No Age (new jams)

Glitter - No Age

No Age's upcoming album, Everything In Between, drops on September 28 via Sub Pop. This is their follow-up to 2008's fantastic Nouns. On August 24, the lo-fi duo will release a single from the new album, "Glitter", in 7" and 12" fashion. The 12" version includes "In Rebound" and "Vision II", and the 7" features "Inflorescence"; above, you can download "Glitter" and you can stream the 7" B-side "Inflorescence" below.

These are the first tracks we have heard from No Age since their Losing Feeling EP last fall. "Glitter" seems to take a more experimental route for them as there is a different feedback sound cast with a transcending melody in a tempo that is a bit less up beat for the group. "Inflorescence" sounds much more like what we've heard from the pair in the past. It will be interesting to see what direction their sound takes them on this upcoming album.

No Age - Inflorescence by subpop

PreLollers

So in preparation of Pistol Pete, K-Mart, and mine's second straight trip to Chicago's annual music festival, Lollapalooza, I thought we could start our coverage on it and give you a little rundown on some of the gigs we are looking forward to the most. Given we haven't settled our schedules out completely, this will give you a better idea of what exactly this weekend will entail for us.

"Now our lives are changing fast,
Hope that something pure can last"
-win butler

Migrant Sorrows.

Alright, this is the return of the temporarily absent adventure blog of days past.
This adventure takes us to a time and place called last Saturday, to tell the tale of a group of intrepid wanderers surveying the rugged terrain of grim conurbation through the Stygian hours. No, wait, sorry, it's actually just a story about a couple of drunk idiots walking home in the middle of the night.

Adventure began, as it oft does, very unassumingly. That is, is started with Incrediboy and I drinking semi-warm beer and watching Jeopardy, playing the Jeopardy drinking game. This game consists of selecting a contestant for yourself and from there, your fortune rides with theirs. When they miss a question, you have to drink. Social drinking follows anytime Trebek is a dick to someone. This happens a lot.



Like many other adventures, this one was decided by the whim of Beechnut. To clarify, let's start with the revelation that Beechnut is a advertiser's dream. If he sees a commercial for something, that thing is his ultimate desire until he sees a commercial for something else. This has led to him eating Arby's for three straight days and downloading N.W.A.'s greatest hits album on the spur of the moment. We have made a game of this, called "the Beechnut Game." The rules are simple: when a need overcomes you, you must satisfy that need with the next advertised product. Example: need beer? Wait for the next beer commercial, then go buy that beer. Sadly, this has led to us drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade more than once. On this evening, the Beechnut Game would decide where we were going to eat supper. One sizzling fajita commercial later we found ourselves at Applebee's.


My affinity for Applebee's is known, so I was totally ok with. There were eight of us, including myself, Beechnut, Rrrooo, Incrediboy and others, including a lanky blonde fellow we'll call Stretch Armstrong. The Applebee's experience was great as always; the 2 for $20 deal was taken advantage of (with Beechnut ordering for himself "and the gentlemen") and the Brewtus' were ice cold. Our waiter was a righteous teenaged cat who treated us so well that Stretch Armstrong invited him to join us at a foam party.



The waiter nervously declined, which was good because we weren't going to a foam party. We left Applebee's to return to Icrediboy's humble abode where we devolved into our old ways of slugging beers in various stage of repose. I really hope no disaster ever occurs on a Saturday around 9, because the rescue teams/archaeologists that find my body will think I'm a huge pile, when in reality I am just a medium-sized pile. But I digress. Once we were able to adequately rouse ourselves, we headed to a bar. It seems like no adventure ever takes place in the actual bar surroundings, and this night was no exception. Save, however, the moment where one of our associates almost got kicked out of the bar for administering a dancefloor Stone Cold Stunner.



After that, the bouncer watched us so closely that at one point he was sitting at our table. I can't thrive in this hostile environment, so we hit the road, drunk enough to give ourselves one lofty goal: hit up the pedestrian bridge. No small goal, as the map belows shows.



We hit the road, wandering and stumbling as the tony residential neighborhoods rapidly gave way to rougher streets. At this, I had two main concerns.

One: I didn't want to meet up with this guy.



Two: I didn't have any of this to bribe him or keep myself entertained.



