9.11.09
2.11.09
8.10.09
"OH THIS IS THE ONE, FRANK"
I'm sorry for the slower updates. Obviously, if you want the real time action, come see your hero on twitter under the Hypefactor name. Where am I? This time I'm in New York, where The Mrs. and I just bought an ill (read: didnt feel like going downtown) Vikki some comfort food at her posh yet sardine can like hotel room. mmmm soup. I've been back for almost a week, the longest stretch here since August and shit just keeps flying by. Sometimes it's hard to keep up but hey, screw you, its my blog and excuse the typos..
While this is on my mind, as I type I am listening to Ash's new set from a DJ even in Boulder, CO. You should download it and give it a spin as it's really ace: http://bayemv.wordpress.com/
Where have I been? You know, clowning around. I did some fun stuff in LA. Honestly, I spent a lot of time with kids during any of my free moments! I finally made it out to the new awesome new Cramp compound and saw the entire Cramp gang, including the twin lads, who I met for the first time!! The were awesome and it was a blast seeing Denise after a long spell. Of course, Ms. Bella Cramp, who is awesome and hilarious and charming, was a blast to play with. Here she is getting Uncle Frank a brownie:
After the Kids went to bed, Brad and I watched the wonderful CURB premiere as well as the new BORED TO DEATH, which has a lot of promise and you should check out. Good stuff. I also spent some time with Brad after this, hanging with our classmates from NYU, with whom we had our second reunion lunch, as seen here:
The weekend after was crazy chaotic! That Friday night, I finally saw the Manic Street Preachers for the first time ever at the Avalon in Hollywood. It sucked going by myself but they more than made up for it with a career spanning set that was played with a lot of energy and talent. They were worth the wait and I was really excited to see them again in NY, which G, Lurch and I did last night. And they were even better this time! NY, being that it is always the best to begin with, also has the awesome X-pats who go nuts, so last night was singalong for the ages and one of the best times I have had at a gig in ages. I literally only had one complaint and that is that they didn't play anything off of LIFEBLOOD, which Brandt and I swear by is their best album. Also, James Bradfield is a SICK SICK awesome guitarist, which was the pleasant surprise of the gigs. But it is interesting to note just how much better the NY crowds are.
Anyway, back in LA, I went to Disney for the first time in my adult life, this time with the wonderful Kruger kids. We had a lot of fun and while Ro and Avy are big time now and don't need to snuggle with an uncle, little Leia has taken up the slack. She loves me. I love her. We're tight and I got to carry her all over the place. This is what I saw waiting for me when I arrived and boy did my heart sing when I saw this little face:
I had a lot of fun watching the kids rock out. Eventually, Dr. Fury and I snuck off an did the INDY ride, which was huge and cool but a bit too short, and STAR TOURS which was hilariously out of date, but I was glad to see before they updated it. Then we had a fun dinner at Goofy's cafe. My comments about being in a gang with Goofy back in the day and telling the kids Goofy and Pluto were going to have a knife fight was met with puzzled looks. The food was actually really good, for some reason I expected it to be whatever, but I guess what these parents have to pay for all this shit, the least they can do is give them some good food, yeah?
Special thanks to Mr and Mrs Fury for inviting me and buying me a ticket and, as always, treating me like a rockstar. Also, it was cool meeting Fury's sister and of course I love these 3:
From Disney I fucking RACED in Saturday night traffic from Anaheim back to Hollywood to attend the Scott Ford Benefit gig at the Roxy. Scott is the bassist for the Twilight Singers, who for anyone who has read this blog more than once knows that they are a favourite around here. Scott has had horrible dental problems as late and his friends, many LA rock luminaries, put together a star studded gig to help raise money to pay for the tens of thousands this poor guy is going to spend to fix his mouth up. You can read all about the gig and Scott's plight here:
http://www.billboard.com/news/hollywood-rock-royalty-band-together-for-1004015137.story#/news/hollywood-rock-royalty-band-together-for-1004015137.story
Obviously, I went because Mr. Dulli himself was appearing. and appear he did, as you can see below:
The gig itself was fun and really well put together. Everyone from dulli to members of Guns N Roses, The Cult, Sex Pistols, MC5, Janes Addiction, and others all appeared and it was fun. Again, it kinda sucked being by myself, where the fuck is G when I need him, but it was worth it in the end for this :
But it got even better because, Yes, I finally met Dulli and he was cool. We had a brief chat in which we discussed WATCHMEN, BAYOU, the new album, and "THE AWESOME RESURRECTION OF JACKIE EARL HALEY" of whom Dulli is a big fan:
Obviously, as you can see, he was excited to meet the guy from Hypefactor.
