I’m Gonna Keep It Real, My Friends. R-E-A-L

Folks, don’t miss this Friday at the Echoplex.

New Obama Video

Another Obama video from will.i.am.

Some Racing, Some Stopping

I would be remiss to not mention the release of Some Racing, Some Stopping, the new album from Headlights, one of my favorite bands and the namesake of this blog (”the joke is up” is the opening lyric to the song “It Isn’t Easy to Live That Well” off of their debut ep). I pre-ordered the record off of the Polyvinyl online store and it arrived last week. Since then, the jams have been on constant repeat.

I’d say this is their best effort to date. They’ve put together a complex array of aural textures while still delivering simply blissful and balanced pop sensibilities. Meanwhile, singers Erin Fein and Tristan Wraight sound better than ever. Their first single off the album, “Cherry Tulips,” (mp3) is the finest example of all this. There is a constant layering and swelling of sound that is kept in a dreamy satisfying check with the wistful calls of the guitar slides and Erin’s lovely “woo-oo-ooh’s”. Anyways, here’s the video.

Headlights, who have amassed a stunning amount of tour dates since their inception, are currently on tour to support the new album. They’ll be swinging by the Silverlake Lounge in Los Angeles on March 19, after what will surely be a rocking good time for them at SXSW.

Time to Dance

It’s Friday! Time to dance.

In other news, today marks four years of dating Bronwyn, in what we’ve dubbed as our “Valiversary.” Due to its close proximity to Valentine’s Day and our mutual dislike of arbitrary holiday card festivities, we decided to roll what would be Valentine’s Day celebrations into our anniversary. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), since we’re set to be wed in May, this will be our last Valiversary as the dating anniversary will be replaced with our nuptial one. At any rate, though Bronwyn has to work tonight, we’ve got a fun weekend planned of picnics, Thai massages, ice cream, cooking classes, and lindy hop. Huzzah! Since I’m rolling solo tonight, I’ll be heading out to Midnight Ridazz.

Modern Nostaliga

While still on the subject of Pete and Pete, check out this video from The XYZ Affair for their song “All My Friends” and see how many ’90s Nickelodeon cameos you can spot.

From their web page, they write:

In this video an epic battle rages between ourselves and our nefarious neighbor, Marc Summers. We call on a few friends (some of whom you might recognize from early 90s Nickelodeon shows such as “Pete & Pete,” “Clarissa Explains It All,” and “Salute Your Shorts”) to help us clean house. But all goes delightfully awry. AYE DIOS MIO!

Big Pete Rides

Nada Surf has a new video out for their song “Whose Authority” featuring big Pete from one of my favorite ’90s shows, The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

New Toys (and old ones)

The concerts last weekend were, of course, good times. I picked up a decent amount of swag, including vinyl from both Saturday Looks Good to Me and Of Montreal. However, to listen to it meant I needed to get a new turntable. I broke my previous one when Bronwyn and I moved to our current apartment. I was hooking it back up, but accidentally used the wrong AC adapter and fried the circuits. I had been meaning to get a replacement, and the new records from the weekend were a good reason to finally get around to doing that.

I opted for the Numark’s USB turntable so that I could turn all my analog stuff into mp3s. Haven’t installed the software yet so I don’t know how well that works, but I’ll let you guys know once I’ve done a few records. I’m on a 30-day trial membership of Amazon.com’s Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping, so I ordered the turntable on Sunday, it shipped Monday, and arrived today. It would have arrived yesterday, but nobody was home to sign for it, so I had to stick around this morning to wait for the delivery. Not bad turnaround, though. If I ordered more stuff off of Amazon.com, it might actually be worth it to me to pay the $79 a year for that quick of service.

Now you know when you pull out an old coat, reach into the pocket, and find a $20 bill you had forgotten all about? I had something similar happen when I pulled out my crate of records that had been collecting dust since my old turntable broke. Last year, Of Montreal put out 2000 copies of an double LP full of remixes off of Satanic Panic in the Attic and The Sunlandic Twins called Satanic Twins. I thought I had missed out on getting a copy and was ready to pay to download the mp3s off of iTunes (they’re one of my favorite bands so I will happily pay to support them). It turns I do actually have a copy that had remained unopened because I didn’t have anything on which to play it. Score!

