Author: admin

A friend of friends from Ashland, Oregon named Random Rab was playing nearby last week so I grabbed a buddy and headed out on a Thursday night. The crowd was a bit small, but enthusiastic and the place had a good vibe overall. Rab went on at about midnight starting out with a sort of hip-hop techno song with his own vocals in parts. It was a lot of fun and set things off well. He continued through a set varying from the hip-hop style to breakbeat, techno house, and maybe even a touch of trance at times. The songs varied quite a bit in tempo, but the basic sets of sounds and structures were similar. He did a good job of building energy throughout a song by layering different complementary parts and the dancing crowd seemed to have a good time all around. Overall, Random Rab plays a good energetic live set and is worth checking out if he’s playing in your area. He has a full length cd available as well.

On the way to work this morning, I walked by a homeless woman holding a $100 bill. She had it in her left hand and was busy writing in some sort of journal with the other. I didn’t get a good look at what she was writing, but it looked like it might have been some sort of accounting register. I assumed that because she was holding the money out right there on the street and from that I assumed she must be saving up for something. She may not have really been homeless but she was standing next to a shopping cart full on nondescript stuff and using it as her writing table. She was also dressed in the sort of random manner that you expect to see on a homeless person. Yeah, so I guess the lesson learned is save those pennies and look to the future.

DreamHost is having a crazy sale for our 7th Birthday (I started it with some friends way back when so I have more than a passing interest). If you sign up with Promo code ‘777’, you can get our Crazy Domain Insane plan for only $0.77/mnth. You have to sign up using a credit card and you have to sign up for a full year to get the sale price. Oh, and we’re only giving this sale price to the first 777 people who sign up. Yay!

Tonight I was out and I saw a guy named Kid Beyond perform. He started out with a fun bit of multi-genre beatboxing including some breakbeats, some drum n bass, some techno, and a cover of Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer”. Then he incorporated a multitrack audio looper into the performance and did a cover of a Portishead song that sounded surprisingly close to the original. He also did a few of his own original songs and they were all pretty good to very good. He has an album coming out next year, too. Overall, he’s a really entertaining performer and worth checking out if he plays near you.

I went to see the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow movie on Friday night. It’s very cool looking and has a great period feel to it. I love anything that’s retro futuristic and you can’t go wrong with giant robots. The movie was not full of deep moments or multi-faceted characters, but I had fun watching it nonetheless.

On Saturday night I saw the Pixies play a show at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. I was a relatively late-comer to the world of the Pixies so it was great to have a chance to see them play. The crowd knew every word to every song for the most part so it felt like a big sing-along at times. Overall, it was lots of fun and the Pixies definitely still have that special magic that makes them great.