31.5.08

you know the stage between passing out and getting home drunk? its extremely sad and lonely. especially when you know there are at least 1,000 people having fun less than one mile from you..... pathetic really. I will pass it listening to this band I saw today and will see again tommorow:
www.myspace.com/lucero

yes. I don't care if you think they sound like they are 50 year old smokers or that they are alcoholics since all they sing about is whiskey..... they are still one of the only decent country/ southern rock bands around. they have been one of my recent fav. top fives in the past few months along with mewithoutYou, Black Keys, Two Gallants, and Against Me! (circa 2001).

so yeah. enjoy this band. or i will hunt you down and force you to drink pbr or whiskey with me until you like them. i will enjoy that.

my newest hipster crush

yeah, i tend to run through them... first it was the bassist from the donnas, then jenny lewis, then maria taylor, then annie, then some girl from a french poppunk band, then chan marshall, and now introducing Uffie.
Ok she's been around for a while, but I don't really listen to this kind of music very often.... But damn... I really should....

I mean look at this youtube video... Its just a series of pictures, but the music is on there too i think. I mute it pretty quickly. Its like a mix between annie and m.i.a. and css. She's on the same label as Justice and does some stuff with them....

Of course the last 20 seconds of this song is just ironic....





29.5.08

Lexington- Finally on the map for something other than horses




http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/05/carbon-footprint-report.php

This totally cracks me up. Lexington tops the entire nation for largest carbon footprint.
Urban Sprawl + Crappy buildings + bad coal management = worst enemy to the environment in the country.
Oh Lexington, how thou art idiotic.

Jean Nouvel- La Defense tower (The Signal Tower)

strange... I can't decide whether I like the design or not, but the renders are pretty freaking sweet.... The design is maybe too french for me....










I'm gonna rip off that site plan asap. pretty nice.

Smoke that stadium....

So um... Turns out that HOK/ Peter Cook olympic stadium I posted about the other day is made of Cannibis.... Sustainable?

The London 2012 Olympic stadium, designed by HOK Sport and Peter Cook, could be wrapped in a material made from the cannabis family of plants, it has emerged.


http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3114827&origin=BDbreakingnews


I can see the headlines now: Stadium Burns Down: Thousands Happy, or Disaster at London Olympics; Athletes Caught listening to Phish, Jamaican Team Unaffected

28.5.08

Follow up: Noisycrane



A few weeks ago I posted about this band and my infatuation with their violinist (remember that creepy moment?). They just finished their LP Limestone Walls& Frozen Falls. Sounds pretty good, but their live show is still better (not dissing the album, just saying its sweet to see the million instruments you can hear actually being played). Favorite song is probably Strutting Around or Come to Me. Pretty sweet.
They are also needing votes in order to play Lollapalooza. You can vote once a day.

http://www.sonicbids.com/lollapalooza08/BandProfile.aspx?candidate_id=4135

27.5.08

HOK's Olympic Disaster

This is just plain awful.... Everything about this project pisses me off. The only thing I think is half way redeemable is the fact that it can be quickly torn down... Lets just hope they don't have any intention of putting it back up afterwards....





And here's an animation of it. Looks like HOK is hiring Pixar these days to do their animation and hiring some crappy ex-porn composer to write childish annoying beats.

26.5.08

Soviet Architecture

Everyone knows I'm obsessed with Tatlin and the Constructivists.... here's some funny cartoons of Soviet architecture, not necessarily in the same vein, but rather more in the reserved conservative soviet vein that tended to conquer post ww2.





