Book it

This morning on the train ride to work, I finished the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.  It's a super quick read but I really enjoyed it, in part due to all of the references to bands and books I love like The Smiths and The Great Gatsby.  The book was originally released in 1999 and while I sometimes feel like I'm going on 60, I was actually still in high school way back then so it really brought me back to that time.  I was always interested in reading the book but never got around to it, even though several years ago my cousin Michelle told me that I should because "it mentioned the Smiths and made we want to listen to them!"

A movie based on the book recently came out and I've been wanting to see it.   But not before reading the book since I didn't want anything to be spoiled. So I bought the novel on iBooks and downloaded it to my iPad. It's the 5th book I've purchased since I bought my iPad a couple of months ago.  It's the 5th book I've finished since purchasing my iPad.  It's the first time in a long time I've ever made it to a 5th book.  And I'm kind of proud of myself.

I used to read ALL the time. As a kid, I'd order books from Scholastic any time my teacher passed out orders forms to the class.  My parents were more than happy to give me the money for them because who doesn't want their kid to read books?  I was really into The Pizza Hut Book It program and thought it was the coolest thing ever that I could get a personal pan pizza just for reading something I would've read anyway.  I had a serious collection of R.L. Stein and Sweet Valley High taken up crazy amounts of space on the shelves in my room. I'd be elbows deep in boxes of books at garage sales and street fairs, scrounging around for anything that looked interesting.  I traded Anne Rice novels with my best friend. I actually enjoyed writing assignments on A Separate Peace and A Boy's Life in Mr. Patino's English class and going to the library during the summer to stock up on books for summer reading always felt ridiculously magical to me.

I worked in my high school library the four years I was a there and even considered going into Library Sciences for a while when i entered college. Though, I'm glad now that I didn't because apparently it's a very competitive field now.  I'd buy books like crazy on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble and always had at least one non-school related book in my bag.

During my first year in New York, I set out to read a lot of the books that most people read in their high school or college English classes but that I was never assigned.  Books like In Cold Blood, 1984 and The Bell Jar.  I read biographies about Truman Capote and Marie Antoinette and re-read some favorites like The Stranger and The Picture of Dorian Gray.  I even found myself refusing to see a movie that was based on a book until I had actually read the book, like with Little Children and Notes on a Scandal. 

And then somewhere along the way, I just kind of stopped.  I started spending train rides listening to music on my iPod, most of which was new to me thanks to the music industry jobs I had.  And I started making friends and spending less time at home and more time out going to shows and bars and out to dinner and whatever.  Before I knew it, ages had passed since I'd read anything other than amNY.

At about the same time, I also stopped writing.  I suppose for the same reasons: I wasn't home much and didn't have a lot of time to.  But the weird thing is that when I tried to write, I couldn't.  I had things to say but didn't know how to put them.  I had completely forgotten that in order to write you have to read. 

A college professor once told my creative writing class that to write well, you HAVE to read.  And not just read things that people make you read and not just once in a while.  You have to read all the time and make a real effort to do so.  And I hadn't really made an effort in a long time.

And then one day a few months ago, my cousin asked me if I wanted to meet her at the Apple store in Grand Central.  She said that she wanted to look at iPads since she was thinking about getting one.  I told her that I'd only go if she didn't buy one.  I didn't want her to buy one cause it would make me ridiculously jealous.  She said she wouldn't. And then she bought one anyway.  And I was jealous.

Over the next few weeks, she rarely put the thing down. She either played games on it, watched something on Netflix or read the newest issue of People.  Seeing her with it all the time totally filled me with envy.  I really wanted one but I couldn't really justify the cost knowing that I already had a trinity of apple products (iPhone, iPod, MacBook). And then she told me that she had downloaded the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy because everyone at her job was reading them.  She HATES to read.  Seriously. Never in our entire lives have I ever seen her finish a book.  Yet she felt that she might actually be willing to read the 50 Shades of Grey books because they were conveniently located on her trusty iPad, available at any time. And then it occurred to me that maybe if I had an iPad (or some other tablet or e-reader), it would encourage me to get back into reading.  I researched various devices and asked friends for their opinions on what they would get.  The recommendations overwhelming swayed in Apple's direction. So I brought my lunch to work for a while and tried not to go out much and plunked down the money for an iPad 2 (super cost efficient).