Another toy that I picked up two weeks ago (the reason I started my Amazon Prime trial membership) is a new point-and-shoot camera, the Canon Powershot G9. I needed an alternative to my DSLR that I could easily throw into a bag without having it take up the entire bag, and my old point-and-shoot - a 2.1 MP brick by Olympus, was ready for an upgrade. This camera is absolutely freaking awesome. Fantastically sharp and beautiful images, great color reproduction, and easily accessible manual controls. And with optical image stabilization, an f/2.8 lens, and a fairly usable 800 ISO (even a passable 3200 ISO) it’s a great low-light camera which is perfect for me. Plus it takes an external flash so I can share the same system for both it and my DSLR. Here’s a few photos I’ve taken with it:

I’ve got my dancing shoes on…

And I feel alright.

It is extremely hard to focus at work right now with the oncoming dance party that will be the weekend. I will be seeing not one, but TWO of my top-five favorite bands in the span of 24 hours. Tonight, Bronwyn and I, and a couple of friends are going to Of Montreal at the Avalon. I’ve been a fan of theirs since The Gay Parade, but their last three albums - Satanic Panic in the Attic, The Sunlandic Twins, and Hissing Fauna, You Are the Destroyer - have continued to pump up the pop-dance power at exponential steps while still holding true to their unique psychedelic sound.

Here’s a photo I took of the band when they played at the Echoplex (more photos from that show here. And I have to admit, Kevin, the lead singer, is one of the few guys out there that I would man-crush on. I mean, totally secure in my heterosexuality here, but can you blame me?

Anyways, so that’s Friday. Saturday evening, Bronwyn and I will be seeing Saturday Looks Good to Me at The Echo. They haven’t done any videos, but here’s a recording of a live performance. Forgive the bad sound.

That video was done in February. I saw them in March at Spaceland where Fred Thomas, the lead singer and mastermind behind SLGTM, said there was no longer a female singer in the band. I wonder if that’s still the case as that really changed the sound of the group for the worse. Thomas is a fantastic songwriter, but the female vocalist in the band was necessary to add the extra bit of pop that Thomas’ singing alone lacked. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the March show, but it just wasn’t the same.

After the SLGTM show, Bronwyn and I will be switching shoes and possibly outfits for a different kind of dance party as we head out to our alma mater, Pomona College, to bust out the lindy hop moves at the Swing Jam. The 5-C Lindy Hop Club was something my friend Stephanie and I resurrected at the Claremont Colleges, organizing and teaching lindy hop lessons and putting on dances. Three years after graduating, I am so happy to see that the club is still going strong. This year they’re raising money for charity while offering raffle prizes from local donors. That is so awesome. I feell like a gushing parent. It’s definitely grown beyond what I was able to accomplish during my time at the colleges and I’m happy to head over there and support them this Saturday, even if it means sore feet on Sunday.

Music Buzz

This is what the internet sounds like today.

My Next Staple Site: Bands in Town

I enjoy going to shows, but I have trouble keeping up with who’s playing where and when. I hardly ever pick up an L.A. Weekly to find out who’s playing, and even when I do it usually only gives a heads up to shows only a week or two in advance. I keep abreast of the schedules of pretty much only three venues - Spaceland, The Echo, and The Echoplex. That’s because Spaceland is my favorite venue in the entire city and I’m on their mailing list. But other than that, there’s just way too many clubs in this city and way too many bands that I like to keep tabs on every event.

Bands in Town to the rescue! The site searches show listings from all over and aggregates that info into one convenient locale. When you sign up, you list your favorite bands. You also have the option to connect to your last.fm account (which, if you don’t know, tracks what music you listen to and forms music recommendations based on listeners with similar tastes).

Once the site knows what bands you are in to and what KIND of bands you are in to, it puts together a tag cloud on your homepage composed of a bunch of band names. The size of a tag increases depending on how much you like the band AND how soon they are having a show, so the results are doubly relevant and easy to recognize at a glance. Through the mighty powers of AJAX, there is also on the fly adjustment of search parameters based on date, distance, and ticket price.

As you find shows that interest you, you can bookmark them by adding them to your calendar. You can even export that information to iCal or set up an RSS feed. And of course, you can take your concert list and turn it into a little widget, because everybody loves little widgets.

Bands in Town is definitely going on my list of web sites I can’t live with out.