With this one, refer to Jordan's post on dam's. (link)

24.5.08


This is a sweet animation. Its good when the animators do more than simple fly throughs and rotates. They use alot of fast motion streets scenes and wireframe construction of context. Pretty nice and interesting. They also have one for the museum plaza.
This is by Brooklyn Digital Foundry

ArtOfficial


In the same vein as hiphop found via lollapalloza's thingy, here's another, and probably much better band. Its a hiphop act that has a huge horn section as well and doesn't sample, but rather plays everything live. pretty nice really and i'm sure their live shows are amazing. kinda like a mix between talib kweli, miles davis, and rebirth brass.
http://www.myspace.com/weareartofficial

grieves


damn it I love it when ex-hardcore kids get into hip-hop. Its inevitable. White kids playing small independent shows at their neighborhood DIYs until they sign to an indie or punk label trying to make it big, and yet somehow the largest they will ever get is DefJux (see aesop rock).
I saw this on the Lollapalloza Last Band Standing thing, and I must say, I am extremely impressed. Somehow this kid has defied the normal stigma that affects most white undergrounders-- that annoying nasal spit. Alot of GarageBand editing though....
Anyways, here's the myspace cause I'm too lazy to actually make mp3s....
http://www.myspace.com/grieves
The project I'm working on right now. I'm not allowed to talk about it too much or post anything that isn't already online, so the stuff I'm actually working on (which I won't go into detail about...) isn't being shown... I'll just say that it has gotten worse and a bit more wishy washy from what is shown here.... Its a pretty eh project....





23.5.08

because i'm bored

I bust on hipsters all the time, but I don't specify why or what they are. Truth is, I'm jealous... I don't have enough money to buy AA or Urban Outfitters or any of that other stuff and I think I've outgrown the whole "thrift store" thing. Some of the music can be good sometimes. Some of it can be awful.

A hipster is someone who:
-Wears clothing that is often more expensive than the jocks and frat boys they often deem as materialistic and douchey. (200 dollar shoes, 100 dollar jeans, 50 dollar v-neck tshirts that expose way too much scrawny chest and scraggly chest hair, etc)
- Listens to "Jams", not music. Those jams also have to be pre-approved by their peers and the blogs. Pitchfork is god here (even though many hipsters don't even know what it is....).
-Ironic music (New Kids on the Block, Usher, bad hip hop, etc.) makes hipsters feel better about themselves
-Layers are good.
-Fixed gears are the jam
- Big sunglasses, especially ones that call attention to their ridiculousness, are jive
- You have a single token republican friend
- You drink at the crappiest bars, mostly to be ironic, but partially because you're embarrassed of your upper middle class upbringing.
- If this offends you, you might want to consider yourself a hipster and me a douche.
hipsters: put your straight leg american apparel pants in the washer, get your white rim sunglasses ready, and don your favorite ironic colorful hooded sweatshirt. new ratatat.




Not bad... Very strange for them. I can't imagine it at their highly light/ smoke infused dance-centric shows, but rather in a tiny coffee shop or hole in the wall bar full of dreadlock wearing hippies with alot of money and too much estrogen. enjoy
I passed this building today while walking on Michigan... Looked up the address when I got back... Kinda like it. Interesting.










Kruick + Sexton Architecture--- Tiny weird firm in Chicago.... Strange stuff. Ranges from really cool to really bad to really french

22.5.08

some upcoming shows that i want to go to (with bands i want to see in bold). i am gonna be so broke this summer if it keeps up like this....

Fri 5/23 Snowden, Colour Revolt, Honeybee

Sat 5/24 The Queers, Lemuria, Bomb the Music Industry, Andrew Jackson, Jihad, Kepi

Sat 5/24 Rilo Kiley

Wed 5/28 jeremy Enigk, Damien Jurado

Wed 5/28 The Ocean, Kylesa, Lair of the Minotaur, Withered

Thu 5/29 Dosh, Anathallo

Sat 5/31 Javelins, Bob Nanna (ex-Braid), The Silent Years, Nouns

Sat 5/31 Lucero, Mucca Pazza, Tally Hall, Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, De Novo Dahl, The Muldoons----- FREE!!!!!

Sun 6/01 Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Gil Mantera's Party Dream, The 1900's, Frightened Rabbit, Bear Hands, Tully Monster--- FREE!!!