I of course downloaded all of the obligatory, free novels that everyone should have on their e-reader of choice including Frankenstein, The Odyssey, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dracula. (Yay for the Public Domain!) And then I purchased the following over the next several weeks and read them all:

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (recommended by Lauren)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (recommended by my co-worker Rebecca)

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (recommended by Curtis who was correct in saying that it's more terrifying than the movie)
Life After Death by Damien Echols (ended up enjoying it even more than I thought I wouldm which I didn't think was possible)

*and of course*
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (now I can finally discuss it with cousin Michelle)

I only just downloaded The Perks of Being a Wallflower from the iTunes iBook store last week and didn't expect to finish it so quickly.  So now I'm faced with choosing my next book sooner than I had anticipated.  I'm thinking maybe The Mists of Avalon which Robin recommended the last time we hung out.  Or maybe Gone Girl which was the last novel the book club at work read. Whatever I end up choosing, I'm looking forward to the next story I let into my life.  Even if its electronic, it still feels really fantastic to have a good book in your hands. And I'm happy to be reading again.

The best shirt

There were a lot of great shirts for sale at The Cure show and I ended up getting three (and a scarf as well!)

This is my favorite one hands down.

Maxwell

Before The Cure show at The Beacon Theatre last night, Robin and I had dinner at a nearby diner where she gave me a cute little owl. His name is Maxwell :)

What's inside her never dies

On Saturday afternoon, I was watching a True Life marathon on MTV, trying to relax after getting back from the gym. The episode that was playing was "I Hate My Roomate" which I had seen a couple of times before. I started flipping through the channels to see if anything else was on. After going through all of the movies channels, I ended up on E!. Suddenly, I saw a ticker at the bottom of the screen that said that Amy Winehouse had been found dead in her London flat.

"OH MY GOD!" I yelled. My cousin asked me what was wrong and I said that Amy Winehouse had died. "WHAT?!" she said. I ran downstairs to get my laptop, flipped it open and typed cnn.com into my browser. There it was on the main page, highlighted with a "Breaking News" banner. Amy Winehouse was dead. Immediately I felt sad and ill.

One thing that seems to be the same with everyone's reaction when they heard of her passing was that no one was surprised. I wasn't surprised. We all know her history with drugs and alcohol and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who wondered how she managed to survive for so long in the first place.

I hadn't kept up much with what Amy had been doing lately but every once in a while, I'd see a photo of her on a gossip blog, walking around her neighborhood or hanging out with her boyfriend or something. She looked good. Certainly much better than those days she was running around town barefoot, with deshevled hair and smeared makeup. And I thought that she was finally getting her shit together.

A few weeks ago when video started to circulate of her horrendous performance in Serbia, I was so pissed off at her. I wanted to reach through the video and shake some sense into her and scream, "What the fuck is wrong with you?! Do you know how fucking talented you are? You're just pissing it all away and you don't even seem to care." When her camp released a statement saying that she was canceling the rest of her tour dates, I thought that was a sensible thing to do and hoped that the next time she came back, it would be in a good way.

But now she's dead. And any hope that any of us had for a healthier and better Amy is gone.


Towards the end of 2006, "Rehab" was floating around all of the music blogs that I frequented and the second I heard it, I was hooked. I didn't know who this Amy Winehouse person was but thought, "DAMN! This black girl can sing!" And then I saw what she looked like.

It's always a surprise when you're looking at someone and the voice that comes out of them isn't what you expected. But it's even crazier when you hear a voice first, and then see the person who it belongs to and the two don't match up in the slightest. Amy wasn't like anything that I pictured in my head. Here was this skinny, white, petite, English chick with the biggest bee hive hair since Priscilla Presley just demanding my fucking attention with a voice that you just didn't hear in modern day music. "Rehab" was catchy, super cheeky, dark, sad, funny, and just a plain damn good song. I searched the music blogs for as many of her other songs as I could find. Back to Black was out in the UK already (it was actually released in the UK on my birthday October, 4th) but wasn't released in the U.S. until March of 2007. I ordered it, along with some other albums from Amazon and waited eagerly for it to arrive.


