:: MY HEART'S BEEN TROUBLED BY THE SPEED OF LOVE ::

When you're 5 years old, a summer lasts so long. It's like 1/20th of your life. But at age 25, a summer is 1/100th of your life. It passes by so quickly relative to all the increments of time you've experienced thus far. In these last days of August, I'm trying to figure out where it all went....


Electric fly swatter bling.


Happy Birthday, Jilleen.


J. Strange wanted to see Daewon on miniramp.


Witnessed a bit of a brawl. Here's the full story.


Three weeks later. Same clothing, same aggressive behavior.


Ghostland Observatory was more fun than a bathtub full of jello. Sad Sad City is the jam.


A denizen of Titty City.

Posted: bryan // 08.29.07 // +1+

:: SOMEDAY THE OLDIES STATION WILL BE PLAYING THE SEX PISTOLS ::











(captions from Denmark: a woman is a bit blasé about the riot police; cops move in to quell a fire started by protesters; the writing on the wall; scrap bikes in Christiania; decorated landscape inside Christiania; remains of habitation in a burned out shack in an old train yard; entering the cave house; the cave living room; the junk teepee; sand dunes on the West coast of Denmark)

Even travelers need a vacation. So I am taking one in Copenhagen. It's been really nice, even if everything here is stupidly expensive ($7 for a cup of coffee? None for me, thanks).

- Riding bikes in a light rain through the streets of Copenhagen.
- Amazing bike lanes that are wide and located between the sidewalk and parked cars/the street, so you do not ride in traffic at all. F-in' genius.
- Lots of various forms of cargo bikes, as in the average person uses them, not just dumpstering activist-punks.
- The autonomous hippie city in the middle of Copenhagen called Christiania (yes, seriously). They don't pay rent or taxes and make their own laws. However the new government wants to turn it all into condos, so moves are being made to bring about the demise of Christiania (history lesson on this available here).
- "Pusherstreet" being the section of Christiania where you used to be able to buy/use soft drugs pretty openly. The government has since broken it up and scattered the dealers all over the city, making the problem much worse. When you are on that street there are huge murals/signs forbidding photography.
- Needing to wear a hoodie and even a jacket. . . in August.
- Learning about "Technical School," basically an art/design/trade school that is completely free, AND the government pays you while you go to school there. Of course the new government is closing this down soon.
- Futuristic floating street lights hovering over the middle of the street (okay so they are actually suspended on thin wires, but you can't see this at night).
- Seeing the vacant lot where the famous "Youth House" squat used to be (Nick Cave and even Bjork had performed there). It was evicted and demolished to make room for a church to be built. Turns out the church didn't have enough money to actually build anything, so now it's just another vacant lot.
- Riding bikes around Copenhagen at night while police vans scream past and a protester's fire blocks off a street.
- Trying to "press pass" my way past lines of riot cops to get photos of a protest by previous inhabitants of the Youth House (and no, it didn't work).
- Sitting in a backyard in western Denmark while a soft breeze trickles through the foot-and-a-half tall grass and rustles the plump evergreens. . . all while a dragonfly rests on my toe.
- Exploring inside an old WWII bunker on the beach, even as the tide continued to flow in.
- Hiding out in a teepee on the beach made from scrap wood, stones, and junk. It wasn't much, but it protected us from wind-blown sand and a few spots of rain rather well.
- Coming within an inch of stepping on a syringe in the sand (pointy side up). And no, I didn't leave it lying there.
- Skinnydipping at dusk in a freezing lake in the middle of the woods where the water is so pure you can drink it right from the lake.
- Staring down a group of young bulls as we trespass through their field.
- Bike lanes even out in the countryside.
- Exploring an abandoned underground house.
- Exploring an abandoned rail yard and warehouse, and meeting some graffiti punks in the process.
- And I don't do this often, but you gotta love those silly "foreign words meaning something in another language" signs.

And this one goes out to my bike nerd friends.

