OCDJ at the depot

i know this is a couple days late/borderline obsolete but i've been busy. i went to DC to meet with Todd who owns carpark/paw tracks records and now i will intern there, sometime. then i went to fredericksburg and hung out with the likes of ross marshall and matt bradshaw. now im back, with two stiches in my back from a mole biopsy. tomorrow tereu tereu and this lone meth play a show in NC, holler.

so the show was kind of ridiculous. i went with howie and brett who both danced/boogied as hard/crazy as i did. the depot is usually a gay bar but on some special occasions it lends its innards to the indie kids (usually at wildfirewildfire) and a show of insane dance proportions is organized. that is what happened this fateful night.

there was one opening band that played a mini moog, keytar, and drums. they all wore matching outfits that made them look like alien porno stars from the 70s. they velcroed lights onto their chests that are of the ASSEENONTV persuasion. they were fun but the fact that their name doesn't strike me sort of says it all.

OCDJ, a wham city member, is sort of like girltalk mixed with dan deacon. so you know crazy songs mashed up with new cartoon/videogameesque beats over top. as you see in the picture mrOC likes to wear a walrus mask while he busts a move at his laptop. he busted a move so hard at the beginning of the show that the speakers blew up in 5 minutes, luckily the soundsystem was fixed and we were afforded another 30 minutes of balls to the wall meta-anarchy.

tonight, Ed Schrader has his fourth talk show and wzt hearts is playing as well, it's at the metro gallery on 1700 charles street, i will see you there.

William/Adam vs. Warhol/Satie/Cage

well mr. william krieger iv just left. he was here for 9 days and we did a plethora of things that could be filed under musical/artistic/literary things. ya know the general educational debauchery. i could go on and on about every show we saw, every museum we went to, every famous writer we fell asleep listening to (boycott dave eggers), but instead i will just tell you about our 18 hour and 40 minute multimedia tour de force experience.

at the tate modern this past weekend they had a series of events which were quite off the hook (including a performance by Throbbing Gristle). the overnight activity that we attended focused on warhol's film "sleep" and erik satie's piece "vexations". originally the first performance of erik satie's "vexations" was arranged by john cage in 1963.

satie's piece is rather short, only a couple of minutes and repeated it has the structure A,A2,A,A2. however, there is a quite interesting performance note that informs the performer that they should repeat the form 840 times. cage followed this instruction to the T, however, he was gracious enough to employ 10 pianists instead of one sad soul. warhol happened to be at the legendary first performance. it inspired him to create his film "sleep"

sleep is a 5 hour and 21 minute film of warhol's lover, the poet john giorno, drumroll: sleeping. the film is a bunch of short 3-4 minute clips pasted together/looped to create what seems like a continous night sleep for someone who never wakes up.

ok, so if the creation of these two things don't seem ridiculous enough just imagine the fun you'd have witnessing them both at the same time (warhol's film is looped three times in order match the never ending length of satie's piece). basically will and i were very excited at the possibility of having something like this fully infultrate our beings. to put it mildly we went crazy.

we stayed for the whole thing. we were part of a small elite group who completed the task (we felt that watching was as involved as playing). because of our steadfastness we got interviewed by the tate archives and had our picture taken by (not only every fucking person in the world, after the doors opened the next morning) but also the londonist.

the only terrible thing is that even though the event went from 8pm to 3pm the next day they allowed visitors to start coming in the next morning at 10am. so, we got to be bothered by little kids screaming and the chill of the doors constantly being opened and closed. let's just say that it was quite the meditative buzz kill.

ok, well this is my last london post. i have to finish studying for my postmodernism exam tomorrow. then ill be home the day afterwards. give me a call.

EVERYONE ELECTRO at Fabric

ok, so my last london club experience (see 4:30am bonus post about my terrible time at turnmills) didn't sit so well with me; however, because of the stellar lineup at fabric this past friday i decided to give it a go. i mean how could i leave london without going to fabric, i would have been a right no ball pussy loser if i hadn't experienced the floor shaking, E dropping, coke bumping sensation that is fabric (don't worry i didn't take any drugs. fuck drugs)

i was persuaded to go because LCD Soundsystem aka mr. dancefunkpunk himself james murphy was DJing, crystal castles were playing a live set, Busy P was DJing, and Justice was performing behind his huge illuminated cross surrounded by enough sequencers and wave generators to create the biggest synth ever. well my friend kayla and i sauntered into the place at about 11:30pm. we left at 4:45am.

i saw LCD play two summers ago and i can easily say it was one of the best shows i've ever seen. i even tried to rip off my shirt and give it to mr. murphy. mandy miggletron gabriel can tell you that he gracefully told me he had a shirt and didn't need mine. let's just say that the DJ set is completely different but just as amazing. in an email to ryan little i compared murphball to ray charles.

ray charles (who i love) played a type of music that was rather poppy; however, he knew his shit and he rocked out to people like art tatum. murphy is the same way. his music has a shit load of hooks and all the other things that make it easier listening than say straight up, no frills, old skool, disco/electro music which is the type of music that he spins. i had never heard a single song that he played that night but they were all awesome and even though my true dance music knowledge is slim i could still tell that it was quality shit, real dank bud so to speak.