I quickly fell in love with this record. I loved Amy's voice, her throw-back style, her fantastic sense of humor and the honesty with which she sang about her experiences. While I listened to every song over and over again, the one that really grabbed a hold of me was "He Can Only Hold Her." It's not a very long song, ending almost as soon as it begins, but those horns get me every time and the chorus is perfect.

When I found out that Amy would play a show at Highline Ballroom, I was so excited and made sure to stay on top of the ticket situation so that I'd be sure to get some. She had already played a show in New York so I wasn't going to miss another one. Luckily, tickets were cheap (something between $10-$12 I think which is nothing compared to what her tickets would go for now) and super hassle-free to purchase.

My cousin Nerrissa also loved Amy's record so I took her with me to the show. We went to Burgers and Cupcakes beforehand and then headed over to the venue. Some people who had been there earlier in the day said that Amy had come out to talk to fans and sign stuff and take photos and I thought that was super awesome of her. We got a good spot for the show. Patrick Wolf opened and he played a great set as Amy looked on from the VIP section smooching on and drinking with her then boyfriend/fiance Blake. When she finally took to the stage, the crowd was so excited. At this point, she had already had some much talked about bad performances and so there was definitely a sense of uncertainty in the air. But Amy didn't dissapoint and she played a great show.


Afterwards, we tried to meet her outside the venue, but once she left the building, she hoped into an SUV. A swarm of paparazzi came out of nowhere and started taking pictures like mad! I had only been in New York for a year and some change at that point but had never seen paparazzi in real life so that was totally crazy to me. I wondered if that happened to her everywhere she went and thought how awful it must be if it did.

Amy only got more popular after I saw her live and her legend seemed to grow and grow every day. How drunk was she going to be at her next show? How awful would she look the next time photographers snapped a photo of her? When she won all of those Grammy Awards for Back to Black (awards she couldn't even accept in person due to not getting her visa in time) I saw a woman who, despite her many faults and issues, had the platform to really turn her shit around and really live up to that same Amy that we fell in love with on record.

Every time I saw something unfavorable about Amy in the press, it just made me so sad because it always overshadowed and cheapened her talent. And while many legendary musicians have also struggled with additions, most of them didn't live in an age like ours where every little thing you do is inspected and torn apart and criticized. I can only imagine the pressure she felt with so many judging eyes on her while she wrestled with her demons.

I had always hoped Amy would surprise us one day and come out stronger and better having gone through her troubles. And if I am to believe some things I've read about her final days and weeks, she had sworn off the hard stuff and was seriously committed to getting back on track. It seems that her autopsy was inconclusive and so we may not know for a while what caused her death. But that doesn't even matter because knowing won't make her any less dead.

When I was a teenager the grunge/alternative scene was all the rage and I loved bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins. However, there was a period where it seemed that musicians were dying left and right from drug overdoses: Kristin Pfaff, Bradley Nowell, Shannon Hoon, Jonathan Melvoin. Their deaths had a huge impact on me, seeing all of these really talented people with bright futures and so much going on for them, being gone in an instant because of an addiction. I had always heard that the easiest way to quit smoking was to never start and it seemed to me that the same could be said for drugs.

Amy left us with a great legacy of wonderful music. But hopefully her death will also serve as a warning to people and show that addiction is a very real, very deadly thing that will do its best to swallow you whole. I only wish Amy was still around to show us that she could've beaten it. I honestly feel like she really did want to and would have some day.

When I remember Amy going forward, I hope to mostly think about the music she's left us with. I hope to remember smart, deeply personal and heart-achingly powerful lyrics and flawless performances like this one. I hope that we never forget that when she was on her game, the girl could really belt it out. And she could look damn good doing it.

