30.4.08

me + pbr + studying = cool

try to argue my logic

summer music: Algernon Cadwallader


this band was sent to me by a friend, Cameron, who said I might like it. turns out, its the perfect happy/ summer music.
its like if Minus the Bear matured a little and started to do something more like Page France.
This is their myspace:
http://www.myspace.com/algernoncadwallader

and if you dig that, this is a link to their entire album:
http://www.mediafire.com/?mvx2jv5zyvj
So i'm avoiding working and studying. Sounds like a good enough reason for a list. Subject: Bands I'm psyched to see at lollapalooza.

1. The Black Keys- easy one. my latest jock thanks to jordan
2. Grizzly Bear- hipster joy and love
3. Wilco- maybe i'll be sober enough to actually pay attention to them this time.....
4. Nine Inch Nails- Oh nostalgia
5. Radiohead- not really my jive, but hey, i'll see what the hype's about. maybe thom will lose his voice?
6. Brand New- i'll be so reliving my high school emo days. girls pants+fake black rim glasses hear i come
7. Raconteurs- love me some jack white, even in this blah incarnation
8. Flogging Molly- can you blame me? i'm irish and love to drink.
9. Stephen Malkmus/ jicks- love this stuff. bit leery about how they will be live, but whatever
10. Girl Talk- there's always some hot hipster girls to dance with when girl talk is in town

Least excited:
1. Rage against the machine- been there, done that, hate the fan base. *woohoo seether and hinder*.
2. The National- Saw these guys at Pitchfork. soooo boring. good to fall asleep to though, but not a live band at all.
3. Mason Jennings- enough said
4. Kanye West- used to like this guy. way to screw up a perfectly good daft punk song jerk
5. Brand New- suck a love/ hate relationship with these guys. for one, very nostalgic (thus the previous list). for another, hate the fanbase....


most interesting names:
1. Does it offend you, yeah?- seriously, such a great band name. i can literally imagine what they'd sound like.
2. Margot and the Nuclear So and So's- did you know there is no margot in this band? they are named after that girl from the royal tenenbaums
3. Flogging Molly- love it. flogging just isn't a word you hear very often
4. What made milwaukee famous- i hope the answer to this is PBR
5. Ha Ha Tanka- Wouldn't it be cruel to name a kid after a sound you make while laughing?
6. Noah and the Whale- memories of sunday school......
7. Cat Power- she croons drunkenly, but the name still makes me think of a cat dressed like superman flying around.
8. Blues Traveler- strangely, not what you'd expect.....
9. CSS- Cansei de Ser Sexy. enough said.
10. The Kills- so simple. so pretentious. so british.



least excited is much shorter. the rest of the lineup is pretty awesome or i have no idea who they are and am too lazy to check it out right now.

matthew barney

this is freaking weird. bob showed me it a few months ago and i was reminded of it recently after a spirited conversation with someone about the cremaster. don't know what the cremaster is? look it up. most interesting muscle in the human body bar none.

The Cremaster Cycle


Not exactly sure where he's going with it, but its an interesting study in discomfort. Kinda fits into the entire California post-modern art exhibits that are so popular with pop architects (hernan i'm looking at you). Heck barney even covers the "swarm" and "rape" stuff pretty well in this cycle.
Its a strange use of the Guggenheim too. If wright was alive today, he'd be flipping nuts.

28.4.08

noisycrane


Just watched these guys live. Not bad at all. Cody and the peeps have really improved. Too bad the Dame can't work sound worth crap.... I mean seriously..... I think Mike McKay said it best when he said "Loud doesn't mean good". There was a constant hum in E flat from the monitors which threw off the band.... Lame.
Anyways, these guys have gotten way more upbeat and more "hipster-esque" sporting the latest american apparel fads but still putting on a good set.
Plus one of the new additions, the violinist, pretty much stole my heart tonight... so cute.... damn being shy.

anyways, here's their myspace. www.myspace.com/noisycrane

new graft= same old crap

this is one of the worst buildings i've seen in a while. seriously, do these guys ever do anything new or even think about what they do? I mean, seirously, how much of posers are these people. After having visiting this firm, I lost alot of respect for their work and alot for their drinking abilities.








