When you blink your eyes...

The earth has thawed and given a glimpse into warmer days here in New York. I don't know if I've ever been this excited for the summer to come. Especially, walking around Union Square every day. Making it through the winter in New York makes you feel as if you really have earned the right for the summer weather. I don't feel like its any colder here in New York overall than in Oklahoma, its just the way you are in the cold more often having to walk and take subways more often than cars. Now, Its hard to stay inside. At least the office has a window to let the fresh air and natural sunlight in.

With warmer weather comes much more comfortable clothing. Much more skin can be seen around the streets. Oh my, its truly a blessing which I am very appreciative for.

The soundtrack for the start of the summer weather has still been this French Kicks album. I'm surprised I've had it going on repeat for this long.

Its been a challenging yet fun week at work. I feel like I really deserve the weekends more than usual lately. I hope to get into more photography/art projects soon. I've been thinking of trying to do a short video project or take a drawing class this summer as well. Also, I got some acrylic paint awhile back that I plan to try a few paintings with soon.

I'm optimistic about the summer and opportunities that are in store.

I went to a Black Book magazine party at 1Oak in Chelsea last night as I work near them with my new job. I was feeling kind of sick after some bad sushi but did my best to drink through it with the complimentary Skyy Vodka. I ended up having a good time anyway. I think I saw the guy who won the last Project Runway there. Around 11 I was invited to see the French Kicks @ Mercury Lounge. Its hard for me to turn down a concert opportunity so I went for it. I enjoy Mercury Lounge as well.

I had seen them probably like 3-4 years ago at Opolis in Norman, OK and hadn't really listened to them much since their first album One Time Bells. I keep hearing positive things about their new album but was kind of skeptical at first. I did enjoy the show quite a bit although it was a bit of a blur later in the night. We got there after they had already played a few songs. I recognized a couple of the old songs but it was mainly all newer material. It was a good show from what I remember of it.

I listened to the new album Swimmers at least 3-4 times today and it was much better than I expected it to be. They've really tightened up their sound and seem more experienced but not too forced or derivative of another band. Its nothing totally groundbreaking, but its inspired and has a nice cohesive flow to it. We'll see if it lasts but I'm really into it so far.

I've been enjoying the new Destroyer album quite a bit. He's been on the top plays list on last.fm for awhile now and this new album has only increased the lead. I've been wanting to see Dan Bejar live for several years and am excited that I have tickets to see him next week. There is just something about his songwriting and delivery that does it for me.

Speaking of Blue Flowers, I think that is my favorite Dr. Octagon song. When I'm in the mood to hear him that's often the song I start with. I put it on in the subway the other day when I was thinking of the title of the first track on Destroyer's latest album.

I have been planning and working on this new revision of my website off and on for about 6 months now. I decided to move to a new host and build everything in python on top of django. Its been a great learning experience. There are many features I want to add but I felt it was at a stage where it was good enough to transition over from the previous site.

I am now off of wordpress and created the blogging (hate that word) system I call Blink pretty much from scratch on django with the help of a lot of reading and trial and error. There are still some features I want to add such as full searches, but its mostly there.

The photography section is still running off of the flickr api. I had to re-do it with beej's flickr API instead of the version I was using before in PHP. I built a custom photo display system with the help of a few tricks from mootools and a lot of trial and error. I still need to streamline the javascript but it should work ok for now.

The music section is now fully automated off of all of the digital music that I play with the help of last.fm webservices. I plan on adding a lot more features to that area as time goes on. I just added the cover art over the weekend with the help of Amazon Webservices. Its not 100% accurate but generally pretty close. Part of it has to do with albums that are missing from last.fm or bad id3 tagging.

I'll write more in detail about these but I'm tired now and I need to finish my taxes.

The last couple of evenings I've been listening to Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks on vinyl on repeat (manual repeat). I've had it for awhile but hadn't totally absorbed it like I have until recently.

I've been on a big Bob Dylan kick recently. Trying to get most of his albums on vinyl when I can. I have found a few good record stores around the west village. The other day I was in one on Bleecker Street called Slider records I think it was. It was packed with records, the guy said he's not able to sell them as fast as he used to. I was look ing for the Dylan records I didn't have yet. He showed me a copy of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I had actually obtained it the previous weekend but he mentioned the album cover was taken on the same block we were on. I'm not too big on touristy kind of things, but it felt warm and inspiring to know that Dylan had walked those same streets.

My appreciation has grown for him more and more over the years. When I was young I used to think it was some weird man with a funny voice, I didn't understand it. Now I consider him one of the better artists of all time. Up there with the consistent accomplishments of someone like Picasso. Even if you don't care for their work, they deserve some kind of respect and admiration for how much they kept changing and challenging themselves while continuing to produce quality work.

I kind of prefer some of the later 60's and early 70's albums of his at present even though its all great. New Morning is probably near the top of the list. Blood on the Tracks is moving up quickly. It has an amazing feeling to it over all. Contemplative, warm, soothing, and personal.

I saw the Handsome Furs last night at Bowery Ballroom with Emily. I'm always up for seeing most any Canadian rock band and even more so if they have any relation to Wolf Parade.

The Handsome Furs are Dan Boeckner and his wife Alexei Perry. The music is much moreo stripped down than Wolf Parade as its just Boeckner on guitar and vocals and Perry on the drum machine/keyboards. I have only heard the album a few times and I did start to get into some of it. I enjoyed them more live than I thought i would. Boeckner has some excellent talent for song writer and singing.