Amy Winehouse
(September 14, 1983 – July 23, 2011)

Chopped!

I did it! I big chopped on Saturday, June 25th. I've been enjoying my shorter hair tremendously and don't know why I waited so long to do it! Hopefully, I'll get around to writing a longer post about my experience soon.

Shiny Happy People

Last week, my family and I went to New Jersey for an Indian wedding! Our family friend Rubi married here longtime beau Marc. My cousins and I decided that instead of wearing saris, we would wear a salwar kameez instead. A salwar kameez is basically a long top with a pair of pants (usually, a skinny leg pant). Since none of us know how to wrap saris (my Aunt Veronica wore a sari but one of my Uncle Anand's sisters had to wrap it for her) we figured that a salwar kameez would be much easier way to go.

We all purchased our outfits in Jackson Heights one Saturday afternoon (with the help of Adhalia's good friend Silby) and while our outfits did indeed cost a pretty penny, we all got

compliments on how great we looked. And if you've ever been to an Indian wedding, you know

that people go all out, so we didn't want to slack on our fashion game.

Anyway, here are some photos from the reception! Enjoy!

The Big Chop: Why I'm Cutting My Hair and Going Natural

When I was 12, I desperately wanted a relaxer (or as I grew up calling it, a perm). I never thought my hair was especially long but I knew it was pretty thick because people would tell me so constantly. From Ms. Arnold at the salon in Atlanta to strangers on the street. There were even a few times when people asked if I had a weave which always struck me as funny. I thought women only got weaves to make their hair longer. It never occurred to me that they also got weaves to make their hair thicker too.

My mom had always been against having my hair relaxed and it really aggravated her seeing little children with relaxed hair. I could understand that. Children are constantly growing and changing and all of those chemicals too early could seriously affect their hair and skin. My mom also felt that children should look like children and have plats and ribbons and barrettes in their hair, not look like little Diana Rosses.

My third birthday

I didn't really think about what my hair would look like after having a perm and I really didn't care. What I did think about was how much easier it would be to deal with, and ultimately that was my main motivation to get it done.

Fragile

The Prids are some of my favorite people ever! And they write such amazing songs! And they're so nice! And they make great videos that they put their friends in.

That's what an artist would do

Last night, I tried my very best to watch the 83rd Annual Academy Awards. I say tried because I don't have a TV in my room, so I figured I'd find somewhere to stream it online. When I did, I was only able to watch it for about 20 minutes before the site was taken down, I assume because they didn't have permission to stream it.

I then tried to watch it on the TV in the guest room. I heard and caught glimpses of some of the tributes, performances and acceptance speeches through the fuzzy audio and intermittent signal (bad, bad reception on that thing) but felt a bit unsatisfied by the end. I hope next time to have an enjoyable and uninterrupted Oscars viewing night. But of course, an entire year must pass by first.

This year was the first year that I saw a good number of the films nominated for Best Picture, including Black Swan, The Fighter, Toy Story 3, Inception and The Social Network which I just watched via Netflix about two weeks ago. I've always loved watching The Academy Awards but in recent years have definitely tried to be better about seeing the nominated films before the awards are actually handed out.

Most people agree that there were no major surprises last night. Even though Black Swan was amazing AND Natalie Portman was phenomenal in it AND she's won practically every award that she was nominated for, I kept hoping that Michelle Williams would pull an upset and grab the award for Best Actress for her terribly powerful performance in Blue Valentine. Reader, if you haven't seen it, you really should. But I know that Blue Valentine will be just one of her many great performances in her career. But I digress.

Pretty much everyone that's been winning all awards season won last night, although it seems as though The Social Network was a favorite at the beginning of the awards race but fell to that golden royal egg that is The King's Speech, which is apparently so good, even HRH enjoyed it.

I was happy to see that Colin Firth won the Best Actor award for The King's Speech. I haven't seen it yet, but I love Colin Firth and since the movie seems to be right up my ally (I could watch movies about English royals all day long), I'm pretty certain that I'm going to love it.