So after a whirlwind few weeks in LA, and thanks as always to Vik and Em for housing me. I came back for my cousin Josh's wedding. He married a cool chick, Lisa, and it was fun getting my dad drunk.
Then we raced back from upstate to get to Carnegie Hall to see, AT LAST, Mr. Gavin Friday as he celebrated his 50th birthday. I think we had super fucking high expectations for this and it was going to be tough to live up to. For some, like the Kidd, it sucked, so he walked out at intermission, but for others, like me, it was fun, if poorly organized mixed bag of fun and silly. Honestly, it could have used some more Gavin on his own. Too many guests sometimes that took away from his awesomeness. However, I will give U2 a lot of credit as they played a bunch of Gavin covers and did a super job. Bono singing THE LAST SONG ILL EVER SING was a highlight. The best part was Gavin and Eric Mingus doing Caruso. Overall a good time, read about it here:
http://gavinfriday.com/2009/10/08/gavin-friday-and-friends-at-carnegie-hall-in-pictures/
And so, here I am, back in NY, for now, plotting the future out and hoping to get deeper into the mixing of the HF album this week. More soon!!
F
While this is on my mind, as I type I am listening to Ash's new set from a DJ even in Boulder, CO. You should download it and give it a spin as it's really ace: http://bayemv.wordpress.com/
Where have I been? You know, clowning around. I did some fun stuff in LA. Honestly, I spent a lot of time with kids during any of my free moments! I finally made it out to the new awesome new Cramp compound and saw the entire Cramp gang, including the twin lads, who I met for the first time!! The were awesome and it was a blast seeing Denise after a long spell. Of course, Ms. Bella Cramp, who is awesome and hilarious and charming, was a blast to play with. Here she is getting Uncle Frank a brownie:
After the Kids went to bed, Brad and I watched the wonderful CURB premiere as well as the new BORED TO DEATH, which has a lot of promise and you should check out. Good stuff. I also spent some time with Brad after this, hanging with our classmates from NYU, with whom we had our second reunion lunch, as seen here:
The weekend after was crazy chaotic! That Friday night, I finally saw the Manic Street Preachers for the first time ever at the Avalon in Hollywood. It sucked going by myself but they more than made up for it with a career spanning set that was played with a lot of energy and talent. They were worth the wait and I was really excited to see them again in NY, which G, Lurch and I did last night. And they were even better this time! NY, being that it is always the best to begin with, also has the awesome X-pats who go nuts, so last night was singalong for the ages and one of the best times I have had at a gig in ages. I literally only had one complaint and that is that they didn't play anything off of LIFEBLOOD, which Brandt and I swear by is their best album. Also, James Bradfield is a SICK SICK awesome guitarist, which was the pleasant surprise of the gigs. But it is interesting to note just how much better the NY crowds are.
Anyway, back in LA, I went to Disney for the first time in my adult life, this time with the wonderful Kruger kids. We had a lot of fun and while Ro and Avy are big time now and don't need to snuggle with an uncle, little Leia has taken up the slack. She loves me. I love her. We're tight and I got to carry her all over the place. This is what I saw waiting for me when I arrived and boy did my heart sing when I saw this little face:
I had a lot of fun watching the kids rock out. Eventually, Dr. Fury and I snuck off an did the INDY ride, which was huge and cool but a bit too short, and STAR TOURS which was hilariously out of date, but I was glad to see before they updated it. Then we had a fun dinner at Goofy's cafe. My comments about being in a gang with Goofy back in the day and telling the kids Goofy and Pluto were going to have a knife fight was met with puzzled looks. The food was actually really good, for some reason I expected it to be whatever, but I guess what these parents have to pay for all this shit, the least they can do is give them some good food, yeah?