I was impressed with the way they played the first single I heard a few months ago "The Handsome Furs Hate This City" from their album Plague Park. They started the first half of the song with both of them on the same tiny synth wiggling around to the music.

We didn't stay all the way through the entire set because it was getting pretty late and it was a school night but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I always enjoy going to the Bowery.

I've spent a considerable amount of spare time on and off over the past several months working on an updated revision of my website. I decided to take on the task of building a blogging system on top of django instead of using wordpress. I started teaching myself python and django about 6 months ago and have enjoyed working with it quite a bit. I knew it was going to be a big project to create a blogging system from scratch for blink, but its not exactly from scratch with all the built in support django has.

I'm getting close to a version I can consider turning over to from the old site. There are still many things I want to accomplish but I've missed writing in the blog as I've felt kind of in limbo from the old site and spending the spare time working on the new revision. I have moved all old posts from my previous systems which were on wordpress and prior to that blogger into this new system.

I feel like I'm much more organized with the way I develop and make changes to the site than old versions. I'm really working on making something maintable and easy to add features too. I will write more about the features I have completed and what I plan on doing in the future soon.

I was just watching the Led Zeppelin Song Remains the same concert film again on VH1 classics. Every time I watch that performance it blows me away. It is one of the greatest live music recordings I've seen. In addition to all the members of the band being at their peak, the videography and editing is outstanding as well. The way they intertwine mini-plot music video sequences with the live performance and backstage and fan interaction really gives you a sense of being there. I also like the fact this happened just a few miles away from where I'm at right now at Madison Square Garden.

Its almost unreal how great Jimmy Page is on the guitar in this. You can tell he knows what a total bad ass he is and how in control of the instrument he is. It makes me think of what a joke so many other bands are that pale in comparison. He's wearing those wild moon and star bell bottoms along with perfectly clashing embroidered matador-like small jacket. Throughout it I was thinking of a show I saw about the band once about how Page was into black magic and that could partially be what catalyzed the band's demise in the end. I'm not sure what that guy did to get so great, but its truly remarkable. With practice anyone can become a good guitar player, but few are truly great and innovative. He's always been up on my list of top guitar players of all time.

I really like how they tie in the band's theme of fantasy and mysticism with each of the mini music videos. Some of them are quite hilarious and odd but fit perfectly with the show. One of my all time favorite songs of all time is The Rain Song and the performance here is no disappointment. The videos add a visual compliment to Plant's Tolkien influenced songs. I just read here that the sequence of Plant during The Rain Song was shot on his Welsch farm. It makes me want to visit there some day.

Apparantly they were showing this to advertise a newly released version of the film for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. I need to get a copy of that and maybe buy a copy for other people for Christmas, its truly a great work of art in many ways. I'm not so excited about the idea of Led Zeppelin touring again, reminds me of the Pixies coming back, I just don't think it will be nearly close to the same. However, with this film you can see the band at their prime which is truly a high standard that many bands have tried to copy but very few have come close.

When I stepped out onto the sidewalk this morning to go to work it was a bright sunny day, perfect temperature. I got the song Cemetry Gates by The Smiths in my head after that, the line about “a dreaded sunny day, so I meet you at the cemtry gates.” I wasn’t really dreading the sunny day I just like that song a lot. I then put that track on my iPod and listened to The Queen is Dead album on the way to work on the crowded subway. The perfect end to the journey listening to that music is there is a huge poster of Morrissey as I step out of the Subway on about 53rd and Broadway. Before this poster was put up within the last month it was another Morrissey poster that had been up 4-5 months advertising the last time he came to town. Its always refreshing to come back to the Smiths, I never get tired of them. This is real music.

I was invited to go see The National the other night with my friend Emily. This was the opening night of a new venue in midtown west / hell's kitchen called Terminal 5. I had high hopes for the place because its owned by the Bowery Ballroom people who have the best venues in NYC. The venue was in kind of a warehouse district on the far West edge of Manhattan. It was really great inside, 2 upper tiers, excellent sound. Not all that different from the Bowery Ballroom setup which is perfect.

The opening act was this girl who goes by the name St. Vincent. I liked her. She performed solo with an electric guitar with various distortion pedals and a drum machine. In some ways she reminded me of Tom Vek + Feist. Her voice was beautiful similar to Feist, but St. Vincent is more arty and unpredictible which I liked. Sometimes adding crazy effects and loud distortion. She also switched back and forth to a second microphone with an effect that sounded like a tinny Billie Holiday. Overall, enjoyable performance.

The 6 members of The National appeared on stage not long after that. I was expecting them to have more beards, but only the drummer did. They played all my favorite songs and they sounded better live. I had read there are twin brothers in the band, I think they were the 2 guitar players. The lead singer was a taller blonde fellow, I like his voice a lot. It took awhile for the first album to grow on me last year but then I liked it from then on.

Fake Empire, the first track on their current album, Boxer, was outstanding. The dynamics of well done live sound engineering and the acoustics of the space were just right for their sound. They had a 2 piece brass section that came in for several songs including this one that added the perfect touch. I had wondered on the recorded version if it was just a synthesizer or something, but its really a trumpet and trombone.

I would definitely go see The National live again. This may be the second best live show this year I've seen next to LCD Soundsystem. I would also recommend Terminal 5. Its much, much better than the Roseland Ballroom which is a few blocks from where I work. Roseland is more expensive, too big, bad sound (at least the show I went to). Bowery Ballroom just does live music the right way. I'm glad they were able to expand into this new venue and bring more great shows.