Oct
30
2011

This Weekend

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, October 30, 2011 - 07:12:46 pm
(Posted Under: No Category)
Y'know when you're a kid, and you start running down a hill and before long you've hit a speed where your momentum exceeds what your feet can handle? The point where tumbling over is imminent, but you know that any attempt to stop yourself will cause you to immediately go down. Where you have to just go with it, and each moment that you remain vertical is sheer luck?

This entire weekend has felt like that.
Oct
30
2011

Like A Wave Video

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, October 30, 2011 - 05:34:35 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music)
Well, this is pretty cool - the finished video for Like A Wave. Love how the studio version of the song sounds. And hey, we were at that show!


Oct
29
2011

Halloween

Pumpkins, Muddy Violets & The Ex-Presidents

(Add / View Comments) (0)PhotosSaturday, October 29, 2011 - 11:39:54 pm
(Posted Under: Instagram Instagram, Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music, Live Shows)
Busy night. It's not technically halloween yet, but given it's on a Monday, for all extents and purposes it may as well be. With tonight's Ghetto Cowgirl gigged canceled due to a Laufenberg injury, we had time to start carving our pumpkin after dinner. Or at least hollowing out, before heading out to Yucca to see Muddy Violets. It's been forever since they've played. Actually, a year according to Jason. I can believe that. Their intensity is definitely something to behold. Actually, Jason's scream at the end of INXS' Don't Change For Me feels like it's going to break you.

After their early set, it was back home to finish up the pumpkin carving. Which looks pretty damn good, if I may say so myself.

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Once that was finished, we'd reached the point of the night where there was nothing left to do but kill time with a beer, running out the clock before we headed back out to see Strange Young Things.

This year, not being a band to ever disappoint on Halloween, they stormed the stage dressed as the Ex-Presidents from Point Break. Money bags, guns and all. An absolutely surreal experience watching them play their set in that get up. I love those glorious bastards!

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Oct
28
2011

AZ State Fair

(Add / View Comments) (0)Friday, October 28, 2011 - 08:42:53 pm
(Posted Under: Music Music, Live Shows, Instagram Instagram)
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Cool photo at sunset at the State Fair.

Post game wrap up: I don't think any part of those chicken strips we had for lunch even remotely resembled animal meat. Photography displays were where we spent most of our time. Free Bret Michaels Band show for a second year in a row was the highlight. I suggested that we try to win another gold fish for Bret to kill - Katie didn't think it was a good idea. [smile]

After Bret, we drove back to Tempe and caught Strange Young Things at the Yucs. Actually, we drove back, stopped at Yucca, found Adam, confirmed their set time, had something decent to eat, then headed back to Yucca at midnight for the Strange Young ridiculousness. The boys were actually in costume - it wasn't until they started playing that I realized that Wayne & Garth were Corey and Pat! Long night. Fun times.

After the show, Adam gave us a hint to tomorrow night's costumes - which I worked out immediately to his surprise. It's going to be good.
Oct
26
2011

We Could All Wear Fros and Jersies

Pre Halloween Sillyness

(Add / View Comments) (0)PhotosWednesday, October 26, 2011 - 11:26:38 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music, Live Shows)
If you were to write a song about tonight, it would go something like "we could all wear fros and jersies and pretend we're Marc Norman".

Photobox ImageSome pre Halloween fun. We got a call on Monday night from Annmar looking for buy in on the plan that she and Thomas had just cooked up. Despite the last night being pretty busy, we managed to pick up a pair of afro wigs before heading out to Old Town Tavern. Not surprisingly we dropped the ball in the basketball jersey department, but my Phoenix Suns style Maine shirt was the next thing.

It's impressive how hard it is to recognize people when they're wearing fro wigs. Annmar came up and started chatting to me, and it took a second for me to realize it was her. Others I didn't recognize until the wigs came off after Ghetto's set.

It was a lot of fun. At least for us. Marc stated on occasion that he was freaked out, and I think there was actually some genuineness to that statement. Which I can actually understand. Best fro on stage would have to have been Serafini. And best 80's porn star.

Photobox ImageAt the end of the night, AnnMar orchestrated those of us fros getting on stage for Bar Room. Yes, instead of sharing the stage with 3 impersonators, he had to do so with about 10 or so.
Now Playing: Tramps & Thieves - Perrinials (Live @ Last Exit)
Oct
20
2011

Tramps & Thieves @ Teakwoods

(Add / View Comments) (0)Thursday, October 20, 2011 - 11:11:22 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music, Live Shows, Instagram Instagram)
Second school night in a row at Teakwoods. This week is one for the books.

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Fun times.
Oct
19
2011

Robin Wilson @ Teakwoods

(Add / View Comments) (0)Wednesday, October 19, 2011 - 11:13:05 pm
(Posted Under: Music Music, Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Live Shows, Instagram Instagram)
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Oct
16
2011

Hanging Out With The Girl

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, October 16, 2011 - 05:21:45 pm
(Posted Under: This Desert Life This Desert Life, Instagram Instagram, Genevelyn)
Hanging out with the girl while cleaning out her terrarium.

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Oct
15
2011

On Candy Striped Legs...

(Add / View Comments) (0)Saturday, October 15, 2011 - 09:04:01 pm
(Posted Under: Instagram Instagram)
As of tonight, Halloween decorating is complete.