I imagine the night would have turned out quite differently if we'd had a couple of ice cold bottles of Hawaii Blue on us. For starters, we probably would have made it to the pedestrian bridge. As it was though, the steep hills of the walk and the wet blanket humidity of late July had deprived us of our will to win by the time we reached the halfway point of our trip, which, coincidentally, happened to be Incrediboy's house. So, instead of appreciate the breathtaking vistas of the Missouri river at sunrise, we lit a bunch of fireworks and threw them in a port-a-potty.



Such is life.

What is a Wendigo?

Ok, so we watched this movie the other day.

Just in case you can't read/see the poster and infer the following, this movie was about a a bunch of guys up in the mountains and one guy starts eating all the other guys. In the literary community they call this cannibalism. Also, if you can't read/see you might be in the wrong place, which probably happens a lot if you can't read or see. Ok, carrying on.

Two things happened in this movie.

First, Guy Pearce took a Polar Bear Plunge.

Guy Pearce
Some guy.



Second, this guy ate everyone else.


After he ate everyone he turned into a sort of monster or demon or something and I was a little confused then someone got thrown off a cliff then Guy Pearce ate someone and I didn't quite know what was going on. I channeled my inner scientist and did a little research on the topic of dudes eating dudes and turning into beasts/creatures.

Turns out, there is a name for this sort of thing. In accord with the traditions of the Algonquian and Ojibwa tribes, the eating of human flesh can give a person the strength of the consumed body. However, it also turns the guy doing the cannibal-ing into a monster. This monster is called the Wendigo. This is what Guy Pearce had to deal with. Despite the wendigo's deep roots in Native tradition, this beast is very hard to track down on the internet.

There seems to be little agreement on what the wendigo looks like.

Some people thinks it is just a big, red eye shadow-wearing shadow.


Some folks think it looks like a buffalo.


I think the dissent in the appearance of the wendigo is because if you ever see one it probably eats you and how are you going to tell someone what it looks like then? That's what I thought, smartass.

I bet this park is not very fun.



My brother says the wendigo was in the movie Pan's Labyrinth.


I guess he was right.


I don't think Hulk ever fought the wendigo. There's a lot of stuff out on the internet you just can't trust these days.


Alright, my research into the wendigo remains somewhat inconclusive. What does the wendigo look like? Do all cannibals become wendigos or just some? How do you kill it? Is might be a movie star and it may or may not have fought the Hulk. These are the questions that will persist, well, probably for about another 15 minutes.

I am 9 months from having an English degree.

Shark Week.

It's Shark Week (uh, in case you have never seen Discovery Channel or engaged in populous discourse this is a week dedicated entirely to sharks and shark related programming on the Discovery Channel) so here is a semi shark related post, 31/Chi's tipping of the hat to this super-duper week.

Sharks are rad. They are mysterious killing machines of the high seas. They eat all kinds of things and dominate various creatures with shocking display of strength and ass-kicking big ass teeth. However, as neat-o as sharks are, I will do you one better. MEGALODON.

The Megalodon or Carcharocles megalodon (from Greek, "big tooth") is a shark that existed in prehistoric times (read: with dinosaurs), from the Oligoce to Pleistocene epochs approximately 25 to 1.5 millions years ago. Blah, blah, blah, science words, science words, science words. Enought of this hocus pocus mumbo-jumbo. Let's focus on what's important. This was a huge, badass shark. Please see the charts and graphs below.

As you can see, the megalodon was way bigger than the Great White (green, shark shaped) and way, way huger than a human being (blue, person shaped).

This graph gets the same point across, except it is more explicit in its depiction, showing that you could easily fit a Great White into a megalodon like a sort of high killing power turducken.
Once again a person is included for further reference, albeit this time sporting scuba gear. (Note: although not represented for scale, a person is bigger than a turducken.)

Also, megalodon was bigger and much more menacing than a very nice boat (see below).



Here is another picture comparing the size of a megalodon's massive jaws with what is probably a junior high physical education teacher.

The megalodon's mouth is much bigger than someone who can make you run the mile and climb the rope. Party.

I'm not sure what megalodon ate everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner (or snacks), but a quick search of the internet yielded a few answers. From what I've gleaned off the world wide web, the megalodon has a variety of favorite treats.