the crystal castles i have been real excited about for a little while. basically a mix between dan deacon and the blow. they're one of those small canadian bands that somehow got huge in europe and now can open up for anyone they want but can barely get shows in their own country and the US. their set was really short (im not even sure how many cds they have) but i did just order their amazing t-shirt which has a graphic of madonna with a broken eye.

i hadn't listened to Busy P at all before friday night. however, after hearing that he was part of the whole parisian ed banger records thing (same record label as Justice) i felt like their was promise. promise was an understatement. even though he was just DJing it was amazing. he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. his mixes were so catchy without betraying the dogma of dance. i barely knew what was going on during his set and all i can say is check him out, i don't know the names of any of his stuff so just google it beeoytch.

Justice was a disapointment. i just had to get that off my chest. i mean his songs, D.A.N.C.E., We Are Your Friends, and Let There Be Light are amazing, and seeing those songs was enough to make me go; however, the rest of his stuff fell flat, especially after how Busy P was killing it only moments before. Justice's other songs just sounded like poorer versions of his singles. not only that but he hyped himself pretty well, which is never attractive. he would stop songs in the middle, to "build anticipation" and then throw them back into gear thinking that he was cool. letting the beat drop is never cool, ever. that is a good way to end.

Adam in Italy and Grizzease

holler hommies, ok so i just got back the land of noodles and pitas. i'll keep the preface brief because this is another feature length film of a video. let's just say that i checked another childhood dream off the list, right next to being a ninja turtle: eating pizza everyday for a week. enjoy.

Cadbury Fronts

hello kids. i'm going to see Psapp tonight so i will post about that later. however, i started a new project with my friend joseph called cadbury fronts. i thought it was worth showing people/talking about. basically i hadn't talked to joseph in quite in a while, some years in fact. other than a chance meeting at goodwill a couple years ago i hadn't seen him since franklin high, that is a damn fuck long time back. well the powers of facebook somehow got us talking.

we realized that we had to make some music together. well we both have recording equiptment, and some unfulfilled creative desires so we set to work. i'd lay down the boogaloo and send it to joseph where he would add the sasafrazz. the songs we play are a bit different than i'm used to but i think it's a product of me being in the city. i need my music to contrast the surroundings, hence: fucked up crazy loud rock/electronic music feels to easy in the city, hence: no fun. hence: i started writing quieter bluesish/countryish/jazzish/folkish pop that would sound good with some thoughtful electronics over top.

i handle the guitar and voices while joseph is in charge of the bass and other toys. perhaps that will change but we're going to keep sending stuff back and forth to each other and the final cuts shall be hearable at www.myspace.com/cadburyfronts. on that myspace page there are also some songs up for one mr. mark hill (i needed a space to put up new methamphetamine song ideas). this shameless plug shall cease now, enjoy.

The Blow (my future wife) at Luminaire

last night i went to see the blow. it was one of the best shows i have seen in a long while, hands down. she performed at the luminaire and i went with my paternal grandparents who are visiting at the moment. they had as much fun as i did; my grandparents are cooler than yours.

The show, which remained fairly mellow throughout, started out with a one man singer songwriter called "the carl" (i think). i coveted his guitar very much. i gave up my gearheadedness when i was about 13 but he was playing an old vintage pastel pink colored one pickupped fender mustang and it sounded great. it sounded like if georgia was in the midwest or something. basically he played nice little tunes but his voice sounded like joanna newsome, and although i love her to pieces, it didn't fit with his style.


next up was death sentence: panda. holy fuck, they were awesome too. they were a trio out of frisco that consisted of a small little asian strumpet who played flute and screamed, a guy who played a clarinet that ran through the craziest processor ever, and a drummer who was manic (although i wished his set sounded better as opposed to paper towels being hit by flacid cocks). i wanted to buy their cd but the man in front of me bought the last one. after he heard my sighs he offered to send me the whole album via email. this man, named conrad, should be crowned as king. i received the album this morning not even 24 hours after the show. the world is good.


then came miss k-records queen herself, the blow. she is also a performance artist and although you can't so much tell from her records, she is crafty, sassy, sexy, and hott. basically after playing a few songs she started to do very long monologues which invited the audience into her tragic sexual/romantic personal life. whether these stories were true, like a man ending up in her bedroom to tell her why he yelled out his car window at "babes", it didn't matter because we all sat there with sweaty palms and short breathes just just praying that she'd look in our direction.

the venue was one of the best venues i have ever been to as well. you could see the stage perfectly from every direction (you could also stand to the side of the stage and watch from there, and the only back that the stage had was a sheet. there were even signs that read: "quiet, if you talk we will tell you to shut up, you didn't pay money to talk to your friends while a band is playing." ballsy but it worked) well whatever the case the show was great and she even played old favorites like "what tom said about girls" and this amazing cover of a jason anderson song called "jet ski accident" as well as all the new favorites: "pile of gold", "parentheses", "true affection". well it was the first ever show i walked out of feeling horny. i think the only other time that happened was in 12th grade when i walked out of the movie "American Wedding", boy i was a mess.