Last year, Colin was nominated (and lost to Jeff Bridges) for his role in A Single Man. The movie is based on the book of the same name by author Christopher Isherwood. I had never read A Single Man but when I saw the trailer for the film, it looked so intense and beautifully shot that I knew I'd have to see it at some point. It was one of the first movies I received in the mail when I joined Netflix and I saw it again this weekend on one of those movies channels that my cousins have about 200 of.


A Single Man is about a gay British professor whose lover has been killed in a car accident. He finds it hard to live without him and decides that he's going to kill himself. As he prepares to spend his last day on earth, he takes the time to really notice the things around him and reflect back on the moments he had with his love. Colin Firth's performance in that movie is so moving and it's sad that when there are so many good performances by actors in one year, you can't give an award to everyone. However, he's certainly had a nice run so far with The King's Speech to make up for it.

But all of this is just taking me to what I really want to mention. Tonight, I was finally able to watch a film that I got in the mail over the weekend, Chris & Don: A Love Story which tells the story of A Single Man's author Christopher Isherwood and his partner, artist Don Bachardy.


Your mother was right: finding true love is hard so it's pretty remarkable when two people can find it together, particularly when those two people are so comfortable in their love for one another that any sort of prejudices or harm they may face because of who they are (in this case, two gay men who met in the 1950s) doesn't stop them from loving one another openly, proudly and without regret.

In the film, you learn about the couple's relationship through photographs, videos, passages from Chris' diary and interviews with friends, literary experts and even Don himself. And while their relationship had its ups and downs and wasn't always perfect, at the end they were quite devoted to one another. And having devotion is a wonderful way to love someone.

Whenever you're feeling down...

Just remember that you've got stuff to live for.

And you just don't get it

Just the other day I was thinking about Local H and what (if anything) they were up to. "Bound for the Floor" was pretty infectious back in the day.

They are up to a lot of something. They're on tour and will play Mercury Lounge April 4/21.

To see it with my own eyes

Seeing this amazingly talented band tonight at Bowery Ballroom. Gorilla Manor is one of about 5 albums that I listen to pretty much every day. It’s flawless. Brooklyn’s Suckers open and go on around 10.

I will sing your life

The new Deftones record, Diamond Eyes, was released this week and it's the first new record from Sacto's finest since 2006's Saturday Night Wrist. I've been listening to the album for a while now and it's amazing, like Adrenaline and White Pony had a baby, amazing. I'm particularly partial to the raw emotion and intensity in the song "Rocket Skates" and (like many times before) have completely fallen in love with Chino's vocals on "Sextape." Seriously, he has one of the best voices I have ever heard.

This fall, the band will embark on a tour with Alice In Chains and Atlanta's Mastadon, with a stop at Madison Square Garden September 24th. I'm hoping that they'll do their own headlining tour as well, since I'm not sure I'd enjoy a Deftones show unless I was practically on stage with them.

From everything I've read so far about Diamond Eyes, most people seem to think it's classic Deftones and it will probably be looked back on as one of their best. And it IS a great record. However, it's impossible for me to listen to the new album, or any Deftones record at all, and not think about Chi.

I wrote about Chi and his accident a while back and though he's made great progress, he's still got a ways to go. Gina at One Love for Chi updates the site with news about Chi's condition. Recently she posted about Dr. DeFina, a doctor who the family has brought on to help Chi get better. Dr. DeFina was featured on this week's episode of True Life, which followed three young men whose lives have been turned upside down after suffering serious brain injuries. We certainly take for granted the fact that we can hold objects or walk or speak or even remember something that happened 2 minutes ago, because our brains work in a way that makes these things absolutely effortless. But after a serious brain injury, these "effortless" motions and thought processes can become significantly impaired, making once simple actions extremely difficult, and in turn making life more difficult. My heart went out to these guys, particularly because they're all so young (19, 20 and 26). You can view the episode of True Life here.