They loved to eat whales...
dinosaurs...
...and helicopters.

So that's a quick rundown on the megalodon, a crazy dino-chomping party animal of the prehistoric ocean. It liked to party, eat whatever it wanted, and be huge. This is a lifestyle I can wrap my head around. Also, on another point of jealousy, the megalodon has achieved one of my most vaunted lifetime goals, having a Sci-Fi Channel movie made about its life.

Well, that's the megalodon. Big-timer of the seas. Happy Shark Week.

Mythical Creature Party

I'm not sure if this will become a regular feature of 31/Chi, but Pistol P and I are kind of a mythological creature kick. So, in the vein of the u-corns post from last week, Pistol and I may or may not be sporadically updating the blog with variously themed opuses to our favorite fictional critters.

Today: the chimera.



Whoa. Get a load of this creature. Traditionally--I guess--this beast is really several beasts in one, kind of like when you buy those ten packs of the little boxes of cereal; you're buying one big box but there's several different types within. So like that big box has Cocoa Puffs, Honeynut Cheerios, and Trix, the chimera has a lion, a goat and a dragon. Or it could totally have a snake for a tail. Which would be cool.
However, like that weird kid with the beret and scarf in your philosophy class, some chimeras are "totally different." Check out this guy wearing armor and replacing the goat with an eagle (downgrade).
The chimera originated in ancient Greece, where they consistently misspelled it xίμαιρα. This is documented on this old vase. This chimera is like ELO on vinyl: old, but still awesome.
Looks like they lacked the dragon component. Bummer for them.

Chimeras are kind of like a "Dream Team" of fearsome creatures. These two pictures are kind of like the same idea, except one combo won several NBA titles under Phil Jackson while the other was killed by Belerophon astride the winged horse Pegasus.

Below, we have pretty much the same idea, only way scarier.
This chimera's addition of a snake-tail and full, rugged mane of hair make it all the more frightening for aspiring hero types and herds of livestock.
While here the addition of Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Magic Johnson strike terror into the hearts of plate glass windows, all-you-can-eat buffets and people without AIDS.

Okay, that's the chimera for you.
I hope you check back soon for more mythical creature parties.
Prospective featured beasts of lore may or may not include El Chupacabre, Carl Weathers, or the wendigo.

Dirty Suburbs.

For your ears!


Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

what are the youth to do?

"when I look at you, heaven's on fire"

Heaven's On Fire - The Radio Dept.

New new new Ra Ra Riot

It's been two years since we've heard anything from Ra Ra Riot. 2008's The Rhumb Line was one of 2008's best and most promising releases. Yesterday, the group dropped a new single, "Boy" from their upcoming LP, The Orchard. After listening to this new tune, I have reignited love for this band.

This song capitalizes on everything the band does well. The upbeat, poppy sound with an echoing, bouncing bass that works in unison with a mellifluous line of melody from the violin and cello with lead singer Wes Miles' head voice reaching those tingling "yoooOOOooou's" in the song's chorus provides an oh so lush sound. Nice to hear from you Ra Ra Riot. The Orchard is out on August 24th and for those of you in Omaha, Ra Ra Riot will be coming to the Waiting Room on October 8th. Get your tickets here.

Boy - Ra Ra Riot

A Bunch of Pictures of Unicorns.

I've come to a point in my life where I don't really like blogging about the things I do anymore. Everyone is working all the time, so that limits the "adventure" blogs of past posts, and social commentary is limited by working in one of the least socially stimulating environs I've ever been in.
Not wanting to neglect 31/Chi (ok, maybe wanting to neglect it a little), I have compiled this post, which is a bunch of pictures of unicorns.

Unicorns in the ocean.

Dolphins or unicorns? This scene reignites the age-old debate.

Unicorns at night time.

Unicorns and rainbows.

This unicorn is walking in front of the moon acting very stoic.

Cartoon unicorns, or "cartoonicorns."

This unicorn is selflessly lending himself as a valiant mount to a dragon-slaying, scantily-clad cochineal-haired warrior lady on he quest to rid the land of terror.

Seems to be a very noble unicorn.

This fellow is into cruising outer space whilst on intergalactic adventures.
Seems real, but so do a lot of things.

That's it.