Majicke’s Neighborhood

POLYVINYL
One of Kateg's favorite label, Polyvinyl, is offering a free 16-track album at polyvinylrecords.com/mentalmath. The sampler includes a ton of bands we've previously covered: Architecture In Helsinki, Mates of State, Asobi Seksu, Headlights - just to name a few.

Incidentally, one of those band, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin are on tour:

12/02/09 Outland* Springfield, MO
12/06/09 Binghamton University Vestal, NY
12/07/09 Bell House Brooklyn, NY
12/08/09 Summit Columbus, OH
12/09/09 Bishop Bloomington, IN
12/12/09 Outland Ballroom Springfield, MO
01/13/10 Maxine’s Pub Hot Springs, AK
01/23/10 Gallery Sounds Collective Springfield, MO
01/28/10 Schubas EARLY ALL AGES SHOW Chicago, IL
01/29/10 Courtyard Cafe Champaign, IL
01/30/10 Mojo’s Columbia, MO
01/31/10 Jackpot Lawrence, KS

* SSLYBY 10th Anniversary show with Brian Azevedo and Lamentia

We are going to cover the all-ages show at the Bell House in New York.

THE YOUNG PUNX
I got a download sample and press release for this band's latest "double a-side single" for Simple Pleasures/Like Dat. Generally, I am not accepting singles, remixes, or demos, but since I did enjoy their previous single for "Your Music is Killing Me" and "You've Got To" (especially the Norman Cook aka Fatboy Slim remix), I did give these two new songs a listen.

What can I say ? I really dig the old-school punk intro, followed by this weird 80s pop singing, then some rasta-thing. Not really sure what to classify the whole thing, except that it's quite dancey. As for "Like Dat", I wasn't keen on this as much. Perhaps it's the rap song is such a stark contrast to the other song... but that's probably why people like Young Punx.

Currently, I think you can only get Simple Pleasures/Like Dat on iTunes. If you want to wait, I think these two songs are going to be available on their upcoming album, Mashpop & Punkstep, due out in 2010.

Anyway, since this is the "free" post, you can head over to their official website under theyoungpunx.com/../mp3, you'll find a ton of free mixes and oddities. My favorite are any remix of "Juice and Gin".

NETFLIX+PS3
Also, some random thoughts: I survived Black Friday. I have never seen so many people out in force at 5am. The parking lot at Wal-Mart was completely full, thankfully we got news alert from other shoppers that we went to Wal-Mart at the last stop. Deals were everywhere, it was the worst at Target (which also reflected people flocking to there). One of the item I bought was the Matrix 10^th Anniversary Bluray, which comes in a nice book-format, for $12.99. It's normally $29.99 suggested retail price. My impulse buy was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. PC game for $5.... it couldn't be helped.

I spent most of my vacation catching up on reading and TV shows. TV shows comes in the form of Hulu and Netflix - via the Netflix Instant Streaming disc for PS3. Compared to Xbox's "Gold Membership" which costs $50 a year, PS3's free streaming is a much better deal.

The Netflix streaming is dependent on your internet connection, I have a semi-decent connection at 5 megabit, so the video starts instantly (less than 30 seconds). Compare this to Playstation's own HD digital rental services, you have to wait at least 30 minutes to start the video, while it download the rest of the file. It's probably fast if you just drove to the video store and rent your movie.

Quality-wise, again depending on the connection, was pretty amazing for me. According to 1up.com, the streaming is in HD (however, I think some titles are only available in standard definition).

My gripe is that most of Netflix's titles are only available on DVD, the digital portion is probably less than 1% of their titles (it is only a guess since their selection is so poor). Also, there's no searching via the streaming disc. You can browse the recently added in various genres, but older titles, you will have to search and add to your "instant queue". Kind of lame, I hope they fix this problem in future updates.

If you don't have a PS3, most newer television and bluray player will come with instant Netflix, so this company is quite smart in getting their hands on all devices. Think about it, if you bought a Bluray player with Netflix, you will probably sign up for an account. Anyway, if you have a PS3 and a Netflix account already, you can request the free Bluray disc for yourself at netflix.com/ps3.

The complications from this mornings ballot just keep getting better as the day goes on. Firstly, I have to mention an item from this mornings ballot. There was one informal vote that simply had the word NO scrawled across it.

I can imagine the frustration behind that vote but I wonder if the person who did it realised they were giving Abbott a one point win? How cool would a drawn vote have been?

To make matters even more complicated, the unpredictable Senator Fielding (at left) wont vote for putting the ETS bill into a Senate enquiry. This stops Abbott putting the bill into limbo and likely will force a vote.

This vote could very easily see enough Senators cross the floor to vote with the Government and see the ETS Bill passed.

What a result that would make. The Libs voted in a less popular Leader only to see the bill passed anyway. The wannabe power brokers from the Independents and The Greens get left out of the process. And the farmers get to see how useless the Nats are to their cause for earning Carbon Credits.

Next time a negotiation comes around folk will have to consider if they are going to play themselves out of the game early or wait and see and moderate their behaviour.

Incidentally, I don't think Kevin 07 will call a double disolution any time soon. Why risk it when the Libs have plenty more punch ups to come?

Hockey out on the first vote which wasn't predicted by the pundits leaving Tony to win by 1 vote.

The celebrations have began but the loudest cheers are coming from Labor. Usually the leader starts out popular then gets dragged down by the poor policy. Tony is already "on the nose" so at least he can't fall as far. Of course trying to win an Election is going to be problematic.

Will the remaining small L Liberals get jack of trying to rebuild and think of starting a real Liberal party?

Joe probably make a serious error by offering a free vote but it's still better for him to not take the job just yet.