While Chi has come far since his accident and has a great team around him, it's still very important to remember that he needs our continued prayers and support. You can also still donate to help with Chi's medical bills. I recently came across this post from Chi's ex-wife Adrienne about why help is so very needed:

For those of you that wonder why fundraising is necessary to a Grammy award winning musician I can tell you first hand there was a time when Chi was bringing in so little capital that the courts wanted ME to pay HIM child support during the long time between albums. Bear in mind I am a hairstylist and the money I bring in does not exactly put me on any top earner lists. Even during these hard times Chi would do whatever it took to make sure that Gabriel was provided for, including selling several of his personal possessions. The stories posted on this site from fans all over the world about Chi’s generosity don’t even touch what he has done for Gabriel, myself and my family. He was generous to a fault sometimes and often put his needs last to make sure everyone was happy.

After Chi's accident, listening to Deftones was a little hard. Just thinking about what happened made me feel so sad for him and his family. But I know that his fans, friends and family continue pulling for him to get better and I know that Chi would definitely want the rest of his band out there, playing music for the people who have enjoyed Deftones over these last several years.

When I first listened to Diamond Eyes, I misheard a lyric in the song "Risk." I thought Chino said, "I will sing your life," probably because I'm also a huge Morrissey fan and one of his best songs is Sing Your Life. As all Deftones fans know, the band is fond of Moz and even recorded a masterful cover of The Smiths classic Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want. In the song "Sing Your Life," Morrissey doles out these wise words:

Others sang your life
But now is a chance to shine
And have the pleasure of saying what you mean
Have the pleasure of meaning what you sing
Oh, make no mistake my friend
All of this will end so sing it now

Melina and I used to always joke about how we weren't quite sure what the word we were hearing was in certain Deftones songs and we got into some pretty humorous debates about Chino's lyrics on several occasions. However, I think "I will sing your life," is just as good of a sentiment. You never know what could happen to you in life, so you have to make the most of the time you have to do all that you are able to do.

I know that Chino, Abe, Steph and Frank will continue to sing Chi's life, as will his friends and family. And hopefully one day, he'll be able to sing his life for himself again.

Radio DJ, play my song. All day long, I wanna sing along.

Loving this song at the moment. Think About Life played Mercury Lounge and I totally spaced on it, so I hope they make it back to New York soonish.

Seek & Destroy

One of my friends posted a link to a Craigslist ad on Facebook this afternoon and it's too awesome not to share (screen shot above).

I will destroy your band for $300 (Columbus)

Date: 2010-04-27, 2:02PM EDT

Are you in a band that's not going anywhere? Is there a particular member of your band that you want to be rid of but he's your best friend from grade school and you don't want to hurt his feelings? Did the bassist and your lead singer break up recently and now practice is three hours of awkward? Then I'm your guy.

Here's how it works. You bring me in. I play guitar. Doesn't matter if you need one, just bring me in.

Within 6 weeks, major changes will happen with your band. The drummer will accept a job offer out of state. The keyboardist will announce that he's getting married and the fiancee isn't into the whole band thing. The singer will be offered a better gig. One way or another, the band will fall apart. For my part, I won't say much or talk about anyone or complain. I'll just learn the songs, show up early for practice, and basically do whatever's required of me.

But we will never play out. The band will dissolve before that ever happens.

In some cases, just firing me will be enough to get your band moving in the right direction, but to be honest that doesn't happen very often. Usually it's something innocuous and it causes the band to break up.

Here's the deal, though. Some of the remnants will re-form a new band and they will thrive.

I'm asking for $300 up front. It's up front because, face it, we're not going to make any money gigging.

• Location: Columbus
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

I wanna be this dude's friend. He's probably hilarious.

And my heart goes....

I checked out Ebony Bones at Mercury Lounge earlier this week and the show was unbelievable. Opening act The Fire and the Reason started off the early show (doors were at 7:00). They have a bit of a electro/rock thing going on and remind me of theStart. The NY duo is made up of guitarist/beats generator Steve Narvaez and singer Bella Saona. It's difficult being an opening band, especially when most of the crowd is unfamiliar with your music. However, The Fire and Reason played a pretty lively set that got the crowd warmed up for Ebony. And while Bella announced that the song "Do It Again" would be the song to make them rich (or at least she hopes so), it was a slower song of theirs that impressed me. Of course I don't remember the name and it's not on their MySpace page so I couldn't tell you what it is. But if I ever heard it again, I'd know it for sure.