Mon 6/02 Islands (ex-Unicorns), Awol One, Crayonsmith

Tue 6/03 Death Cab For Cutie

Thu 6/05 Sea Wolf, The Jealous Girlfriends, The Syllable Section

Fri 6/06 R.E.M., Modest Mouse, The National

Mon 6/09 Styrofoam, Broken Spindles, Popstatic

Wed 6/18 Crystal Castles

Fri 6/20 The Black Angels, The Warlocks

Sat 6/21 Drive By Truckers, Bobby Bare Jr.

Tue 6/24 Eef Barzelay (of Clem Snide), Ferraby Lionheart

Tue 6/24 Shearwater, Frog Eyes, Evangelicals

Fri 6/27 Cursive, Lacona

Sat 6/28 Maria Taylor, Johnathan Rice, Nik Freitas

Sat 6/28 The Impossible Shapes

Tue 7/01 RZA

Tue 7/08 Wolf Parade

Wed 7/09 Alkaline Trio

Fri 7/11 Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

Mon 7/14 At The Gates, Darkest Hour, Municipal Waste

Tue 7/15 Son, Ambulance

Sat 7/26 Isis, Dub Trio

Wed 8/06 Tilly & The Wall




Then I leave.... as soon as I leave, My Morning Jacket, The Faint, My Bloody Valentine, Holy Fuck, Hot Chip, and NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK are playing.....


Super psyched for the free Lucero and Ted Leo shows.... I can't decide between all these.... Insane....
Diller Scofidio + Renfro- light sock exhibition (12-7-2007)

Just came across this... jeez.... and I had respect for this firm. now i see they are hanging light testes.




20.5.08

rauschenberg





can't decide which one i want as my office desktop....
the hoop lies abandoned

the stick is busy beating off hobos in chicago

15.5.08

It seems like I'm posting on Black Keys alot lately.... It's just that in terms of music news, I only hear about them, the Cold War Kids, Grizzly Bear, Black Kids, and Holy F*ck lately.... and by far, black keys are the best in that group. So here's a clip of them playing on Conan last night.


14.5.08

On Questions

I have been reading many articles lately which reference the interrogative nature of architecture. Although I don't really understand these issues, there seems to be a growing trend within architecture to either a) Over-question the architecture process and thus provide a pretentious, academic field devoid of public interaction, or rarely, appreciation, or B) Just doing the architecture without thinking about it, not questioning or theorizing this process, but rather performing what I'd like to call Component Collaging.
In a recent article from the English BDOnline, Eisenman outlines his "Six Point Plan" [Link] He says about his fourth point (Buildings Lack meaning or reference):
Today the shape of buildings become icons which have none of these external references. They may not necessarily look like anything or they may only resemble the processes that made them. In this case they do not relate outwardly but refer inwardly. These are icons that have little cultural meaning or reference. There is no reason to ask our more famous architects: “Why does it look like this?”
There is no answer to this question because “Why?” is the wrong question.
Why? Because the computer can produce it. One could ask these architects: “Why is this one better than that one?” Or “Which one of the crumpled paper buildings is better?” Or “Which one is the best and why?”
There is no answer again to these questions. Why? Because there is no value system in place for judging, and there is no relationship to be able to judge between the image produced and its meaning as an icon.

He uses this as a critique of modern architecture and architectural study (an issue he criticizes openly in his other points as well....). Of course, Eisenman would answer most of these questions with an resounding "Eisenman is the Best! Go pseudo-Modernism!" But I think there must be a deeper issue here than simply a critique on people not asking "Why?". I hear why from many of my friends (Bob i'm looking at you....) many times a day. Theories and ideas abound when one is confronted by these questions, but similarly it seems rather counterproductive to ask a broad question regarding architecture just to sift through the endless possibilities and connect or weave multiple ideas together. Take Reiser as an example... Using various points presented in his Atlas, he crates architecture that is both dynamic as well as excessively confusing, even to those trained to understand it, while at the same time condemning over-diagraming and over-complication... Extraordinarily counterproductive

In an article in the June 2008 issue of Dwell, Quingyun Ma, Dean of UCLA's School of Architecture and princple and founder of MADA s.p.a.m., says regarding questioning:

"In China, we are taught not to ask questions but to work out issues following the historical wisdom and intelligence that has accumulated in the system. We just had to learn the facts. But it seems that architects in the U.S. have become less concerned with building and more with endlessly retheorizing a shared pool of abstract ideas. People are taught to ask too man questions! Often it feels like asking questions without answers is more important than understanding what you're asking about."