According to the architects:
"Our belief was that no clear typology for a church, mosque or theatre should dominate the shape of the building, but that it should be present at the same time to create an entirely new typology. In the end, the formal language of the building communicated different religious and ‘scene-o-graphic’ typologies in its shape, without being literal. A diamond-shaped crystal ‘envelope’ was developed from three different geometric prefigures that fuse into one another. "

Sounds like utter bullsh-t to me. I don't see a church when i see this. I see another glass piece of crap.... diamond shaped crystal envelope developed from what? eh? And "entirely new typology?" Give me a break.
Alright, and now lets look at some precedents they probably looked at by some other "starchitects."


daniel libeskind's imperial war museum.


I gotta say this for Graft though.... their renderings and drawings have dramatically increased in quality. They almost seem like a real firm though.
No offense Michael... I just hate this crap

26.4.08

black keys on letterman

not sure if I want to go to this or not... gonna be in chicago at that time, but with the exception of Public Enemy, !!!, Ghostface/ Raekown, and Spoon (whom Ive seen a few times already....) I'm not too psyched. Maybe I'll just stick with Lalapalooza (sp?). That sounds like fun to me.

Pitchfork Music Festival
FRIDAY, JULY 18
The Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow's Parties present "Don't Look Back" featuring
PUBLIC ENEMY performing It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
**SEBADOH performing Bubble and Scrape
MISSION OF BURMA performing Vs.

SATURDAY, JULY 19
Animal Collective
Jarvis Cocker
**The Hold Steady
!!!
Vampire Weekend
No Age
Atlas Sound
Dizzee Rascal
Extra Golden
Fleet Foxes
**Elf Power
**Caribou
Ruby Suns
Fuck Buttons
Jay Reatard
**Icy Demons
A Hawk and a Hacksaw
**Boban Markovic Orkestar
**Titus Andronicus

SUNDAY, JULY 20
Spoon
Dinosaur Jr
Spiritualized
M. Ward
Ghostface & Raekwon
Les Savy Fav
The Apples In Stereo
Boris
Cut Copy
Dirty Projectors
**Bon Iver
Dodos
**Times New Viking
Occidental Brothers Dance Band International
El Guincho
King Khan
**HEALTH
**High Places
**Mahjongg




Sustainable house Jordan Hines and I developed. Somehow we won the Merit Prize for the Solar Decathlon.

24.4.08

My final project is finished.... finally. Here are some images from it.






Final review was yesterday. Went ok, but I have alot of work to do still.
Reviewers were:
David Biagi
Len Wuijuik
Jason Scroggin

other reviewers included:
Mike McKay
Drura Parrish
Michael something or other from Cooper Union/ Yale
Tony Roccanova

21.4.08

classic

don't care what you say. this is one of the best metalcore songs ever written.

whodathunkit

here's some stuff from my teacher, mike mckay, from last semester. i didn't know he was this good, but its really good. awesome model. collaboration with Maxi Spina








airplane porn

based on a strange conversation with jordan and bob with captions.



for those into "vintage" or mature stuff.




yeah take it.



doesn't the classic sometimes look the kinkiest?




now look up and smile. oh yeah. moneyshot.

18.4.08

Thanks to Jordan for this


http://www.imeem.com/theblackangels/

The full stream of the aforementioned album by the Black Angels.

Hell yes.

13.4.08

The Black Angels

This is a new track from The Black Angels off their upcoming album Directions to See A Ghost

The Black Angels- Dove

Gotten via YANP, so i can't take credit for this thing at all.

A little too blah for my tastes. I like the Black Angels but it sounds a little overproduced and not quite what i'd want from a band as raw as the Angels. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing them at Lollapalooza.

first installment

I'm starting a new thing which could basically be a thesis in a way.

I've always noticed that somehow evil villain bases in cartoons portray a certain amount of architectural merit, whereas the bases of the "good guys" typically embody a neoclassical or rather office building ascthetic. For example:
Hall of Justice: Base of the Super Friends (Superman, Batman, Seaman, etc etc)



vs. the Legion of Doom, their nemesis.





Argue as you will on the ascthetics of these two, but I believe the Legion of Doom have more going for them than the Super Friends. For one, the place is so different that anything normal or seen at the time of its inception. Today, architects are starting to create similar building types and curved, glossy surfaces. For another, the context is extremely different, and would be more to contemporary architect's liking than the traditional urban park context shown in the Hall of Justice.

More to come later.

9.4.08

so.... i'm really really surprised i'd never listened to these guys way back when.
pretty freaking amazing. listen to their cover of Rock Lobster

Insane kind math metally. Think Breather Resist type stuff before that sort of thing was happening and even before like metalcore and stuff.... like a chaotic Madball.

www.myspace.com/botch