The Methamphetamine(s) channel Biggie Smalls at Tesco Disco

well everyone, yesterday was a happy day because i finally got to play a show. when i arrived in london i set to emailing every venue/promoter/record label i could find and tesco disco were the only people who gave me the chance to shine. the venue was called hedges and butler and on every other night other than wednesday it is a ritzy drinking club that costs 5,000 quid a year to be a member (it is off of regent street for fuck sake).

Its interior is that of a refurbished dungeon whose cells now feel like cozy studies equipped with books and pillows and one even has a full double bed. the bar staff
are all french and hold their noses up quite high; perhaps they are sick of the hipster kids exclamations of having to pay 4 pounds for a stella.

the show itself was a bit lackluster, but it still worked out. first, i must say big ups to whitney, alexia, hayley, phoebe, and kayla for coming out, it always means a lot to have friends support. the other interesting tidbit of the night is that i actually got the headlining band their spot in the gig.

after tesco disco said that they would like me to play, they asked if i knew any other bands who might be good for the show. i had recently just seen at the old blue last/talked to on myspace this band called Kaputt. the lead singer had been in the go! team but after a vicious fight with "the cunt singer" she was asked to leave.

Kaputt is very fun indie dance pop and they people in it, while being about 10 years older than me, are very nice and they bought me a drink at the social nearby before my set. the soundman was a testy bastard who testified that he would make sure i sounded good, when i professed i didn't care about sounding good i just wanted my laptop louder. i thought my playing was very so so.

i was very excited about the gig so i kept forgetting to do things like tune my guitar before a song, i would remember after the first note of the next song when i would figure out that my guitar was horribly flat. also, practicing in the residence halls here is a bit difficult considering that the rooms are extremely close to one another and i can hear when people in the next room speak with their indoor voices let alone sing like a manic preacher. it's fairly difficult to get a venue going by yourself but when the room is only filled with about 20 people it makes it a little more difficult. alright enough excuses, it was a fun show and it made me very happy.

one quick note on my dress (it is customary at every methamphetamines gig that a new hideous/amazing ensemble must be worn). i got the tights in camden, the biggie shirt in brick lane, and the headband in camden. my upcoming sequence of events will go as follows: gran and pop come, i go to italy and greece, mr. william khrushchev krieger comes, i have my last exam and then come home.

Adam in Eastern Europe

Budapest, Wien, Praha, Berlin. they would call it the pinko coastline if it ran up to an ocean; however, it doesn't they all just have nice rivers. they also have nice/crazy people and nice/crazy booze. my video is extremely nice/long so i will say nothing more, enjoy!

For Those Lost at Sea

Even though i feel pretty compelled to knock day-glo it was i who was knocked down by day-glo today. i mean this headband is almost too much to handle. Camden market has about 70% crap and about 20% good stuff and some trash, pre-pubescent angsty kids, and 1 pound noodle joints inbetween.




I was looking through my pictures and found some cool guitar pictures i took of an exhibition that took place at harrods. because i just saw RIZE and feel compelled to leave everyone behind and just krump for the rest of my life, i think it important that everyone bask in the glory of the David LaChapelle designed guitar.

Just to note how i'm preparing for my eastern european trek, David and i have been watching pirated movies like crazy. any of these sites: peekvid.com, movieforumz.com, or plentyofvids.com will give you the newest movies in nice little 9 part formats which may or may not have been filmed with a video camera in theatre. (thank god for the bastards who get sent early copies of movies to judge for awards and then feel compelled to put them up on the internet) so far we have watched: Blades of Glory, TMNT, (the aforementioned) RIZE, and the Good Shepard. up next is Miami Vice.



one last side note in this truly motley post full of pictures that were looking for a more public home. there was this one generation of holofceners that included my real grandfather mike, his brothers larry and henry, and a sister who is so far removed from me that i don't even remember her name and my memory is amazing. well to the point, they were all a bunch of cocks but fairly successful in their selfish endeavors.

to put it in the context larry has lived in europe for a while, he's been here since it was easy to get double citizenship, that is not recent and needless to say i am quite jealous. well he was an "artist" and made sculptures and other things, one of his sculptures, his most famous one entitled 'allies', happens to be about a five minute walk away from me on bond street. It is of churchill and roosevelt, it is very nice, check the photo. to let you also know how much of a cock this man was i'll give you a story: after briefly meeting larry at mike's wake i sent him an email. i saw that he was also a writer and i asked if he could read some of my stuff, ya know just a wise old eye on some fresh blood material, i mean we did share blood. he told me he couldn't read it because he thought he would unintentionally steal my ideas. that and he thought that i was trying to get him to get my work published, family is fun in the eyes of the wicked.

Dead Kids at Macbeth

well last night we went to a hip ass place called Macbeth. The night was called "Friday on a Monday" I actually was very confused for a couple days about why there was no such date as Friday April 2nd. After figuring out the monday part of my date problem i headed over to the club with my friend donna (aka DJ dada hollywood). we are starting a band and it shall be called Country Fuck Petticoat.

