If you live in the Tampa area, tune in to WMNF this Friday at 9:00 AM to hear an hour long program featuring yourses truly.  The show will feature a live performance and interview.

It will be available online after the broadcast.

Oh No and the Tiger Pit w/ the help of the Brothers Atria have recorded 6 brand spankin new songs at the Morningbell studio this weekend.

Completion of the project is expected by August 1st, with a release date TBA in the fall.

!!

For years, unlicensed vinyl window decals depicting Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes Fame, doing various activities, wearing Firehats, etc.

I don’t think it was until I moved to Gainesville, however, that I saw Calvin doing things Calvin wouldn’t do.

For example, on a recent window decal, I saw Calvin praying, as he knelt in the shadow of the cross.

I can only imagine that he is asking forgiveness for peeing on Osama Bin Laden or the Chevrolet logo.

i thought this blog would be alot funnier going into it, but I guess it just speaks for itself.

which leads me to my next point: Simply Limeaid is the official beverage of the bell.

feeds.feedburner.com/morningbellpodcast is the feed to subscribe to.

hopefully it will work.

If you already subscribed to the podcast, just click on it and hit update in iTunes.

I just bought the new Thom Yorke album on iTunes and so far it’s f’in cool! Listen to it in headphones, please!

I remember buying OK computer back in 1997 after Karma Police was the big hit. I listened to Karma Police, but not the rest of the album. Because I was stupid. Then, i started getting into it about a year later. I realized it was f’in good. THen I met STacie and she turned me on to The Bends, which is also f’in good.

Then, Kid A came out. I remember driving to campus from Stacie’s apartment in South Miami and trying to evade the traffic light at Red Road and US1. Not wanting to get busted, I pulled into the Spec’s that used to be there right on the corner to pretend like that’s where I meant to go all along.

While sitting in the parking lot for what I deemed to be the appropriate amount of time so as to not look like I was evading that light, I saw a poster in the window that said Radiohead Kid A.

I realized it was coming out that very day. I also realized that it was 8:55 and Specs opened at 9:00. So, I waited for it. I was for that very moment unintentionally cool. I tried to appear as if I had planned the whole early arrival just to buy the disc ASAP so the cashier would think I was cool. I don’t think it worked.

Anyway, then Amnesiac hit, which I correlate directly with the period of my life when I worked at Guitar Center Hallandale, 9/11, and all that other shit. I remember watching the video for Pyramid Song and thinking, whoah, that could be my neighborhood some day that is under water. Or it could also be the animated version of Kevin Costner’s “Water World”

Then that live album which was OK.

Hail to the Theif actually brought Radiohead into Florida, to which I immediately snapped up 4 sweet tickets at Coral Sky. Not a bad album, but would it be the last we’ll hear from the mopey boys from across the pond?

NO!!! Today marks the triumphant release of what is kinda like their next album, but released as Thom Yorke’s.

I am very excited.

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more important band to come out of the 90’s. I know all you people who are too good to acknowledge major acts are all like, they’re not as good as “slightly similar band that you’ve never heard of because they never made it.” Well, I say fuck you.

Also, I love iTunes. I still try to buy most CD’s at Hyde n Zeke’s, but for new releases, nothing beats the immediate gratification of getting it at 12:01 AM.

Seriously, folks.

It’s been over 2 months since the Bell has graced the stage in Gainesville, and we forgot what it meant to call this our hometown.

It was a great summer night at the Shamrock and we were so happy to see all of your smiling faces.

We would like to thank the bands whose songs we covered (Swayze, The Most, Inuit Jargon, Oh No and the Tiger Pit, Tom Petty) and all the bands we didn’t get to cover that we have called Allies in this great war against evil.  You have all been inspirations and encouragement to carry on in times of trouble. (that and mother mary coming to us).

Gainesville, you have been good to us.  We feel that you are our first true love and that we will ride off into the sunset together some day.

We appreciate what this town has to offer for independent music and we hope you do too.

with that being said, smooches and goodnight.

 

This years 4th of July coincides with my reading of Howard Zinn’s “A people’s history of the United States.”  Now, I’ve never been the flag waving, cozy patriotic good feelin type of guy, but I’ve figured that checks and balances are good at least. 

Reading this book has shown me how America has basically pushed around the entire planet for its own financial gain.  And it’s not even the country’s gain that is sought after, it’s just about 1f the country’s gain. 

Right now, I’ve started the chapter on Vietnam.  I know what the average college educated person knows about vietnam, and I’ve seen the movies, but reading the cold hard atrocities that were committed with little to no motivation have really made me unable to want to go to sleep tonight. 

I just read how the US soldiers would round up villages of about 500 women, children, and old men and force them into ditches so they could start shooting them one at a time.  This was justified as successfully defending the world against communism. 

What it seems to come down to is this.  After World War II, big business saw how profitable war was and created a plan with the government to maintain a constant state of warfare.  Ater WWII The Cold War began.  Then Korea, then Vietnam, then more Cold War, then Iraq, then Eastern Europe, then Afghanistan, then Iraq again. 

The government keeps selling these wars in the exact same manner.  The enemy is a threat to our security and the world’s securty.  They are different than us and that’s a bad thing.  Their beliefs do not work with freedom and democracy and we must liberate their peoples.

And the worst part is that the American public is so uneducated as to believe it every time.

At this point, I can’t help but feeling hopeless.  It seems like war won’t end until it starts becoming unprofitable.  People will continue to be killed in more methodical and efficient manners.  Pretty soon, the weapons being used will be so big as to destroy pieces of the Earth until it’s too late.

I’m sorry for being such a downer, but all this really makes it hard to enjoy sparklers and hamburgers.

Currently listening: A Ghost Is Born By Wilco Release date: By 22 June, 2004