George Galloway is reknowned for dishing up serves to the folk who think it's their God given right to apply their military forces against weaker opponents.

Here is a recent example that was drawn to my attention by fellow Voxer koan911 and I'm very grateful for his scolarship. I have been meaning to comment on the ill fated attempt by Blair to be the first European Union President and this makes a nice introduction.

This link has George's speech to the War Crimes Conference & Exhibition that ocurred in the Putra World Trade Centre in KL Malaysia on 28th October 2009. It's broken up into 3 short parts and is an excellent reminder of the bad behaviour of the so called Leaders of the Free World.

Towards the end of the speech George encourages the throwing of shoes at Blair which I think is an excellent idea even though well short of what he really deserves.

Recently young Tony thought it might be fun to score the gig as the first European Union President and it actually tracked along for a short while until someone realised he would not be able to travel to all the countries under his presumed control should he be successful. A number of EU countries recognise the International Crime of Aggression and all it would take is one up and coming Prosecutor to want to make a name for himself and Tony would face the embaressment of defending his actions. Add to that the annoyance of the rest of Europe caused by Blair bouncing around George Bush's feet like an excitable puppy and I'm sure Tony would take years to get through the legal system.

Looks like Tony will have to stick with his current job of creating Peace in the Middle East.

Hmm.

I hope they don't do performance reviews on the Peace job. He might have to risk the EU job.

Fans lining up outside ♥ The Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis (11/29/09)

I was actually at last night's Triple Rock Social Club to do coverage on Those Darlins. But staying for The King Khan & BBQ Show (the headliner) was a bonus. You see, in 2005, I was sent a live video clip of "I Love You So" by a duo called "BBQ King Khan" (the name that was listed on the video).

So, if you need to catch up on The King Khan & BBQ Show (myspace), they are an interesting modern band with minimalistic setup and plays a weird mixture of 50s doo-wop and Surf music. They've got a ton of fans, who lined up hours before the show.

I got the story between King Khan's on stage antics and Jessi Darlin that prior to showing up in Minneapolis, that they were delayed and detained at the Canadian border (I think they had spent the last few weeks touring throughout Canada). This resulted in two things: "Unnamed peed in his pants" and last night's show to be slightly delayed (the doors weren't opened to the public until 9:30pm).

Some notable details about the stage costumes: BBQ uses his foot to tap the tambourine and Khan has a fox's head over his crotch. They dedicated "I'll Be Loving You" to "all the Orientals in the audience", which probably only account to myself.

Nikki Darlin ♥ The Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis (11/29/09)

This was Those Darlins' third Minneapolis show. The first time they played, Kelley admitted that she did not know this city existed until they showed up to play - in which Nikki responded, "now you know Canada exist too". It would seem that Minneapolis might be one of Darlins' favorite city to play now - especially because I recognized some of the same dedicated group of fans that was at the 7th Street show at last night's show.

They started off dirty with "Fun Stix Party" with naughty lyrics like "I'll bring the p****, you bring the d***", followed by "Wild One". They also played fan-favorites like "DUI or Die" and "The Whole Damn Thing" (aka the Chicken Song).

Their cover song, "Shakin' All Over", was their last song on the set... which actually went pretty crazy. See the last half of the song in the video.

Jessi Darlin ♥ The Triple Rock Social Club, Minneapolis (11/29/09)

Overall, I think Those Darlins satiated their existing fans, while perhaps gaining a few new fans. I overheard a few people saying how unexpectedly great their performance was. Their self-titled album is available now at Amazon.

PS, Those Darlins' only male member, drummer Linwood Regensburg tried talking me out of buying their "Gay" V-Neck T-Shirt. He said that he made those V-Necks because someone had suggested it. Apparently they weren't very successful as they only sold a few of those shirts. So, as of this writing, I am one of the six people in the world that owns that V-Neck Darlins shirt.

Tomorrow looms as an interesting day for the Good Ship Lost Cause otherwise known as her Majesty's Opposition.

The party that is confused about Global Warming is still unaware that the Voters are sick of inaction and want to get a start on addressing the problem as best we can. Even folk who count themselves as traditional Liberal Voters are in favor of getting a start and if the papers are to be believed, by a very big margin.

The problems for the Party are many but the fundamentals are simple to follow.

1. The Voters prefer listening to scientists rather than pollies with vested interests when it comes to thinking about Climate Change.
2. The folk denying the problem don't come over as reliable sources. Wilson Tuckey, Barnaby Joyce (from the Nats), and of late Senator Minchin with his Left Wing conspiracy theories are doing a good job of looking like folk you don't want to sit next to on public transport.
3. The message is unsellable no matter who gets the gig as chief salesperson.
4. The small L Liberals have almost disappeared from the party after the man handling they received from John Howard.
5. Whoever puts their hand up for the job knows they face an uphill battle trying to control the various factions.

Currently the media are claiming Joe Hockey is going to challenge but I'll wait to hear it from Joe himself. Surely he won't fall for the offer. Better to let Malcolm do the heavy lifting on the ETS and wait for things to settle down. A good clean up by replacing those who resigned would be an excellent start to turning around the party.

I think Malcolm is up to the task of slapping down the undisciplined and freshening up the front benches. Goodness knows they could use a clean out of the dead wood. With any luck a few might jump over to the Nats where they can live unchallenged by new technology and developements. Funnily enough, Wilson Tuckey will be under pressure to hold his seat against the Nats come the next election. Perhaps he should jump now. It's a perfect fit for him.

Can Joe control the capital C conservatives if he takes the job? Nope.
Can he sell the unsellable? Nope.
Will he make another poor decision that will be even more damaging than accepting responsibility for Work Choices under the previous Government?

That remains to be seen.