So the venue was small. however, just like the other venues i fancy they had a stage that barely fit the band and was only about a foot off the ground. the first two acts weren't really much to talk about, a guy with a flock of seagull hair cut, green tights, an accordian, and gameboyish backing tracks that came from a crappy mp3 player. then a girl came up who thought she was gangsta and even though we were in east london, no one there was gangsta and no one ever would be.

for clarification east london=brooklyn. basically the artsy people moved there back in the day because it was cheap not because it was cool. now its too cool for school and the real artsy people have to leave because the real estate has gotten to expensive because of yuppies who think that they are cool.

well Dead Kids were mighty interesting. any band that Vice recommends is worth seeing just because they may piss in their own mouths. even though the band is called Dead Kids this quintet were rather on the older side, it looked like they were pushing 33. however, all the memebers, save for the fucking mental singer, had an air about them that said, i don't give a fuck i just play rad toons and will wear clothes that make me look old and silly.

the music was your basic type of electro rock which included keyboards and guitars and effects and a kaoss pad (luckily also a real drummer who whipped out the roto toms and scored major extra bonus points with myself cause they sounded great). the interesting thing about their set is even though the tone stayed pretty consistent the songs seemed to shift all over the place from reggae to speed metal to dancedancedance.

the crazy ass singer was the highlight of the show, albeit a bit scary. basically when people weren't dancing "hard" enough for him he jumped down into the crowd and started to grab people (by people i mean me) and throw them towards the stage. then he got on top of the speaker which almost fell over, then he went and got on top of the bar, then he spit into the crowd, then the show was over. that was it, it was very fun, but too loud. this is the last week of classes so i am excited, but i must finish this paper about Velazquez, Picasso, and Bacon....

DJ Pagan Poop Destroys the Social

well everyone, last night was magical. for those of you who didn't know, i was in a small "DJ" competition last night at my second favorite bar the Social. The format of the event was this: Girl vs. Boy style, 5 guys + 5 girls, each guy went head to head against a girl, each DJ had four songs to spin, basically the guy played a song and then the girl played a song, we each got one half the deck.

the fun part, well for me, was that when my opponents song was spinning i was able to to mix in my track with hers, you know fiddle with the pitch, the volume, esentially i wasn't gonna let the beat drop from one song to the next (the competition was basically for people who had no DJ experience, their were two guys there to "supervise" which meant that when one song was over they just threw the fader to the other side of the board while the contestant watched).

my DJ experience is very small but it works in this day and age. the DJ world has shifted so that the main obligation of the spinner of tunes is to pick good songs and effortlessly weave them together so as to keep the booty shakin' to a maximum. my playlist was as follows:

Spank Rock- Backyard Betty
Clipse- Trill
Dan Deacon- Crystal Cat
Girl Talk- Bounce That

the crowd ate it up. the lady that i was facing didn't have a clue, she stared at the cd players as if they were explosive chemicals not meant for human hands to touch. Now in terms of the actual low down of winners and such it was a bit sketchy as to who was really "the best". All of the boys lost their respective bouts for the evening but the girls were cheaters.

You can't play Pulp and have breasts and tons of friends and compete it is just not fair to anyone, needless to say the battles were judged off of crowd participation and while i did convert the majority of the middle aged room (which was freakin' packed) to my sonic preferences i just didn't have the firepower, that and i only brought david, whitney, phoebe, and hayley (thanks guys for coming out!).

well whatever the case it was very fun and as always i forget that the social is basically a college kid/yuppie hang out and last night the yuppies were out in full force. I think that DJ Pagan Poop is gonna make it in this town. he has the gumption he has the gusto he has the god damn heart. (from now on i am going to try the dave hutch approach to writing posts which breaks up the massive amount of words for easier eye balling)

The Marvellous Mac Mello at Bardens Boudoir

so i spent my saturday night in the ghetto, the east side, better known as hackney. i was running solo but felt confident because i had been to this venue before. it's called Bardens Boudoir; i saw black lips play there a couple weeks ago; it's an awesome venue hands down. i really enjoy places that have a stage which is only 8 inches off the ground. that, and the crowd is usually really polite and also too timid to stand close to the stage so i always get a front row standing spot; however, the photographers were in full fuckin' force last night, four of them up in every artists grill like a god damn dentist, oh how we all want to be a star. well to the music. the highlight of the night was Mac Mello, london rapper and word spitter of the grimy persuasion. since we are talking about london and grimy rap, here is where i make my comparison to Dizzee Rascal. i will say that they were fairly similar, minimalistic beats with a rhyming flow that could a)barely be called rhyming and b)barely be called flow but somehow they both know how to mysteriously hold it together. now i haven't seen Dizzee perform, boy would i like to, but this may be perhaps where he has the upper hand, his recordings. when i got back last night i was hyped on Mellow so naturally i went to his myspace page (www.myspace.com/macmello) and listened to his tracks. i was thoroughly dissapointed. this man was jumping all over the stage, his guttural projection of words was savage but griping, his hype man seemed to be actually intelligent, needless to say the whole crowd was feeling him. it was a swagger that reminded me of Baltimore's own S dot Rock. however, Dizzee somehow managed to channel that fire into his recording while Mello took an approach that, while it could be seen as more sophisticated and a little more controlled, was much less effective for the world o' grime. or maybe i really shouldn't judge anything that comes out of my computer speakers because they can barely handle the startup sounds let alone beats to shake your booty to. whatever the case, Mac Mello is an awesome performer and if he gets his tracks in order perhaps we'll see him on the next kanye album. (the last statement was composed to be a joke; however, after two seconds of retrospection i have concluded that it really is an amazing idea)