Special thanks to Mr and Mrs Fury for inviting me and buying me a ticket and, as always, treating me like a rockstar. Also, it was cool meeting Fury's sister and of course I love these 3:
From Disney I fucking RACED in Saturday night traffic from Anaheim back to Hollywood to attend the Scott Ford Benefit gig at the Roxy. Scott is the bassist for the Twilight Singers, who for anyone who has read this blog more than once knows that they are a favourite around here. Scott has had horrible dental problems as late and his friends, many LA rock luminaries, put together a star studded gig to help raise money to pay for the tens of thousands this poor guy is going to spend to fix his mouth up. You can read all about the gig and Scott's plight here:
http://www.billboard.com/news/hollywood-rock-royalty-band-together-for-1004015137.story#/news/hollywood-rock-royalty-band-together-for-1004015137.story
Obviously, I went because Mr. Dulli himself was appearing. and appear he did, as you can see below:
The gig itself was fun and really well put together. Everyone from dulli to members of Guns N Roses, The Cult, Sex Pistols, MC5, Janes Addiction, and others all appeared and it was fun. Again, it kinda sucked being by myself, where the fuck is G when I need him, but it was worth it in the end for this :
But it got even better because, Yes, I finally met Dulli and he was cool. We had a brief chat in which we discussed WATCHMEN, BAYOU, the new album, and "THE AWESOME RESURRECTION OF JACKIE EARL HALEY" of whom Dulli is a big fan:
Obviously, as you can see, he was excited to meet the guy from Hypefactor.
So after a whirlwind few weeks in LA, and thanks as always to Vik and Em for housing me. I came back for my cousin Josh's wedding. He married a cool chick, Lisa, and it was fun getting my dad drunk.
Then we raced back from upstate to get to Carnegie Hall to see, AT LAST, Mr. Gavin Friday as he celebrated his 50th birthday. I think we had super fucking high expectations for this and it was going to be tough to live up to. For some, like the Kidd, it sucked, so he walked out at intermission, but for others, like me, it was fun, if poorly organized mixed bag of fun and silly. Honestly, it could have used some more Gavin on his own. Too many guests sometimes that took away from his awesomeness. However, I will give U2 a lot of credit as they played a bunch of Gavin covers and did a super job. Bono singing THE LAST SONG ILL EVER SING was a highlight. The best part was Gavin and Eric Mingus doing Caruso. Overall a good time, read about it here:
http://gavinfriday.com/2009/10/08/gavin-friday-and-friends-at-carnegie-hall-in-pictures/
And so, here I am, back in NY, for now, plotting the future out and hoping to get deeper into the mixing of the HF album this week. More soon!!
F
19.9.09
Natural Forces
Hello from Los Angeles, where I've been for the last 5 days or so and will be here until my cousin Josh's wedding in October. When it's said and done I'll have been in NY a total of 5 days in September. I miss it. But on the flipside, you know how antsy I get when I'm not on a plane or in another place after a long period.
The end of the summer was frustrating for several reasons. A. Work slows down and that makes me pissy and B. I didn't have a nephew around to keep me from thinking about point A. Luckily, we got the hell out of dodge for a bit before I went too nuts...
Summer came to a quiet end, but Fall began with me and the Mrs. flying 13 hours west to spend a week in Maui. Our friends were getting married there so we turned it into a nice little trip. We relaxed, swam, ate well, slept a lot, watched Nash Bridges, snorkled, found mint condition classic Will Eisner books (seriously) and just took it easy. Beautiful place and it was great seeing Jim and Carla finally make it legal. They also have the most adorable kids and we got to meet a lot of cool people. And I golfed. Yes. More like "golfed". Anyway, I lovely mini vacation that certainly was relaxing and fun.
I'm happy to report that this did lead to some musical progress where, literally before leaving for the Left Coast, your hero finished his long awaited vocals for the Hypefactor album. I believe I am finally done for this record and now there are some dubs and then the mix. It already sounds fucking great so I'm pretty excited. I've been listening to it quite a bit. This is the one. We have some stuff up on the myspace.com/hypefactor which is just the teaser kinda thing. Just a taste. MUCH MORE to come.