An interesting idea, and one which I believe is extraordinarily well articulated, especially in a branch of architecture which tends to lack the academic interest that architects like Eisenman enjoy and benefit from. Other architects which also "Do before you think" tend to hail from the Los Angeles area include the entire Sci-Arc staff, most of the UCLA faculty (Rotondi,Gehry, Diaz-Alonso, Graft, etc etc etc). By and far a very interesting thing about this issue is the fact that Ma managed to seriously apply a level of academia and eastern logic to a popular issue. This type of architecture however is extremely supported by public opinion, far more so than their "academic" contemporaries on the east coast.

I'm not sure where I stand on this.... Questioning is important, but is questioning questioning a bit ridiculous... Is the architecture of this generation on the threshold of another architecture battle (a la Meier and Co. vs. Venturi and Co. or France vs. Germany during modernism).

More on this later maybe

11.5.08

curves done right.
neil denari- MUFG Nagoya





I often wonder how that curvey stuff that LA style firms (Hernan, Graft, etc etc etc) do improves upon existing architectural methods, or whether it really advances anything. Then I see Denari and I know that in the very least there are some people out there doing stuff that is both interesting and spatially oriented rather than simply a cliche plea for popularity and pretentious "avant garde".
Seriously though. I hate those firms cause I don't see their merit. Expensive, difficult to inhabit, and typically wasteful. Denari has some cool stuff though.

http://www.nmda-inc.com

10.5.08

lebbeus woods

forgot about this blog for a long time. good un
http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/

5.5.08

new sleep music

i am in such an apathetic mood today. so pensive.
somehow I found some music to reflect this feeling.
The Silver Mount Zion is a band consisting of members of Godspeed! You Black Emperor and its in that same crowd as Set Fire to Flames, Tralala Band, Slint, Explosions in the Sky and DoMakeSayThink. very laid back and rather melodic. I couldn't find any mp3s, but here's their myspace. http://www.myspace.com/silvermtzion
The song Movie Never Made is pretty nice. I don't exactly get excited about this band, but its good to read to...

3.5.08

axis mundi

saw another project by this firm on bldblog.
seems like a more interesting version of harvard trained/ dwell worshipping for the most part, but here's a project that i thought was actually kind of interesting.





Its an archetypal house designed in the traditional colonial manner native to the Catskills area. Its exterior cladding is entirely glass and mirror in order to reflect the surrounding natural mountainous environment. Of course they don't say what happens to the heat inside when the sun hits it..... The inside is supposed to be bright and cheery or some crap like that cause they say colonial houses in the area are normally dark and depressing. Of course, I find the darkness of those houses particularly interesting and cave-like in its coziness. Reflects many of the people in the area, private and kind of smallish. So, begs the question: does the archtiecture shape the person or attitude of the area. anyways, i think the interior is just a plea to get themselves published in dwell.
Its kinda amazing to me that as school ends, my interests slip from architecture to music. anyways, jordan you might like this one:

The Black Keys- I'm Glad (Captain Beefheart)

Cover. Bit slow, but very soulful. I'm still confused about how this is just one guitar... Its amazing. His vocal range is pretty sweet too all things considering.
after hearing M.I.A. all night, here's a better version of her song Paper Planes. Via gorilla vs. bear.

Holy Fuck- Paper Planes (MIA)

2.5.08

when i order chinese food, i expect chopsticks. damn you china king.
this just cracks me up