2 Jack and Cokes and a Whole Lotta Jukebox

so to get down to it, this week was kind of boring. i had two papers to hand in as well as a draft for a play and of course i'm supposed to finish two more novels for next week (currently i'm reading Cocaine Nights by JG Ballard, i enjoy it very much). so i will spare all of you the video treatment (which is starting to fail mind you, last weeks video had 30 views and this weeks had 10) but whatever the case this is the tale of a fun night that whitney and i had. after our assignments were turned in on thursday (a very complicated process that involved a submission to a plagerism detection service online (which needed a sign in code and password which i couldn't find for days) as well as a hard copy with formal cover sheet due to a certain box in a building 20 minutes away) we decided to get a celebratory drink at my second favorite bar The Social. Usually this place is pretty packed and it is impossible to get a seat at the bar let alone a table so we moseyed over to the jukebox in the corner which happened to be my all time favorite jukebox in the world even before this evening (i mean who else has backyard betty for 20p a spin) so this was the point in the night where we decided to play DJ (i was DJ beach blanket and whitney was DJ bingo). after inserting about a pound and a half into the machine we picked the tunes that would determine the course of everyone in ear shots night. here is the playlist (i can't remember the order in which they played so feel free to have your imagination rearrange at will):

!!!- heart of hearts
CSS- let's make love and listen to death from above
Clipse- ride around shining, trill
the DFA- remix of NERD's she wants to move
the Horrors- sheena is a parasite
LCD Soundsystem- time to get away, north american scum, all my friends, new york i love you but you're bringing me down
the Raconteurs- together

sadly, whitney and i received no thanks for our philanthropic act, that's right no free drinks, no solicitations from drunk hussies lookin' to give away the clap for free, nothin'. but it felt good.

in other news, spring break is in two weeks. basically i fly to budapest with my friends phoebe and hayley, pick up a eurail pass, and pretend that im in "on the road ".

Adam in London 7 (mostly in manpurse paris)

ok kids, time is of the essence. i think i pretty much covered everything in the video but in case i didn't elaborate enough all you need do is close your eyes eat a madeline (they sell them at starbucks) and imagine a whole bunch of paintings and clothing that you've only read about, perhaps you could put on "we are your friends" by justice. oh and after just finishing don delillo's "white noise" (which was great) i stumbled upon a line that i felt i must share with you all. mr. will krieger is the one who told me that his religion is pretense; however, delillo had a nun say that her "dedication(in terms of faith) is a pretense". so because this book was published in 1984 i'd say that its delillo 1 and krieger 0. (will im just kidding, you are my boy, book your tickets or i'll kill you). ok and just one more thing, i know how much this other kid gets a kick out of it so just for shits and giggles: matt bradshaw.

Move Over Helen Mirren, Mrs. H is in town

ok, so the proverbial seed and egg of my existence are visiting at the moment. tomorrow will be our last day in the luscious jackson city of london. then off to paris. i'll do a video when we get back, so all you get now is the words on the page. ya know we've done a pretty normal shtick so far: portobello market, shopping on regent street for new hi tops, the london eye, eating mussels and drinking belgium beer with whitney, seeing spamalot with my mother playing a small but clutch impromptu role. perhaps our last feat shall be the crux of my tale at the moment. i spent the day indoors finishing salman rushdie's book shame. i met up with my parents at dinner time where we took food at a fish place near the theatre. spamalot was really the only concession to a musical that i was going to make because let's face it, monty python inspired anything is going to be good especially when they too have embraced the song and dance routine for their entire career. the first act went swimmingly with my dad and i laughing at the funny things that we never forgot from the holy grail while my mom had to re-learn them all over again. as the play was drawing to a close i felt as if lady luck had sat right next to me. that my mother had transformed into a dame judy dench look alike ready to hit the silver screen. well my premonition was confirmed when king arthur's servant barreled down the isle with eyes set on the only mum i've ever(whom i'm sure they chose as the patsy before act I commenced). as the holofcener threesome sat with bated breath as to the hunched man's intentions he calmly said to janine holofcener, "excuse me love could you stand up". at that moment he threw the grail into her seat just to momentarily retreive it and hoist it like a big gold baby jesus. after returning to the stage, and sufficiently tricking my mother into thinking that the grail was there the whole time, he pondered whether my mother should be compensated for her help in their noble quest. the rag tag crew unanimously agreed that she should be paraded around stage and showered with awards of the most fictitious nature. my mother who is known for bad reactions to even the slightest interaction with celebrities sat dumbstruck. we all remember such great moments in her history like her feigned heart attack in the presence of sigourney "ripley" weaver while in aspen. luckily for edward and myself she pulled the part off without a hitch. she was the star. she had all the perfect attributes necessary to steal the show: a petite body structure, a terribly difficult surname to pronounce (especially on the tongue of a briton), a large black scarf which allowed for tasteful readjusting, and a face that doesn't get washed out in the bright white light assault that one encounters on the stage. of course after her second set of applause from a completely jealous crowd of tourists who "have worked to damn hard their whole life to have this woman get a polaroid picture with the entire cast on stage" she returned to her seat ready to talk about her experience, too bad the show wasn't quite over yet. after some polite shushing on my part we made it to the end in one piece and as we left the theatre my dad and i flanked mother just like we were the body guards and she was the queen (she received many kudos on the way out from those particularly in her demographic). as everything has been so far on this trip for miss nina the play was no different, it was part of the "best" experiences of her life. of course after doing the best at anything one is inevitably ready for a drink but i needed to finish my reading so i seperated from the giddy parent of two. thhis transmission shall continue after we get back from paris. hopefully i'll be enlisted to participate in an interpretive dance group show that involves the throwing of fecal matter. we all have dreams.

