbed one right behind her. "here you go." sweet sassy molassy! the only thing was, it was the more "sex oriented" of the 2:



while i think it's a really cool designed poster, i can fully understand my wife not wanting it up. so, i waited for the performance to end and asked a different employee if i could have that one (too). "sure, why not." my goodness. this is too good to be true. so i accepted it and quietly shuffled out the door. i was excited. here's the other one:



anyway, what a tremendous weekend. it was just... really something.

so much music to come.

what a great sunset yesterday (i did saturate the colors a bit). i wish i could've been someone cool to see it instead of driving home trying see it whenever i could. it was like the best one i've seen in 6 months.



there is a lot of music coming up (not counting this weekend, yeah GIRL TALK!). and tomorrow jess and i get to go see the symphony play Philip Glass! i can't wait. so here we go:

03.02 - Apollo Up! - Basement - $5
03.09 - The Shins - Ryman - $28/$35
03.10 - Of Montreal - Mercy Lounge - $15
03.15 - Silversun Pickups - Exit/In - $12
03.24 - Tokyo Police Club & Cold War Kids - Mercy Lounge - $10

04.05 - Decemberists - City Hall - $22
04.09 - Ratatat - Mercy Lounge - $12
04.14 - TV on the Radio - Mercy Lounge - $15
04.17 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Mercy Lounge - $19
04.23 - The Killers - Ryman - $38 (geez!) (and it's sold out) (but you could find them if you wanted)

there are more, but you probably definitely havent heard of them.

see you at Girl Talk (i'm excited).

it's Tuesday

well, billy may have made his invisible book shelves, but i got my Mont Blanc G2. and i must say, it writes fantastically. so smooth. the perfect amount of ink. no skips.



time for jesse's February Mix. this one is a bit more up tempo and heavier than the December Mix. if you missed the December Mix (and i know you did. i can tell!), please, it was a great one. i'm still listening to it. anywho, here's the track list:

K-OS - Valhalla
Bloc Party - The Prayer
Tokyo Police Club - Cheer It On
Girl Talk - Bodies Hit the Floor
The Sunshine Underground - Commercial Breakdown
Four Tet - Mom, The Video Broke
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Goodbye to Mother and the Cove
Four Tet - Les Yper-Sound
Of Montreal - Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider
Bjorn Kleinhenz & Pete Thompson - Smog Bomb
The Dears - You and I Are a Gang of Losers
Sufjan Stevens - Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Bloc Party - Song for Clay (Disappear Here)
Tokyo Police Club - Citizens of Tomorrow
Fallout Boy - The (After) Life of the Party
The Sunshine Underground - Borders
Linkin Park & Jay-Z - Jigga What/Faint
RJD2 - Get It
Michael Jackson - Black or White
Fatboy Slim - Punk to Funk

please enjoy.




i went to take some pictures sunday after i played ULTIMATE FRISBEE. i just remembered that. i went over to park and found the nashville club team people play pick-up ultimate every sunday at 2 pm right down the road. i played for an hour or so. my legs have been incredibly sore since. i need to start running. but it was great to run around and throw.



it wasnt a very fulfilling photograph outing. i honestly didn't come up with much at all that really inspired me. i just couldn't find it. i guess that's the way it goes sometimes.



i'm actually a little bored with landscape stuff. i really want to take pictures of people or something, but i dont know how to get into that. i'm not sure how that's really done. i guess you just ask them?





i did get a fun (useful) toy for my camera. i got a shutter release cable so that i can take really long exposures when i need more than a 30" shutter speed. this was probably 60sec or so. look how it doesnt even pick me up. i'm not running or anything. the aperture's just so small.




4 days till Girl Talk.

finally!

i think it looks great.



it will be interesting to see how it's accepted by older people.