Ebony was next and she and her crew made quite the entrance. I couldn't wait to see what fantastic outfit she'd have on and when she came out in this leopard print number, I was not disappointed.


Ebony opened with "We Know All About You" and also danced and wailed her way through "Warrior," "Story of St. Ockwell", "The Muzik," "In G.O.D. We Trust," "Guess We'll Always Have NY," and "Bone of My Bones." They even did a pretty kick ass cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall."

I've never seen an audience more into a performance than the audience at this show. Someone passed out whistles and masks before the show, so a good number of the crowd wore the masks and blew their whistles throughout the show. EVERYONE was taking photos (a guy behind me was practically spooning me to get some good shots) and the outfits some of the people there were wearing were pretty outrageous. There was a amazingly dressed boy standing in front of me wearing a shiny waist length jacket with the hugest shoulders I've ever seen. And his hair looked like Prince's in Purple Rain. Fabulous! I even think I say Lady Miss Kier of Dee-lite in the crowd, so that was pretty cool too.

Ebony ended the show with "Don't Fart On My Heart" and said that she would see us soon. Soon for me means February 13th at Southpaw. I'll be there for sure, with my whistle on.

More pictures here.

Do YOU have a moment for gay rights?

I don't think I've ever purchased a comedy album before last week. It's kind of hard for me to pay attention to something unless I can sing along to it or I'm being graded on it (which hopefully will never happen again since school and I amicably parted ways a few years ago). However, last week when I saw on @amazonmp3's twitter that Aziz Ansari's new comedy album, Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening, was available for a devastatingly affordable $3.99, I couldn't help but buy it. After all. I once heard him tell a pretty hilarious joke about meeting M.I.A. and trying to speak Tamil to her.

Anyway, I downloaded Aziz's album and filed it away on my iPod for later listening. Later happened today.

Mondays are bullshit of course and it's always hard to get motivated when your brain has had a few days off. So I decided to listen to Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening while trudging through the 98 emails laying about in my inbox. And guess what? Aziz Ansari is funny as hell!

From harassing his little cousin Harris on Facebook to his rant about 600 thread-count sheets that are actually 296 ("Are you shitting me man?! I almost slept on that shit!"), Aziz's anecdotes are sure to crack you the fuck up. He tells jokes that we can all relate to like crazy ass roommates and the ridiculousness that is Cold Stone Creamery ("Five people are singing and dancing for a dollar! That's 20 cents a person!")

He even takes cracks at R Kelly ("R Kelly is a BRILLIANT R&B singer/crazy person") and KANYE WEST ("Yo! Shut the fuck up! Homie's over here trying to tell some jokes!")

I especially love Aziz's jokes on race which is something most of the population a) still doesn't understand or b) is just too nervous to talk about. So it's always good when people can poke fun at it.

"Jason looks over at me and goes, 'Hey Aziz. Me and you are the only two white people at this concert.' And I was like, 'First of all Jason, I'm not white. Second of all, you're the only white guy at this concert. We might kill you Jason!' "

The Slumdog reference is great to me too, ("You must be pretty psyched about all this Slumdog Millionaire stuff") especially since two of my aunts married Indian men giving me a rather large extended Indian family. People can't stop congratulating them on a movie they had nothing to do with.

All in all, Intimate Moments For A Sensual Evening is a fantastically funny album that you will certainly quote with your friends for years and years to come. It's also probably the best $3.99 I've ever spent. Go and get your copy immediately.

Last but not least, be careful what you write about Aziz, 'cause chances are, he'll find it. Think he's too busy to read your little blog that nobody visits? Well, guess again 'cause according to the man himself, "I don't do anything! I take naps all day!" Aziz has plenty of time to Google himself. So Aziz, since I know you'll find this eventually, if you're into half Indian/half Black girls, I've got a shitload of cousins that my aunties want to marry off. You can have your pick!