Panda Bear at 93 Feet East

well, first off the not fun news. i was supposed to work this show but this morning the fella over at 93 feet east emailed me and said "i am so sorry adam but we don't have work for you to do today, sorry". so i had to be a normal person who saw the show just like everyone else. ok but to the show. it was surprisingly not so great. first of all it was really quiet. not only could mark, whitney, and i carry on a conversation with our voices at a normal volume but at one point during the set the crowd was actually louder than mr. noah lennox. that being said the crowd wasn't really into it. now it was a sold out show but after about 10 minutes of Panda's set 25% of the crowd left. on all the flyers for the show the only mention of opening acts were "special guests" so either some locals brought everyone out or the crowd was really here for animal collective having not heard the bear's solo stuff. personally i thought it was an ok show. for an experimental venue 93 feet east is way too big and way too yuppie. i think that a little more effort could have been put in on Panda Bears part but i would still give him a b+ and as we all know that is still above average. he played what i would hope is basically all of his new album person pitch and after having heard "comfy in nautica" and "bros" i hate to say it but it seems that only 50% of the album will be mindblowing. the other 50 will be nice music to fall asleep to perhaps but i want to be sucked into his shit like a yves klein painting. the other funny thing about the show is that no one in the very shitty crowd was moving at all. this is the town of new rave for fuck sake people could have at least swayed. basically everyone just slowly sat on the floor and fell asleep. however the only true consolation of the evening is that Panda Bear and i were the only two people wearing baltimore orioles hats, perhaps in the whole country.

oh but here is something really special. i found a podcast of panda bear playing a whole set on this guy's portuguese radio station (even though noah's from baltimore he now lives in lisbon)

http://podcast.radio.ist.utl.pt/mafama_20070107.mp3

hands down this is freaking awesome

this post is dedicated to will collins

well it's pretty boy collins birthday tomorrow and the coincidence that i experienced last night made this post necessary to write. i found an el paso. mind you, this is a fredericksburg thing. next to playin' poker this might be the manliest thing that i can lay claim to. mr. collins as well as his cronies mr. clint woods and mr. frank franciose are responsible for showing me this proverbial fortress of solitude. it's a dinky little tex mex place off of route 1 that has an even dinkier bar in the back. it has the most amazing happy hour deal ever, dos XX with salt and lime for a buck. they are the only place in town that accepts my fake id. not only that but because we are recognized as frequenters of the establishment our chimichangas can sometimes cost as little as 3 dollars, that's a lotta beans my friend. well ok now that the footnotes are out of the way i will get to the brass. i found an el paso here in london. on my way to a place called catch last night where i witnessed two subpar improvisatory noise bands i noticed a bar that said BEST TEX MEX FOOD IN LONDON. now i was under the impression that there were no tex mex places in london because i checked the internet and it told me so. right next to this fading manifesto laid a metallic sign with purple lights that screamed EL PASO BAR. i was already full from a dinner that included microwaveable vegetarian spring rolls so i didn't even chance a glance at the menu for fear of inciting my lustful burrito hankering which has gone unfulfilled for so long. i scampered off to the club and was so happy from my discovery that i didn't even mind the fact that i was alone, going to a show that i would soon find out was not worth the 4pounds i paid to get in. so when my busy schedule of mostly fun and little work calms down a bit i shall go back to el paso dos (as i shall call it) and raise a glass to mr. collins (they probably won't have dos XX, the only mexican beer they have here is Sol and if San Miguel is mexican too than that counts also) and let out a genuine Cumpleanos Feliz.