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Oct
13
2011

iOS5 Breakage

(Add / View Comments) (0)Thursday, October 13, 2011 - 10:09:39 am
(Posted Under: iTunes, Music Music)
I've been anticipating iOS5 for a while. Last night I was pretty quick to upgrade my phone to it. Which required also updating iTunes. Something that I'm usually hesitant to do for fear of breakage of something. Particularly given my iTunes/Hitter integration, the idea of upgrading always scares me, particular when I don't have spare time to update my code if something huge changes. But iOS5 is going to be awesome, and worth the risk. The risk of what? Oh yeah, something breaking...

As of doing the update of both iTunes (to 10.5) and my iPhone 4 (to i0S5), syncing play counts from the phone is broken. It appeared that everything I had listened to today had the play time and count recorded on the iPhone. It just wasn't being synced back to iTunes on a sync.

After giving it a few tries, I exported everything I played today out to a playlist (to write some code to input the plays to Hitter from the playlist instead), and changing from "Manually Manage My Music" to automatic. After doing that, play counts have completely stopped updating on the phone all together. Changing back to manually managing music doesn't help.

From what I can see, this is an iOS5 problem rather than an iTunes 10.5 as, since syncing my iPod in iTunes 10.5 (different Windows account & iTunes Library on the same machine) still works fine.

Thanks Apple. Needless to say, iOS5 hasn't met my expectations. [wink]
Oct
10
2011

Stop For A Beer

(Add / View Comments) (0)Monday, October 10, 2011 - 02:28:51 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music)
I don't know how it's even possible, but I think today is the first time I've ever consciously realized that Stop For A Beer and I Won't Ever Tell are the same song.

I've owned Bars & Guitars for 9 years, and Voices On The Street for 7 and find it so hard to believe that I haven't noticed that Stop For A Beer is essentially on Voices, or at least that I can remember.
Now Playing: Zubia Brothers - I Won't Never Tell
Oct
08
2011

Things I Love About Arizona

(Add / View Comments) (0)Saturday, October 8, 2011 - 05:13:03 pm
(Posted Under: This Desert Life This Desert Life, Instagram Instagram)
There is a lot I love about Arizona. And this is one of them - one of the biggest skies you'll ever see.

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Oct
07
2011

The Persuaders @ Tempe Marketplace

(Add / View Comments) (0)Friday, October 7, 2011 - 11:53:14 pm
(Posted Under: Tempe Music Scene Tempe Music Scene, Music Music, Live Shows, Instagram Instagram)
Tonight's plans involved Pete's Fish & Chips while watching The Persuaders at Tempe Marketplace. Now there is a great Tempe combo right there.

Before leaving we decided to clean out Genev's terrarium, which meant we were cutting things pretty tight time wise. And we didn't factor in how many other people had devised similar plans as ours. Well, the Pete's Fish & Chips portion of it anyway. Note to self - Pete's in Tempe is pretty hopping on a Friday night.

After the long wait at the drive thru @ Pete's we made it down to Tempe Marketplace in time to catch 2 of the 3 sets by Dani and then The Persuaders.

Between sets I got the scope on the upcoming CD release party. That's going to be an awesome night!

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Oct
02
2011

Halloween Ready

(Add / View Comments) (0)Sunday, October 2, 2011 - 08:52:25 pm
(Posted Under: This Desert Life This Desert Life, Instagram Instagram)
In the past years, Halloween decorating ahead of time hasn't been our strong point, typically getting it done a few days before fight night. Admittedly 2 out of the 3 past years have been due to have just moved to a new place. I don't remember what the excuse was last year. But we're on top of it this year...

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Oct
01
2011

coverArt Project

iTunes Album Art Problems Solved

(Add / View Comments) (0)Saturday, October 1, 2011 - 06:34:40 pm
(Posted Under: Geek, iTunes)
We'll, there's another iTunes annoyance solved. The annoyance of album art that comes from the iTunes store. Many of the albums I own don't exist on the iTunes store. And for some reason iTunes matches completely different covers in some instances. I've had at least 3 different album covers come up for Satellite's self titled disc over the years. At one point it was the artwork for P.O.D's record entitled Satellite. I know, crazy.

The issue of course can be solved by embedding artwork into an MP3's ID3 tags. I'm sure millions of people are happy to do that. I'm not one of them. There is something innately stupid about storing the same data/information multiple times (ie: for every track on an album). I'll have none of it. Especially since iTunes has a mechanism for storing a single album cover if it exists in the store. Plus, my music collection resides on a right protected samba share, which iTunes (by design) does not have write access to.

A few years ago I had the idea of developing a proxy server to return my own artwork to iTunes. The end result of my playing around was that it wasn't something could get working in a short amount of time, and had too much going on to commit to making it work.

However, it seems that I wasn't the only one who had this idea. Last week I came across this project on GitHub that implements what I never got around to doing - a proxy server for delivering your own artwork to iTunes to use. coverArt.

This is just beautiful and works a treat. This weekend I made a few modifications to the code, and then got the majority of artwork on my iPhone fixed up. Updating the artwork for the 10,000+ songs on my iPod is going to be an ongoing project. As well as developing a bunch of my own customizations, including locally saving artwork and integration with Hitter.

And this is what success looks like. No more P.O.D album covers, no weird covers for other bands called Satellite I've never heard of. Perfect.

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