Last week, Peelander-Z played in Brooklyn again at the always fun Brooklyn Bowl (for those not from NY, it’s a bowling alley that doubles as a concert venue. You can bowl and watch the bands at the same time!). I hope by now you’re all familiar with this band, as I wrote about them the first time I ever saw them (which was ridiculous fun!), and when I saw them at SXSW last year. I brought my friend Krystalynne with me and it was the first time she’d seen them, or even heard of them, but I knew after the show she’d become a fan. I strongly urge everyone to see this band if they tour near you, because you don’t need to know any of their music to have a good time. Plus, they’re from Japan, so how can they not be fun? I also ended up playing bass onstage with them, again!
On a non-rainy day earlier this summer, I braved the annoying crowds of tourists in Times Square to attend a mostly New Yorker filled event: the annual Bubble Battle!
How nice has the weather in NYC been the past few days?! I’m completely exhausted from walking around all day on Friday, Saturday, and today. In two days I enjoyed some time in 7 different parks!! Hopefully everyone else found excuses to be outside this weekend!
So continuing from my last post, after we visited the Cathedral of Junk, we made the 30-40 minute drive outside of Austin to visit Hamilton Pool, part of a collapsed grotto with a still-standing pool of water and a trickling waterfall. After paying admission into the camping ground, you could hike a little ways to get to the pool area, or you could hike in another direction to make your way over to Hamilton Creek. We only had time to visit the pool and took our time hiking through. On the way, I took a picture with the cacti because, along with palm trees, I’ll always enjoy “foreign” flora.
I can finally think about SXSW last week without feeling exhausted! Below is just a fraction of the bands I saw. The week is such a blur that I’m already forgetting all the bands that I saw, both good AND bad! But I tried to provide links, pictures and video of all the bands I saw so it’s almost like you were there with me (except you were probably much less drunk ;)! This is a long one, so beware!
I actually arrived in Austin the Monday before the the music part of SXSW started. That was cool because I was able to go out and see my friend Marko DJ for a little bit, and also where I met a couple people I’d hang out with for the rest of the week! We danced to his set and then made our way to a few other places throughout the night to get our groove on which was a lot of fun and we ended up being out until 4am (note: bars in Austin close at 2am, I forgot that seems to be the norm outside of NYC) drinking free beers at the PureVolume House! And there was a group of guys dancing who were basically having a dance-off and they were AMAZING to watch. I wish I had half of their skills!
It’s the last day of SXSW! Obviously I have much to update on but definitely no time for that right now. So I will give you a preview of two videos that I did not take of Monotonix from Tel Aviv, Israel, who I saw Thursday night (or should I say Friday morning) starting at 2:45am. The show was at Ballet Austin and inside it was the sweatiest thing you can imagine, you can even see the windows all fogged up. The show eventually got shut down by the cops, but it was still a great time while it lasted. These videos can explain way more than I can in words, but still doesn’t capture the essence of being there::
Over the past four days I have gone to five shows in a row! Keeping in mind that they would all be a good time, I made an effort to try and give you some visual aids to help you feel like you were there. Let me know if you dig ‘em, and if so I will continue to try and take some A/V samples for y’all. Let me tell you about the good music times!
First on Friday was Tim Fite. I first saw them at SXSW last year playing with Man Man on the recommendation from my friend. I was very impressed with his live show, both entertaining, and a little weird (at first), but very fun! Since March last year I’ve seen him 8 or 9 times, including booking him to play at my school. His shows are always a good time, and even though I know what to expect by now, it’s always fun to see how other people react. Along from watching him and “Sexy Leroy” onstage, he has some video shorts in between songs, and cloned backup singers that show on a projector that add to the visual stimuli. Plus the songs have a great musical range, from acoustic to hip hop to rock. Check out a video from when he played at my school in September (audio NSFW):
My favorite line from this song: “Even though we both sound exactly alike, is that Jadakiss or is that Tim Fite?!”
Every now and then I work at events at different venues around New York. This past Friday & Saturday I worked at the Nokia Theater in Times Square. I hate going to that area of town because of all the slowpoke tourists getting in my way when I’m already late and wait for the crosswalk signs to turn when there are clearly no cars coming ::takes deep breath:: Anyway…
Leaving work on the night of Valentine’s Day, I was greeted to this guy waiting on the subway platform:
This is my space to write about my antics & adventures in New York, along with updates about my other interests such as photography, travel, karaoke, dodgeball, & more!
