Posts from May 2017

It’s not just a state park in Michigan anymore…

Last Friday, Carrie & I were honored to be on a very short guest list of a very private show in Seattle: the debut of the brand-new supergroup Warren Dunes.

Warren Dunes is the smooshing together of Seattle stalwart bands Julia Massey and the Five Finger Discount and Electric NoNo. This turns out not to be too difficult of a feat, since Electric NoNo is only a two-man band, and drummer Dom Cortese is also the drummer for JM+FFD. So, basically, you take JM+FFD and add Electric NoNo guitarist Jared Cortese to it and voila you’ve got yourself a Warren Dunes.

First things first, though. This invite-only concert was held at Earwig Studios, the locale where the likes of Julia Massey, Electric NoNo, and Gentlemen of Leisure have laid down tracks. It also just happens to have an antechamber that is decorated to look exactly like the black lodge from Twin Peaks.

Opening act was the sweet acoustic stylings of Reggie Garrett:

Funk acoustic folk

You should really go check out his musics. Good stuffs.

Second act was the first-ever Seattle performance of my pals the Gentlemen of Leisure!

“If you are not a gentleman, then why are you alive?”

It was great to see them live for the first time. I was able to make an animated .GIF of ’em!

Gentlemen of Animation

The headliners were, of course, Warren Dunes. Here’s their first-ever animated .GIF!

Warranimated Dunes. Wut.

I honestly expected the Warren Dunes sound to be more of a direct result of smooshing the Five Finger Discount and Electric NoNo together, but it was very heavily weighted towards Julia’s sound. Jared doesn’t even provide any vocals, which was very surprising. It sounded much like the Five Finger Discount plus an electric guitar.

Which is to say it sounded frikkin’ great. Just not at all what I was expecting.

You can hear the Warren Dunes sound in this video of them performing their song “War Cry” (recorded earlier, not at this show):

I’m excited to hear more of them! I just don’t wanna hafta wait for an album to come out! I = impatient for good musics!

Go, Julia, go! Shake out them tunes!

Livin’ that GOL.life life.

My pals in the Gentlemen of Leisure recently appeared on the Spud Goodman show and performed some songs. You can watch a very expertly-shot video of their performance of “So Far” on the YouTubes right now! Here it is:

This is kinda exciting because “So Far” is not on their most recent EP release, so it’s a brand-new one for me. Neat!

They also performed a couple other songs during the episode! You can listen to the whole thing (which also features Tom Arnold, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Eugene Simon) right here.

Yes.

Who that guy in purple on the right? It me!

HEY, GANG! Tomorrow (Saturday the 6th) is a very cool and rare happening: Fools Play Improv is occuring on MY BIRTHDAY! So, really, if you want to help me celebrate my birthday, you should come down to Olympia and watch me make an ass outta myself for an hour or two!

Details:
Fools Play May 6 in Oly (Faced Book event)
Saturday, May 6th 9:00 PM
@ South Sound Estuarium
309 State Ave NE, Olympia, WA 98501 (map)
All-Ages, Only $5!

I’d love to see as many people there as can fit into the building. YAY BIRFDAY!

Album of the Month:

Lookout by Fine Prince
A fun an extremely-hard-to-categorize album, this poppy gem is full of great hooks, funny lyrics, and some very nice polish. It is really hard to describe Fine Prince’s music without using metaphor. This album is a warm summer breeze in the hours before dusk. There, howzat? They call it “sunshine pop” and I dig it. Seriously, listen to all of the things in these songs: overflowing buckets of harmony (male and female), cool synths (two keyboard players), sometimes a brass section, even a choir in “Nostalgia.” It’s all very charming and hard to resist. Buy it. Support these guys and gals so they can record more, ’cause I wanna hear it.

Artist Of the Month:

Felicia Chang, AKA Little Kumiho
Little Kumiho has a fashion-y animé style that I find very appealing. It also sometimes feels like what Mike Allred’s work would look like if he pushed just a little into the animé milieu. Bonus: She’s very local, so there’s actually a good chance I’ll meet her someday!

Another one ✨ this particular one was inspired by a certain someone and her ridiculously gorgeous hair 💁🏻 #watercolor #art #drawing #illustration #shaymitchell #doodle

A post shared by Felicia✨장 선이 (@littlekumiho) on Apr 27, 2017 at 11:06am PDT

#meettheartist tag. It was super fun to beautify myself by 300% and let you know that I barely carry stuff with me on the daily 🌟 #drawing #sketch #art #digitalart #procreate #procreateapp #doodle #illustration

A post shared by Felicia✨장 선이 (@littlekumiho) on Jan 23, 2017 at 11:44pm PST

Video Game of the Month:

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
In an unprecedented move, I am making something an “Of the Month” for two months in a row. Why? Because I’m still playing this game two months after I got it. Almost every day. And it is still just as awesome as the first day. Just take a look at this:

Daaaaaaaaaaaang.