PDX is calling me…..

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I certainly missed this one (he passed away in January of this year) – RIP to one of the real pioneers of electronic music, period. My friend and I saw them back at the Schnitzer in Portland I think around college timeframe – lot of the maui-wowie being smoked in THAT show, to be sure… 🙂

Tangerine Dream Founder Edgar Froese Dead at 70

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Finally, someone says it – and it’s a looooong past due article! Thank you Zach G!

As someone old enough for the ‘last’ microbrew revolution (Portland OR, in the late 80s) I can remember when microbrewers actually cared about differentiation, vs. now – Now, when I ask for the microbrew menu, all I hear is IPA, IPA, IPA – to which I say, WTF? And then I order an Ayinger, Spaten or something else. Portland Brewing used to make at least two great weissbiers – not in the Widmer way – both gone. Wither Bridgeport Coho? Grant’s Weissbier with the polar bear on it? Heck, I’d take a Rainier Dark (only had it at the now closed brewery back in ’94, it was only sold in limited amounts to taverns)? Guys, it’s time to take beer back from the hoppy crap and leave that to the English! There are plenty of better places brewing beer (even on the UK islands – been to Scotland?) that offer inspiration…..?

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From The Seattle Weekly: The Bar Code: Put Down That IPA!

If you lived in Portland, OR from the late 70s through the 80s, you know who Jack Ramsay is. What a class act – rare these days. Rest in Peace.

Hall of Fame coach Jack Ramsay dies at 89

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But mark your calendars anyway – June 6-8, 2014, Tacoma Convention Center….

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I couldn’t get past the second panel! 🙂

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One of the best things about Seattle is, simply stated, Scarecrow Video. The store is one of the best video stores in the history of the USA, and that’s no exaggeration. In a town that’s movie-crazy, it stands at the center of all that’s cool about the silver screen locally. It is safe to say that no matter what you are looking for, you will find it there (although possibly already rented by someone else :)).

So for me, besides the usual escapist anime and sci-fi, they have an amazing selection of animation and music videos. Being an animation junkie, one of my all-time faves is Bill Plympton. Most may remember him from MTV hand-drawn animation back in the 80’s and early 90s, but he’s still plugging away out there and still as wacked as ever. In the past couple years he’s come out with Santa: The Fascist Years (2008); the four shorts in the Guard Dog series; and one of the MOST recent – Idiots and Angels (still waiting to see this one).

But in visiting Scarecrow to get a specific anime pic, I looked at Bill’s section (there are many DVDs and even a few old VHS titles in there to rent) and in the Animation Show of Shows series, his short ‘Eat‘ (2001) was there (Volume 11), so I got it.

This one – like many Plympton shorts – starts off in one direction, and just when you think you’ve figured out where he’s going, veers off wildly in the complete opposite way and ends up nowhere near your expectations (not a bad thing – but the rubric ‘expect the unexpected’ should be your guide).

A lonely man comes into an empty restaurant, is waved to a table, and then orders for two – when it comes, he begins fantasizing about the other plate taking the form of a fantasy date and acts accordingly.

Meanwhile, another couple comes in the restaurant, takes their seat nearby, the man orders, and then things begin to get weird. Not terribly long after, a family of four comes in and takes another table, and things take another weird turn.

I won’t spoil things for you – it’s hard enough to get people to watch BP movies with me as it is, so I encourage you to seek it out for yourself 🙂 – suffice it to say, the chaos in the last few minutes will be both vaguely familar, yet completely disturbing at the same time.

You aren’t meant to understand his short films – he lets loose in most of them fairly quickly and you are simply along for the ride at that point. But that’s half the fun! And of course the fact that he’s from Portland, OR (like me) and that he hand-draws every frame of every short/movie himself – the last holdout on that for sure – makes him truly one of a kind, even beyond the unique content of his films.

It appears from his site BP now actually has a book out, with the foreword by Terry Gilliam (one of the few people likely close to Plympton’s vision when doing those wacked Python animations long ago). I will definitely have to keep an eye out for when he comes back to the PNW, and show up for my signed copy. 🙂

In the meantime – check out some Plymptoons!

