Saturday, July 17, 2010
F.Y.E.
I recently downloaded a lot of albums that served as the soundtrack to my late elementary school/all of middle school/part of high school years. I have been listening these songs to and from work, and feel that my mood has improved substantially over the past week. Today I took a break from listening to pop punk to listen to
... but to be consistent, I went home and watched a bunch of pop punk youtube videos.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
R.I.P.
Growing up surrounded by skateboarding, punk rock and art makes it easy to connect with the work of others that do as well. You don't have to know the artists story... if these elements are shared, the art becomes magnetic.
I was always enamored by his poster work, floored by his sculptures, and would always be tempted to buy an album he had done the artwork for (whether I had heard the music or not).
Ryan August will always be an asset and inspiration to all that is good in Columbia, SC. Rest in peace.
Monday, July 5, 2010
The rest of the Toro tour (part 1)
I'm back in San Francisco now. I didn't write about the 26-ish shows that happened after Charlottesville, nor do I think I have the patience to slowly revisit that period of time in great detail. Maybe one day I will write a book, or someone will pay me to write an article about the Toro Y Moi tour. If that is the case, I will hook up the mental time machine and clearly depict the non-incriminating happenings of that month. But for now, here are a bunch of pictures (I only used landscape/longways photos ... I have a ton of portrait/tallways pictures, too... I will use those on a later post).
May 12, 2010 : Carborro, NC
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May 13, 2010 : Atlanta, GA
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May 14, 2010 : Baton Rouge, LA
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May 15, 2010 : Houston, TX
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May 16, 2010 : Austin, TX
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May 17th, 2010 : Somewhere Between Austin and Tempe
(to be continued)
May 12, 2010 : Carborro, NC
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May 13, 2010 : Atlanta, GA
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May 14, 2010 : Baton Rouge, LA
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May 15, 2010 : Houston, TX
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May 16, 2010 : Austin, TX
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May 17th, 2010 : Somewhere Between Austin and Tempe
(to be continued)
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Parker is such an asshole!
05/11/2010
Leaving the cozy air conditioning of Carpark headquarters took a lot of encouragement from Todd. "You guys should probably leave... you are going to be late..." I reminded myself that I should be the one prying everyone from the comfortable sofa (I'm pretty sure that is a tour manager's duty) and we eventually gathered our laundry and belongings and loaded up the car top carrier.
Finally, we hit the road to Charlottesville, VA (and were, in fact, a little bit late). The venue was enormous, but one problem with playing college towns in the summer is that those large venues look even larger. Sold out or not, all the bands played really well.
After the show, we met up with Andy's cousins at "the corner" (or something similar - I'm pretty sure every college town has a 5-points, a corner, or some other popular meet up). Instead of going to the crowded bar, we caught last call at the karaoke bar next door and then headed back to Andy's cousin's sorority house where we were going to be staying.
These are the things that we imagined happening in the sorority house: pillow fights, tons of gossip, and maybe putting on a romantic comedy and eating a few quarts of Ben and Jerry's. None of these happened (though our wonderful host, Jean, did make Patrick and I Easy Mac and Ramen in the wee hours of the morning).
Now is when you ask: So Jordan, what did happen?
Let me tell you...
First off, Parker showed up covered in dirt and fruit punch and pushed his way through the door. And Jill was like, "get out of here" and Parker was like "hell no" and Jill was like "I'll punch you in the face," and Parker was like "do it then!" so Jill punched him in the face. Then of course his shirt came off and Parker was all like, "I dare you to do it again!"
During this ruckus, Patrick and I had gone out to the car to get the beer that was left over from the show. In that short walk, I was called a faggot twice by frat guys (once by a guy who was hitting beer cans with a golf club in his yard, the other by a guy who was upset that we didn't want to come party at his house). When we came back, we heard the Jill versus Parker story close to one hundred times.
Everything became calm after that. After a bit of conversation, we retired to an unoccupied room. A lot of the sorority sisters had returned to the places they are from after they had finished their finals, so we had plenty of places to sleep.
Morning came, we re-loaded the Ford Focus, and began our trek to Carborro...