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MP3:

I wanted to find a song by a Danish artist to post here, and in the search stumbled across this track by someone I had actually met and spent an evening hearing some of their crazy stories. So it was a pretty nice match when I figured it out. Here is a track by Tilde, under her recording name Jackson. Think a stripped-down Cat Power.

- Jackson - On The Road

A band's place in myspace.

Posted: // 08.28.07 // +1+

:: FIFTY FINGERS IN THE SOUP ::


Bochay rides through the fountains before a performance.


Anna waits backstage.


Brodie atop the Garden Of Bling.


The one-and-only Brandy Gump.


Earl holds a baby monkey.


Harrison terrorizes small town america.


Drunk-liquor-store-parking-lot-dude strikes a pose.


Brodie and Alexis watch chaos erupt in a parking lot during a spontaneous noise-band freakout.

I finally put up a gallery of images from my time on the Miss Rockaway Armada this year. You can see them all here.

Posted: // 08.23.07 // +1+

:: THE VASTNESS OF PAVEMENT ::


I was so embarrassed for this guy that I had to take his picture and put it on the internet.


Get weird.


Oh yeah, Ted Leo played. Something about him, I just love that guy.


I was really trying to focus on the show when some girls ran onto stage hoping to be the next Courtney Cox at a Bruce Springsteen concert.


I couldn't take my eyes off the guitarist. He just shreds those power chords. You should've seen his fingers in action.


I can really apprecaite a good set. Of songs.


Boob fan.



Sing it, Ted.


I usually get pretty bummed on fat heads in my way, but there were some good ones at this show.


Manic Panic.


Question.


Answer.


It was guitarist Dave's last show with the band. I was up in front with all the high school kids and their enthusiam was infectious and I even got chills.


Celebrate. Seriously, he even covered Daft Punk's "One More Time" as a segue between songs.

Posted: bryan // 08.20.07 // +2+

:: YOUR DEPRESSION IS PART OF WHAT MAKES YOU SPECIAL ::









(stills from the film Rebel, directed by Nicole Brending)

I just bounced through NYC for a few days to shoot stills for a friend's indie film. The whole thing was completed in three days, the crew really put in some hours to pull it off. I could tell you what's happening in the photos, but that would spoil the film now wouldn't it?

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MP3:

I just rediscovered this track, it used to be pretty popular on mixes I made a while back.

- The Fruit Bats - Slipping Through The Sensors

A band's place in myspace.

Posted: // 08.17.07 // +0+

:: WE PLAY HERE ::

One of my many jobs in New York is to film Practice Space for VBS.TV. Basically we go to various bands' practice spaces and get a private show and a short interview. It's totally rad.

O'Death
O'Death's episode launched today and actually sparked the idea for this entry. They practice in Queens and play punk-as-fuck americana. I'm a fan.


They look to Ghostface for inspiration. All praise Ironman.


Their space is a shed in the backyard, complete with wash tub and saw blades.


Greg almost swallows the mic a lot.


At one point, they broke into the theme song to Full House. Not sure why.


This is a little behind-the-scenes peek at Jake the director's reconnaisance mission for beer without getting in the shot.


Ryan Duffy really likes to ask all the members about their secret crushes. He's a total gossip.

Lissy Trullie & The Fibs
I love these kids. The Lissy episode came out last week and the songs are super catchy.


Lissy's a busy girl. It's hard playing music and running the LES.


When we arrived the band was just called Lissy Trullie, but at this very moment they decided to become Lissy Trullie & The Fibs.


Watch out for these ones.

Sam Champion
The SamChamp episode is still be edited but look for it soon.


This is the photo for the Practice Space ad in the new Vice.


He played three songs like that.


"So this one time, we were hanging out with, like, twelve hookers..."


"Remember that time you played with the antler box on your head? That was awesome!"

Walkmen
I think The Walkmen episode was the first shoot I went on and one of the bigger bands that we've featured. They're pretty chill guys but their studio gets really damn loud.


There's a hippoeqsue mural in their midtown space.

Stay tuned.