Adam in London 6 (mostly in the city of vice)

shortly you will hear of the horrors of amsterdam. it may be too scary for people like matt bradshaw so he should turn back now. when i got back to my room after my travels this morning i talked to my friend lauren who was also in a'dam with us but took an earlier flight back to london because she had class. basically she said that even though it was 6am in the morning, a strange man chased after her on her way to the train station. luckily she got away, more importantly, luckily we all got away. on a much brighter note my food review of gung dten finally made its way onto the mcsweeneys site, so after youre done watching my facial movements stuck in weird constricted poses overtop of a series of grunts, you should go to:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/newfood/

ok, fuck shoes, i'm a do whatever i want

ok, so i bought my first pair of clothing here, next to the plimsoles, but that was ebay so it doesn't really count. it's the end of the month and i had a couple nickels left over from my food allowance so i decided to buy a forty pound pair of jeans. (ok i know these are 80 dollar jeans but i'm gonna be cool here for just one second of my life) this brand of jeans, cheap monday, got quite the review in the new vice student guide which just came out so i decided to give them a whirl. well, they happened to fit my very strict clothing guideline so i decided that they were acceptable to purchase. with these and the plimsoles i am a normal indie londoner. i don't know why i feel the need to do the "in" thing at the moment but i do. perhaps i want to finally have one up on will krieger on the london fashion thing but let me have my happy experiment. i only really wear about 3 pairs of pants anyway and none of them are black so i needed something to balance out the wardrobe. perhaps i fell victim to idleness but tonight i am going to see black lips, yes i did see them in DC but they put on quite the show which is worth seeing again. they are basically vice's house band here so perhaps it will be even crazier in this town. whatever the case, i made another discovery. walking into a store with money is like walking into a kitchen with food. everything is different. mannequins come to life. clothes become wearable. this exciting discovery can also make people go crazy though so one must watch out. you must choose wisely and never force anything because you want your new shit to look/taste good. ok well off to the show, hopefully they bring back the shtick where they piss in each others mouths.

if the post seems a bit off, i just spent the last two hours re-reading slaughterhouse five and drinking 2 pints of grolsch at the social, it was an amazing past two hours.

Moustachuary in Retrospect

well, tomorrow marks the last day that i shall don the stache, at least for now. However, even though i will regain my truly dashing good looks a solemn frown shall replace the once pseudo flavor savor. from what i hear, moustachuary failed because of a secret intruder known only as: the beard. this beard is an elusive yet comforting fuck indeed. he even includes what might be known as a moustache but just as yves klein refuses to use two colors i refuse to use two facial hair attires. it is not the juxtaposition of lip, chin, and cheek hair that we were going for friends; it was an exhibition of style and prowess that can only be achieved by this roughneck facial accessory. i think the infiltration took place because of a flaw on my part. as machiavelli says a good prince cannot lead from abroad. obviously i did not heed this warning justly. i thought that i could regulate the stache proceedings from over the pond but my lapse in judgment cost everyone dearly, especially the recently departed ryan little who suffered greatly by upsetting the gods with his beard heresy. I thought that the dogma was laid out perfectly, the month of the moustache; however, i was gravely mistaken. i am sorry to all who have suffered. (and all who wussed out like little bitches)

on a lighter note, my plimsoles came. if you look closely you can see the dry blood stains. ebay doesn't tell you where the shoes came from but they say they were made in india by inspection of the inner lining. this leads me to believe that some poor man was killed for these shoes. these shoes have more street cred than anything i have ever owned. now that the era of the stache is over i think i might talk about interesting shoes, or at least till something else of interest presents itself.

Adam in London 5 (mostly in his room)

well, even though i still have a tad case of the sniffles i feel rejuvenated! ready to go out into the world rescue eskimo babies and things like that...ok maybe not that but it is about time that i start creating toil in which to make fruit that i can then consume. david and i had our first kind of showdown moment with the rest of our floor (well not really, everyone here is passive agressive so we don't actually have any contact with them) here's the scoop: no one cleans the dishes, they just sit there in the sink, then after david or i would clean them all they would just pile up again, then we stopped cleaning, then a month went by, then we got a notice from the cleaning staff that we were going to start getting fined for a dirty kitchen, then we got another notice, then david and i made our own notice that said if the dishes don't get cleaned in a week we will throw them away (signed anonymously of course but i think they know who are the only people crazy enough to do it), then after a week the dishes were still there so david threw them away, now we wait to see how the philistines react (probably by not reacting at all(or possibly even throwing comments from outside our doors like "man i can't believe they did that, i mean that stuff wasn't mine but god why do they care about stuff like that?")), well enough of that, on to the show!

THE FIRST 4:30AM BONUS POST!!!!!