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In

Well, it was a long time in planning, but the big event(s) finally happened this past weekend – Kerewin‘s big 4.0 bday. And I am VERY happy to say everything was a big success and she had a great time. And there were even a few surprises along the way, which is always nice to pull off. Two of karri’s best friends came in from WAY out of town (NYC and AZ) and my sister from Boise, ID. Other friends trekked down from BC and all four corners of the Puget Sound area. For Portland, we had friends coming in from as far away as Hood River as well as the greater Portland area. THANK YOU to all for coming! 🙂 🙂 🙂

We had the first party here in Seattle on Sat. night at Kenyon Hall in West Seattle (great venue if you are looking for one for an event of your own). It was catered by the always-amazing, nearby Buddha Ruksa (best Thai in town!) and the Shiftless Layabout(s) were our band for the night. Hopefully both gained a bunch of new fans – the guests were constantly praising both all night and after.

Sunday am, we all piled in the car and blasted down to OR for the second party Sunday afternoon the 6th.

There are 4 pages of pics here – and even a couple MP4 movies – enjoy!

happy bday, Kerewin – love ya!

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Saw the short ‘documentary’ Heavy Metal Parking Lot this evening. This is a very short movie filmed way back in 1986, when ‘heavy metal ruled America’ for a short time (you had to be there :)). The ‘movie’ itself is pretty basic, not a heck of a lot more than the camerman/interviewer going around the parking lot before a Judas Priest show and handing the mike to various burnouts drinking beer and yelling ‘Priest Rules!!’ over and over. Some highlights:

1) Did we really have all that horrible hair? Yep. If it wasn’t a mullet, or ‘she-mullet’ (guess where the hair-metal bands got those long scraggly ‘dos? From the chicks!) – it was an uncombed ‘feathered back’ mess. The last time I saw that many winners in the same space, it was either Monsters of Rock (at the Seattle Kingdome – sporting Dokken, Metallica, Scorpions and ‘Van Hagar’) or even worse, a USFL football game in Portland during high school. Yes Virginia, there are lots of weird people/trolls out there who live under big rocks nearly every day of the year and only come out into the light for crappy semi-pro football or rock concerts.

2) Nearly everyone on camera seems to be drinking beer, even though almost none of them are even 21 (several admit their age on camera between beer chugs) and there was at least one cop seen walking around, to boot! This concert was in Maryland somewhere at what looks like a high school stadium (but I think it was in fact a sports stadium). Even worse, one guy brags about being 20, then his girlfriend says she’s 13(!) – then they start making out – ewwwww! The one saving grace is that he’s wearing aviator-style sunglasses – which proves that those glasses STILL SUCK today too, guys!

3) The one guy who says he likes Scorpions best (they were my fave at the time) is also sporting a ‘f*** you’ tshirt – pretty funny. Like nearly everyone else, he mugs heavily for the camera , yells and then chugs.

there are other ‘extras’ on the DVD but bleh. They include other subject-matter ‘parking lot’ movies (including a Harry Potter one?) and a brief HMPL ‘alumni’ movie – where they talk to some of the people in a ‘where are they now’ style. Watched about 5 mins. of this, but bleh.

Man, watching that was just too weird. And a little TOO real 🙂

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Saw Manooghi Hi at The High Dive last night – another great show! They also played a few new ones that aren’t on CD yet – should be good. It was kind of weird since we got there WAY too early – around 8pm – it looked at first like no one was going to be there – it was us, bartenders and M.H. hanging out.

But then people started filtering in (including the opening band, who seemed to be showing up a wee bit on the late side). The openers – can’t remember their name and they never actually SAID it out loud – played some forgettable stuff for about 45 min-one hour, then M.H. played not long after, getting done around 1130 or so. Despite being a Sunday night show, it was pretty packed out, and it looked like there were more than a few M.H. family members in attendance – veddy cool!

This show came on the heels of eating at Delancey over in Ballard (finally) – also very good, it’s a gourmet pizza joint – basically Seattle’s version of A Pizza Scholls in Portland. While my personal fave here is still the nearby Crash Landing (because ‘grease is the word’) and in portland – Escape from New York – this was damn good. And *this* came on the heels of a wedding the night before that was catered by Via Tribunali! Between friends, family, relatives, music and pizza – it doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

I will upload some abbreviated, way-too-dark videos from my phone/the show shortly, but in the meantime, SEE THIS BAND!

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