Leaving the cozy air conditioning of Carpark headquarters took a lot of encouragement from Todd. "You guys should probably leave... you are going to be late..." I reminded myself that I should be the one prying everyone from the comfortable sofa (I'm pretty sure that is a tour manager's duty) and we eventually gathered our laundry and belongings and loaded up the car top carrier.
Finally, we hit the road to Charlottesville, VA (and were, in fact, a little bit late). The venue was enormous, but one problem with playing college towns in the summer is that those large venues look even larger. Sold out or not, all the bands played really well.
After the show, we met up with Andy's cousins at "the corner" (or something similar - I'm pretty sure every college town has a 5-points, a corner, or some other popular meet up). Instead of going to the crowded bar, we caught last call at the karaoke bar next door and then headed back to Andy's cousin's sorority house where we were going to be staying.
These are the things that we imagined happening in the sorority house: pillow fights, tons of gossip, and maybe putting on a romantic comedy and eating a few quarts of Ben and Jerry's. None of these happened (though our wonderful host, Jean, did make Patrick and I Easy Mac and Ramen in the wee hours of the morning).
Now is when you ask: So Jordan, what did happen?
Let me tell you...
First off, Parker showed up covered in dirt and fruit punch and pushed his way through the door. And Jill was like, "get out of here" and Parker was like "hell no" and Jill was like "I'll punch you in the face," and Parker was like "do it then!" so Jill punched him in the face. Then of course his shirt came off and Parker was all like, "I dare you to do it again!"
During this ruckus, Patrick and I had gone out to the car to get the beer that was left over from the show. In that short walk, I was called a faggot twice by frat guys (once by a guy who was hitting beer cans with a golf club in his yard, the other by a guy who was upset that we didn't want to come party at his house). When we came back, we heard the Jill versus Parker story close to one hundred times.
Everything became calm after that. After a bit of conversation, we retired to an unoccupied room. A lot of the sorority sisters had returned to the places they are from after they had finished their finals, so we had plenty of places to sleep.
Morning came, we re-loaded the Ford Focus, and began our trek to Carborro...
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
more talk/less pictures, but an update nontheless
05/09 - 05/10
Getting out of New York is one of the hardest things in the world to do. Not necessarily out of a love for the city, but because traffic is always terrible. We sat bumper-to-bumper for about as long as a drive from New York to Philadelphia should take.
Philadelphia is and will always be one of my favorite cities in the world. I spent quite a bit of time there the year after I graduated high school, so merely passing all of the places where I wanted to go hang out was a big tease and reminder that I need to make a leisure trip to Philadelphia. I didn't get pretzels, I didn't eat at Gianna's, and most importantly I didn't see any of my best Philly friends. That needs to change next-go-round.
The only show I had ever been to at the First Unitarian Church was Panda Bear during the summer of 2007. That was inside the actual pew and altar sanctuary area. Most shows are held downstairs, as was Toro Y Moi and Caribou's night. The sound and live experience wasn't nearly as fantastic/dramatic as my 3-year-old memories in the downstairs room, but all of the workers were extremely nice and helpful. And we got to drink beers in the pews upstairs (which feels pretty cool).
After the show, Aimee Argote (of Des Ark fame/fellow Carolinian) was kind enough to put us up in her lovely Fishtown home. Her roommate was out of town, so we got to crash in his room. We were told he played with the band Mayhem (a gold Mayhem record hung from the wall), so we were extra careful not to mess anything up and join that band's body count.
We drove to D.C. the next afternoon. Todd, as always, proved to be a most excellent host. The Rock and Roll hotel was a strange venue. I can't say much about the show - the merch table is in a separate bar upstairs where a house DJ blared terrible mashups. The speakers were within a few feet of my ear, so a headache developed quickly. NPR streamed the whole show, so I was able to listen to is later.
Staying at Todd's house is pretty epic. I was able to suppress the dork within and managed not to ask a million questions (I only asked a couple thousand). And he has the coolest dog ever.
Anyways, this post is dragging and lacking photographs. I have about another month to write about and the actual tour ends tomorrow. Maybe it will happen? We'll see.
Love,
Jordan
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