Posts tagged “Locust Street Taxi”

YouTube Show of the Month:
Co-Optitude
In their new YouTube show, Felicia Day and her brother Ryon try to play two-player, co-op video games. I say try because this show truly shows one of the greatest joys of playing co-op video games: completely screwing with the person you’re supposed to be helping. There is so much joyous profanity and accidental friendly fire in these episodes. They make me laugh quite an incredible lot. Plus the fact that they’re siblings makes Felicia’s and Ryon’s interactions just that much more hilariously bickering. Here’s my favorite episode so far, where they try desperately to play the “Goof Troop” video game:

Album of the Month:
Superior Complaints by Locust Street Taxi
The latest album from our very own Orange Fool Nathan Geyer’s band! As usual it is full of quirky, funny, ska/jazz/funk/reggae/country-infused songs. This time they did a very careful job of partnering with some excellent producers and technicians, and so the production quality is through the roof. It sounds quite amazing. My favorite tracks include the brassy, swinging “Dear Carbon Nanotubes”; the straight-up reggae of “Midnight Snack (in Africa)”; and the frighteningly-accurate late-1980s R&B tribute “Swantown Inn” (complete with bonus rap interlude).

Game of the Month:
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards
A funny competitive card game wherein you try to make spells by combining the various spell-component cards in your hands to comedic and damaging effects. The titles of the spells end up often being squarely in the potty-humor realm, and the illustrations are of the gross-out variety a-la Ren & Stimpy et al. It’s completely juvenile, but it is a lot of fun, especially when you’ve got five or six people playing simultaneously. A game lasts until only one wizard hasn’t been killed, but an ingenious play mechanic lets the “dead” characters draw cards from a special “dead wizard deck” each round until the current game ends, and then use those cards in the next game. Sometimes they’re very useful! It is fast-paced and ridiculous, and I thoroughly enjoy playing it.

I am friends with SO many musicians, so this was bound to happen eventually: Two of my friends’ bands are having Kickstarter campaigns at the same time!

First off is Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount, with their Kickstarter for their next album, Five Letters from Far Away. Also, they might be running for president in 2016 and Geoff needs a better hobby than making a heap of rocks. Here’s the explanatory video:

And second is Nathan Geyer the Orange Fool’s Band Locust Street Taxi with the Kickstarter for their next album, their final album before they become famous. This is kind of an all-or-nothing proposition for this band; they say that if this album doesn’t make them famous then they’re callin’ it quits. Here’s their video:

Two worthy Kickstarters at one time!? What is someone to do? The answer is simple. Give pledges to both by following these links here!

• Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount
• Locust Street Taxi

That’s what I did. So can you!

A bunch of my favorite musicians and bands are having a bunch of shows in the area this Spring, so I’ve compiled a list here. There are a lot more shows than this happening, of course, but these here are the ones that I’m either going to attend or would like to attend:

March 30, Friday

A Pancake Party with Julia Massey & the Five Finger Discount!
@ Monkey Grind Espresso, 518 North 85th Street, Seattle, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 13, Friday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount, Three Ninjas, & DvOd!
@ Mars Bar, 609 Eastlake Ave E, Seattle, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

April 16, Monday

Marian Call!
@ Forza Coffee, 5275 Olympic Dr. NW, Gig Harbor, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 17, Tuesday

Marian Call!
@ Mandolin Café, 3923 South 12th Street, Tacoma, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 21, Saturday

The Jesus Rehab Album Release!
@ The Josephine, 608 NW 65th St, Seattle, WA (Map)
7:00 PM

April 27, Friday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!
@ Empty Sea Studios, 6300 Phinney Ave N, Seattle, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

May 12, Saturday

Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount!
@ Eddie’s Trackside, 214 N Lewis Street, Monroe, WA (Map)
8:00 PM

June 2, Saturday

Locust Street Taxi!
@ The Spar, 2121 N 30th Street, Tacoma, WA (Map)
Details TBA

I would love it if all of you could join us for some/all of these shows. Even the ones that I don’t end up going to myself. Can you join someone if they’re not doing the activity? Does that count as joining? THESE ARE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS SHUT UP.

Hey! It’s been a while since I made a new mix CD! Hey! I’ve gotten a metric tonne of new music in 2010! Hey! I’ve made a mix CD with a couple of songs from a bunch of new albums I’ve collected! Hey! Here it is:

1. Stylo – Gorillaz feat. Bobby Womack & Mos Def
2. West Coast Serenade – Palmdale
3. Art Rap Party – Open Mike Eagle
4. Stuff – Locust Street Taxi
5. Mike Kripke’s Basement – Three Ninjas feat. Light Bear
6. If It Feels Good It Is Good – The Jesus Rehab
7. Rapper O’s – Dumbfoundead
8. Blame It On the Girls – Mika
9. Catacombs – Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount
10. On Melancholy Hill – Gorillaz
11. Happiness Has a Half-Life – Palmdale
12. I Rock – Open Mike Eagle
13. I Miss You (It’s Quiet) – Locust Street Taxi
14. Five Finger Discount – Three Ninjas
15. Seattle – The Jesus Rehab
16. Night Riders – Dumbfoundead
17. Touches You – Mika
18. WTF is Art Rap? – Open Mike Eagle
19. Fruit Tree/Motorcycle Bong – Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount

That’s one hour and thirteen minutes of fine, quality music right there. Plus, this mix CD has a definite pattern. See if you can discern it—there’s one song out of place! Can you guess which one!?

