Ok… I know I have been slacking hardcore on posting, but life has been busy since returning to the states. But here is my promise to continue my posts of sharing travel, art and music to the masses. With that I introduce my new album of the week…Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion.
Now I can’t lie, I’m a little bit late on this one considering it was released way back in January, but according to my iTunes I picked up this piece of art back in late May. Nine albums into their career, and Animal Collective have finally struck gold. Not that they struggled to turn up riches before: on the contrary, their career has been pretty fruitful. But Merriweather Post Pavilion finds the group–here represented by three of their four members, Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and Geologist–ditching the gloopy guitars of Strawberry Jam, enlisting a new collaborator (Ben Allen, a US hip-hop engineer who worked on a personal favorite of mine Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, who supplies pleasingly thick crests of bass) and embracing a new, sunny dancefloor bounce that owes little to chemical abandon and everything to the warm rush of a natural high.
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Take a minute and enjoy a track stating during the ongoing economic meltdown, “I don’t need to seem like I care about material things like social status/ I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls!”
As many of you know I talk openly about my interests on this blog and music is generally the number one topic after traveling. From Album’s of the Week to new music videos I find intriguing it all ends up here and when I can mix posts about my friends/family and music that makes it even better. Above is the video for “Hate Aside” from the Sandpeople, a large hip hop group from Portland, Oregon that boasts ten members (one being a good childhood friend). Now if you’re from the City of Roses you’ll the North Portland landscape/bridges just as much as I did. This video is also currently in the MTVU: Vote For Your Favorite Freshmen Video contest, so head over there and drop a vote off for the guys and show some PDX Love.
Is it October 16th yet! As I mentioned before Spike Jonze has put together an adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s story, where Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world–a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler…and below you will find the brand spankin new official trailer for this soon to be classic. I can’t wait. 66 days and counting…
Available from one of my favorite design / homeware type stores, www.suck.uk.com always have a strangely intriguing set of items on offer… So to tea rituals … not just for folk up north and old people.
JK, Esko and myself made it down to Thirsty Thursday at PGE Park to catch the Portland Timbers vs. Vancouver Whitecaps, aka two soccer games in two days.
An exciting game tonight as the defending champion Whitecaps fall and the Timbers extend their unbeaten streak to 19 matches, avenging their only loss on the season. Wth the victory, the Timbers take the season series from the Whitecaps 2-1 and also take the Cascadia Cup Championship, the franchise’s first-ever. The Timbers also moved into a 1st place tie with the Carolina Railhawks. All over it felt so good to be back at a Timbers game!
There aren’t many words I can use to explain how excited I was for this game. I mean seeing the greatest team on the planet and best player in the game (Lionel Messi, who just so happen to score two goals in this match) play in your backyard doesn’t happen everyday, well unless you live in Barcelona.
Rory and I had purchased these tickets for Drew’s Birthday two months earlier and the day had finally arrived, Barcelona vs. Seattle in a soccer friendly. Even Bill Russell was in town for the game to receive the honorary Golden Scarf. Enjoy the pics from the game and notice it wasn’t even close…. Barça lead the entire way!
After Moo and I returned from the employee store yesterday we sat around and look at all of our new running gear, including the new Nike+ SportBand. The SportBand gives runners a real-time performance feedback on their distance, pace, time and calories burned with just a glance at their wrist. When your run is over simply detach the watch face from the band and plug it into your USB slot to automatically download your times. With this Nike also redefined the online running experience by merging the successful site nikeplus.com and its close to 2 million members together with www.nikerunning.com. When exploring the new site we found that you could challenge one another on distance among others things… Thus the gauntlet was thrown down to see who could run the most miles in a month…and what do you know, they have a nifty little widget to share the results.
Available from one of my favorite design / homeware type stores, 
But: The Dodgers??