Posted: bryan // 08.13.07 // +0+

:: MAY YOUR COFFINS BURN BRIGHT ::


Spent the weekend in Maine with Pat O'Dell filming Robstock for his show Epicly Later'd.


Justin Strubing and Jack Sabback rode up with us and we stopped in Jamestown for a night.


Which way now?


Maine's okay, I guess.


About 89 hours later, we got to Robstock in Whitneyville, ME and pitched tents.


In the morning, you could see tents scattered in the woods ontop of the softest moss. It was like nature's memory foam.


Some folks were recovering from last night's pre-party. Screwboo fell in the fire and got a bloody ass.


This was before it even began.


The party takes place at an old cabin where Rob Collison of Low Card fame lived. It's been abandoned for five years except for the one week a year of Robstock.


The killer VHS collection has been virtually untouched.


All Rob's brother's trophies sit in the attic gathering dust.


Out back there's a VW bus graveyard. Rob's dad tried to cover it with 'Nam-like camoflauge to keep from bumming out the townsfolk.


We drove down the road to Six-Mile Lake and ripped Dawna's Rock a new one.


Beer toss.


Only pussies jump from here.


Back at the 'Stock, there was a poor man's mega ramp.


For every one of these landed, Lil' Ricky went for it and ate some beautiful shit.


How about a sprinkle of truck on your burger?


Being in Maine, there was a lobster cookout.


Justin goes headfirst.


Ryan Weibust is one good dude and a heavy metal singer.


Spaghetti-Os.


Gnarwhale took the stage.


I think this was their first show, but corpse paint will be mandatory for all upcoming performances.


Blood capsule.


Chicks love Gnarwhale.


Airsoft to the eyeball.


Motherfucking DEMASSEK!


Pat enjoys Demassek with a hot dog and digicam.


Feed the flames.


I seriously think that may have been the best show I've ever seen. Ever.


Hightower came out from SF and killed it too.


Hip


Hop


This is the part of the show when Lil' Ricky tries to jump out of the tree and onto his board. I'm sure he woulda landed it if he hadn't been drinking since the previous afternoon.


This dude went for it too. But it doesn't look so good, does it?


Hello, America, this is Tooth.


Andreas was relaxing through the madness like a true veteran.


Logan's catch phrase was, "Are ye all having a good time?" He was.


Jake and Angela wrestle for the Rossi.


Anthrax.


The ramp turned into a pool of booze and boneheads before midnight.


Casualty.


Chillers.


The shirt comes off and into the fire.


Screwboo is like the admiral of SS Robstock.


Those planks were ripped up from the stage just hours after it was built.


Keep trying.


Burn on, Robstock. Burn on.

Posted: bryan // 08.07.07 // +2+

:: TWO DOGS AND A SHITKNIFE ::










(do you really need captions for these?)

- Stick-n-poke knuckle tattoos.
- Climbing up the outside to the third story to explore an abandoned building.
- If abandoned buildings are as exciting as a new toy on Xmas, then Milwaukee is like a Toys R Us.
- Soup performing, fireworks, and train-hopping kids from Brodie's pictures at his opening.
- Riding trains with two kids who take turns reading the Bible aloud to each other.
- Getting dropped and stranded on a train in the middle of nowhere (ie. Wisconsin).
- Meeting cool/friendly artists.
- Spending over 24 hours trying to hop out of Chicago.
- After escaping from being dropped in the center of the main Chicago train yard, end up wandering around the very-south-side of Chicago like a rack of lamb in a wolves den.
- Getting mugged/attacked by some young thugs.
- Not realizing the extent of your injuries until you undress to take a shower.
- Ending up at a fun show in Chicago (Dandi Wind and Alex & The Drummer).

Oh yeah, and I came across this video on a friend's blog. I really like it (bikes, bunny masks, and a female Donnie Darko? sign me up).

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MP3:

In case you liked the song as well as the video (above), here it is in lovely mp3 format.

- Bats For Lashes - What's A Girl To Do?

No place like your space.

Posted: // 08.06.07 // +1+

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