ok, so i just got back from a place called TURNMILLS, everyone and there mother was there. it was MSTRKFT's record release show and not only did they play but there were guest DJs from the Klaxons, the Gossip, the New Young Pony Club, and Hot Chip. From this experience I can say that i am officially done with whatever this new rave scene thing is. i mean old rave looked stupid from the start and nobody had problems distinguishing that but i feel that there are things that throw people off on the new rave. 1. day glo- it seems fun, its brighter than bright, it plays fun tricks under a black light, and i'm sure it seems really silly while you're on ecstacy; however, when you take a closer look it is nothing more than a tragically aggressive color. it's not inviting, it's piercing and it has the ability to invade your personal space from across the dance floor. 2. bands like the Klaxons, the Gossip, etc. etc. DJ these fucking masquerades. these perveyors of pop trade in there wonderful melodies and happy-go-lucky tunes for drum and bass drones that are boring and never ending. it's called being fucking lazy when you just play the same poor excuse for a beat over and over again for hours and hours. the test is this: if you can listen to electronic music that you can dance to even when you're not dancing then you know its awesome examples: dan deacon, !!!, lcd soundsystem etc. 3. ecstacy- i know it should seem simple and eventhough i've never done it i've spoken to many that have and basically when you're on it EVERYTHING IS AWESOME, if you are not already weary of people who think that everything is awesome then you are not enough of a skeptic for this day and age. any environment that you can only tolerate under the influence, especially of something life threatning such as ecstacy, should probably be avoided. all i can say is that in places such as these the results are sad and disheartening not to mention expensive (15fuckingpounds). that and i basically had to will myself not to fall asleep so i could see MSTRKFT's set which started at 2am. ok well enough bitching at the moment i'm sure i'll talk about it in the video to come, and just to show you how awesome i think i am here is a picture of my hair high fiving the wind from atop primrose hill where you can see quite a bit of london.

Moustachuary 4

i feel like a parent, my child flunked high school but is starting to show promise in community college, the child being my flavor-saving bastard of a moustache. basically, its just a little soft in the middle but with your donations it may be able to fill out a bit more. the two recatangles that reside on the left and right side of my lips remind me of home and keep all my friends close to my heart. through matt bradshaws facebook picture i have seen naylor's prize winning beard; i will allow for his breaking of procedure (the fact that it is a beard and not a stache) because of the joy that it gives me and its spectacular essence, its "i don't know what". ok well back to the grind...,,,;;;:::

Adam in London 4 (mostly in spiffy spain)

Just got back from barcelona. Our main reason for going was carnival, a festival that takes place all over the world and allows people to dress up like blind tranny hookers on halloween. Other than that the video pretty much, as per usual, speaks for itself, but just for fun i'm going to put up some band names that i came up with just to ya know get a response:
1. creative carrot juice
2. tomorrow it is!
3. the boxed pew
4. the arts and crafts movement
5. the pretty pictures
6. the jackson bollocks

Adam in London 3 (richard h.)

greetings, this week the post is pretty simple, not a tremendous amount of bells and whistles, but i'm assuming that next week will just blow your minds because then i'll have stories of spain and trouble and much more david. rick leaves tomorrow; tonight we are going to see stephen beckett's play "Happy Days". I am extremely excited, now to the film...

Moustachuary 3

ok, this picture truly represents the disgusting fate that i am forced to live with forever. My facial hair is a failure and i have come to terms with this and shall still continue on with the project because of the devistating consequences it could have to one ross marshall. However, after some meditation on the subject i have found out why my efforts to grow a badass stache are destined to be thwarted, there names are edward and janine holofcener. They are responsible for the cage match that constantly rages in my DNA between the anglo-saxons and the children of isreal. Sides have been drawn in this epic battle and it doesn't take a pediatrician to figure out who has what. Above my waist is almost a barren wasteland with awkward patches of this and that while below i could somehow seem related to a wolverine. My maternal grandfather's crew cut represented the amount of hair that he donated to me through my mother and my father's brother is still one of the hairiest men that i know. Thus, at conception the stage was set for a war with apocalyptic tendencies. This also lead me to pinpoint the reason for my irritable stomach because of the aforementioned front line of my center region. I ask for your continual prayers in this tragic time of my life and in other news another video post will be up when richard holofcener leaves.

Adam in London 2 (Adam in Southern France)

Dear Matt Bradshaw and everyone else, welcome to the second installment of my freeze frame fun. It's a little longer than last time so that might mean that you get more enjoyment. Well, I do enough talking in the video itself so now you can watch, enjoy!

Moustachuary 2

ok, I haven't shaved to make the stache official but I'm trying to lower the sillyness factor of my face by waiting a couple of days. But you can bet Jeff Zeider's sweet ass that I look haggard. I heard a rumor from my friend katy hersh. Try it on like a pair of pants and pass it round the camp fire: Mutton Chop May. Think about it.

Moustachuary 1

Part of my blog shall also contain the pictorial chronicling of the small but important adventures that my facial hair has. That's right kids, it's moustachuary. For those of you who don't know the male musical community at mary washington has some taboo growing sessions during different months such as: no shave november. To stay true to these brethern I must also sacrafice my dashing good looks to grow what shall most likely be an almost invisible moustache; however, the sacrifice comes around to bite you because my feeble stache will most likely jump out at the viewer upon entering the a three foot radius around my body, then they cough, back away, perhaps wimper, and in worst cases die, ok, well the pictures will be here and they might not show much but remember they probably wouldn't anyway.

Adam in London part 1

hello friends, as I will repeat many times this week, this is my new blog, it is fun, it is charming, and it used to be a wonderful dancer. To warn you in advance the only way I could get this to work is to use the youtube quickcapture feature, in short, I look as if i put together a bunch of stills and then just added audio behind them, just because I've gone to a million art museums here doesn't mean I'm trying to be sassy but some of the faces I make really are great and I'm sure you'll laugh, ok any other important notes I will add every week, and if I buy a camera I might even put in a picture or two, enjoy!