You're just a weatherman, we make the wind blow

A band that got a lot of buzz towards the end of last year is the duo Sleigh Bells. Fuzzy, synthy, loud guitary goodness with a bad ass vocalist in Alexis Krauss. They're set to play Coachella this year, were a break out band at CMJ, have been written about in the New York Times and their song "Crown on the Ground" was even chosen as one of the best tracks of 2009 by Pitchfork. 2010 will certainly be very good to them. Besides the fact that they write pretty infectious songs, I love that guitarist Derek Miller is the same Derek Miller (formally) from Poison the Well.

I think it's pretty normal for most music addicts like myself to go through different music phases in our lives. That's generally how our overall music taste develops. Grunge, punk, metal, goth, hardcore, whatever. In college, my friend Melina was big into hardcore when we met and she introduced me to bands like Braid, Vision of Disorder and Zao. (We were also dressing in boys clothes and wore chucks and Pumas all the time but that's a story for another time). When Napster was getting hot on our campus, Poison the Well was one of the bands she discovered while doing her daily music searches. We fell in love with them immediately.

We went to their shows whenever we could, including one at Under the Couch on Tech's campus where some kid got naked at their end of their set and started moshing (naked, skinny hardcore dude = not so good). We even drove the four hours to North Carolina to see them once too, although I can't remember the name of the venue. I used to check their tour diary on the Trustkill site regularly (did they really meet Tom Cruise in Olive Garden and give him their record? I'll never really know) and even pre-ordered Tear From the Red so that I could get the free poster that came along with it. Seriously, I loved them.

Then a few months later, I discovered "indie rock" (meaning bands that I actually had to do research to find out about, which was kind of a completely new and interesting idea to me) and thus began a new music phase in my life. While I stopped following them, it seems as though Poison the Well is still doing very well so it may seem crazy that someone from a pretty successful band would leave. But that's what Derek did. The music he made with PTW was great, but the stuff he's doing with Sleigh Bells is refreshing.

I love musicians that make music you don't expect them to make or listen to bands that you think they'd never listen to. It's hard to do something different these days. As Metric's Emily Haines sang in Dead Disco, "Everything has been done." So it's nice when you hear a song that catches you off guard and that's what Sleigh Bells has done for me. Also, kudos to Alexis for once being a school teacher in the Bronx. I know it's super far away from all the cool shit, but there are some cool people here :) Check out a video of "Infinity Guitars" below.

Oscar + Bebe

"Crying is the refuge of plain women but the ruin of pretty ones." - Oscar Wilde

I love this shirt. Know where I can can get one?

We Know All About You, Yes We Do

I was so thrilled when I heard that Ebony Bones is going on tour and playing TWO shows in New York. The first at Mercury Lounge on the 26th (ticket already purchased) and another at Southpaw on February 13th. Ebony is one of the artists that blew my mind last year at SXSW and her live show is phenomenal. Yes, she and her band wear outrageous outfits but her music is amazing. And she even got a Bowery Ballroom crowd to dance from one side of the room to the other, which I consider an amazing accomplishment for anyone. Definitely check out Ebony if she comes to your town. Dates are as follows.

1/26 - Mercury Lounge - New York, NY
2/4 - San Francisco, CA
2/5 - Los Angeles, CA
2/6 - Green Dolphin - Chicago, IL
2/7 - Wrong Bar - Toronto, ON
2/8 - Belmont - Montreal, QB
2/9 - Middle East Downstairs - Boston, MA
2/10 - Hudson Hotel (Fashion Week) - New York, NY
2/11 - Marbar - Philadelphia, PA
2/12 - DC9 - Washington, DC
2/13 - Southpaw - Brooklyn, NY

Ebony @ Scoot Inn

Speaking of other peeps from across the pond, I recently came across this video of Russell Brand interviewing Morrissey. Russell is a MASSIVE Smiths/Morrissey fan so I can only imagine how cool it was for him to talk with him about Years of Refusal

Morrissey Years of Refusal

Morrissey | MySpace Music Videos