Now here in LA, it's the usual chaos. Vik's working like a maniac, so I am handling my usual dog walking/care responsibilities, which I have gotten much better at. The dog is awesome and we saw our Rabbit friend finally (twice tonight). Had a lovely sushi dinner with Dr. Fury last night, who I will be seeing again next week (WITH his wife and kids) and hoping to see The family cramp, milano mouth, and Bergoch before I go back. Tonight, kyle and I went to the Grove to see JENNIFER'S BODY which was pretty good. I'm not really on the whole Megan Fox thing, but she was right for the role, which had clever writing but so so execution at times. However, Adam Brody was enjoyable but Amy Sedaris is wasted in it.
Anyhow, lots on the plate, more work here, tons of shit to do, but also after 10 years, I will see the Manic Street Preachers here for the first time and then attend a benefit gig for Greg Dulli's bassist Scott Ford. Should be fun. When I get back to NY, I will finally cap off seeing EVERY fave band I have loved in my life by seeing Gavin Friday for the first time ever. That is going to be fucking awesome and a truly memorable evening.
My computer's hard drive bit the dust before I went to Hawaii, so I sent it and now have a nice working machine. I have decided to kill certain things though, like LAST FM, so you won't be able to track what I am listening to, but I am going to try and be more consistent in updating that stuff. Right now I am obsessively listening to the new Cerati, which ended up being the soundtrack to my summer and now I am really into Bernard Sumner's new band BAD LT, but I am not 100% sold on it yet. I definitely like it though! A lot. I'm anxiously awaiting albums from Ian Brown and Editors, both of which are very promising.
Anyhow, hopefully this catches us up a bit. Any questions, you know how to find me!
F
The end of the summer was frustrating for several reasons. A. Work slows down and that makes me pissy and B. I didn't have a nephew around to keep me from thinking about point A. Luckily, we got the hell out of dodge for a bit before I went too nuts...
Summer came to a quiet end, but Fall began with me and the Mrs. flying 13 hours west to spend a week in Maui. Our friends were getting married there so we turned it into a nice little trip. We relaxed, swam, ate well, slept a lot, watched Nash Bridges, snorkled, found mint condition classic Will Eisner books (seriously) and just took it easy. Beautiful place and it was great seeing Jim and Carla finally make it legal. They also have the most adorable kids and we got to meet a lot of cool people. And I golfed. Yes. More like "golfed". Anyway, I lovely mini vacation that certainly was relaxing and fun.
I'm happy to report that this did lead to some musical progress where, literally before leaving for the Left Coast, your hero finished his long awaited vocals for the Hypefactor album. I believe I am finally done for this record and now there are some dubs and then the mix. It already sounds fucking great so I'm pretty excited. I've been listening to it quite a bit. This is the one. We have some stuff up on the myspace.com/hypefactor which is just the teaser kinda thing. Just a taste. MUCH MORE to come.
Now here in LA, it's the usual chaos. Vik's working like a maniac, so I am handling my usual dog walking/care responsibilities, which I have gotten much better at. The dog is awesome and we saw our Rabbit friend finally (twice tonight). Had a lovely sushi dinner with Dr. Fury last night, who I will be seeing again next week (WITH his wife and kids) and hoping to see The family cramp, milano mouth, and Bergoch before I go back. Tonight, kyle and I went to the Grove to see JENNIFER'S BODY which was pretty good. I'm not really on the whole Megan Fox thing, but she was right for the role, which had clever writing but so so execution at times. However, Adam Brody was enjoyable but Amy Sedaris is wasted in it.
Anyhow, lots on the plate, more work here, tons of shit to do, but also after 10 years, I will see the Manic Street Preachers here for the first time and then attend a benefit gig for Greg Dulli's bassist Scott Ford. Should be fun. When I get back to NY, I will finally cap off seeing EVERY fave band I have loved in my life by seeing Gavin Friday for the first time ever. That is going to be fucking awesome and a truly memorable evening.
My computer's hard drive bit the dust before I went to Hawaii, so I sent it and now have a nice working machine. I have decided to kill certain things though, like LAST FM, so you won't be able to track what I am listening to, but I am going to try and be more consistent in updating that stuff. Right now I am obsessively listening to the new Cerati, which ended up being the soundtrack to my summer and now I am really into Bernard Sumner's new band BAD LT, but I am not 100% sold on it yet. I definitely like it though! A lot. I'm anxiously awaiting albums from Ian Brown and Editors, both of which are very promising.
Anyhow, hopefully this catches us up a bit. Any questions, you know how to find me!
F