I was just now thinking about the past 12 months and just how many of my good friends released albums. It’s kinda crazy.

Almost a year ago Three Ninjas released his P.Z. Meyers graced EP “Make Sleepstophers.”

You can get a physical CD or download it from iTunes.

Then in September 2009 tangentbot released not one, but two albums! The first was a re-mastered “Cyclops’ Lament,” which was originally created many years ago.

You can download it from Amazon mp3 or from iTunes.

The second tangentbot album was “You Are Used to This Kind of Advertising,” which collected his 40 songs from his “song-a-week” project that he did in 2006.

You can also get this one from Amazon mp3 and iTunes.

Also in September, Terrapin Productions released his first solo album, “Sketches of Perfect Landscapes.”

You can get a physical CD of this album or download it from CD Baby (more download locations are coming, too).

After that was a bit of a lull, but then suddenly within the last month or so was a crazy flurry of action! First came Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount‘s much-anticipated “I’m Not Hollow.”

This is available both as a physical CD and as downloadable mp3s through CD Baby.

Hot off the heels of Julia Massey’s album came Three Ninja’s 2nd full-length LP, “Three Ninjas is Smarter Than a Lettuce” with brilliant cover at by @rabbiddogg.

You can get a physical CD or download it from iTunes. Three Ninjas gets more money if you buy the physical CD, so I recommend that.

Then finally Nathan Geyer’s Locust Street Taxi just released their latest, “Mr. Brown.”

Right now this album is only available as a physical CD, and is mailed out personally directly from the band!

Whew! That’s a whole lot of my friends putting out a whole lot of musics! It’s very inspiring, and I really want to join them before 2010 is out. I have fancy plans, and pants to match. Let’s see if I can do it, eh?

Addendum:
I knew I’d forget something: The Seattle Pro Musica choir put out a Christmas album called “Navidad” featuring J Howard Boyd!

You can order the CD through their website. It’s full of Latin American Christmas songs from the 16th century on up!

One thing you might not know about me is that I don’t listen to a lot of music, by which I mean I tend to focus on a small selection of music and then listen to it over and over and over again.

One of the things I do is I make Mix CDs that I listen to while I’m driving around—to and from work, to and from Fools Play, etc. Thing is, I only make one Mix CD about every three months and that’ll be pretty much all that I’ll listen to until I make another one.

Traditionally I go iTunes and organize my music by most recently added, then start pulling the best songs over to a new playlist as I work my way back in time through my music collection. This way my Mix CDs tend to have a handful of songs that I’ve acquired recently. I also try not to put in too many songs that were in my previous Mix CD. But I don’t add much music to my collection very often, so doing it that way only fills up a portion of the CD. So then I delve into my list of all-time most listenable songs. Y’know, the songs that I don’t really ever get tired of listening to (the playlist that I call “Ultimate Flawless Victory” in iTunes) and toss in a few of those. Then I look at all of the songs in my collection that I’ve given four or five stars and toss in a few of those.

These Mix CDs are both reflective and projective. I try to incorporate how my musical tastes have changed over the past three months while at the same time trying to predict what I’ll want to listen to for the next three months.

Here are the last two CDs I created:

August 2009:

1. Always Been There Anyway – Julia Massey
2. Around the Bend – The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
3. Brain Problem Situation – They Might Be Giants
4. Buddy Holly – Weezer
5. Cellars by Starlight – Kay Hanley
6. Golden Blunders – The Posies
7. Good Fish – Julia Massey
8. Have a F*****g Baby – Three Ninjas
9. Headphones on Your Heart – Leeni
10. House of Mayors – John linnell
11. The Last Thing On Your Mind – Lights
12. Little Fighter X – Fighter X
13. Lollipop – Mika
14. Lovebite – Order of the Crimson Wizard
15. Me + Yr Daughter – Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head
16. Over and Over – Leeni
17. Red Underwears – Three Ninjas
18. Say It Ain’t So – Weezer
19. Shut Up and Let Me Go – The Ting Tings
20. Soft Rocked By Me – Jonathan Coulton
21. Somewhere on This Couch – The Crazy Boy Floyds
22. The Way I Am – Ingrid Michaelson
23. You Don’t Know Me – Ben Folds (featuring Regina Spektor)

November 2009 (there is one repeat song from the August CD—see if you can spot it)

1. Dance, Dance, Dance – Lykke Li
2. Dirt Bike – They Might Be Giants
3. Doll Partz – Order of the Crimson Wizard
4. Heading Out at Dawn – Terrapin Productions
5. Jenny Towner – Julia Massey
6. Los Angeles – They Might Be Giants
7. Mario’s Café – Saint Etienne
8. Powers – Three Ninjas
9. Pride & Strawberry Wine – The Wastelanders
10. A Quiet Room – Tangentbot
11. Secret Skin – Busdriver
12. Spin Around – Josie & The Pussycats
13. Stairs – Locust Street Taxi
14. Starry Eyed Surprise – Oakenfold
15. Stop – Spice Girls
16. Sun Shower – Busdriver
17. Teenage Dirtbag – Wheatus
18. Theme from “Greatest American Hero” – Joey Scarbury
19. True Affection – The Blow
20. Ugly Girl – Fleming & John
21. Vancouver – They Might Be Giants
22. Veronica – Elvis Costello
23. The Way I Am – Ingrid Michaelson
24. What’s Golden – Jurassic 5
25. Your Love Is a Drug – Puffy AmiYumi

I have no idea what these songs say about me, so feel free to psychoanalyze me to your hearts’ content based solely on the content of these lists. Enjoy!