Letters From Fresno, CA

This past weekend I went up to San Francisco with my friend Sim to see Archers of Loaf play as part of the Noise Pop 20th Anniversary Festival. Funny how things work, last year when they were doing the whole reunion tour I really wanted to see them but couldn't find anyone to go with. This year, knowing they were playing I didn't get tickets until Sim called me asking if I wanted to go. If he hadn't called, I probably wouldn't have gone.

The show was a killer, I hope I get to see then again but if this was their last time in SF I'm glad I got to sight of em.

After the show, Sim and I went to a bar to meet up with his friends since it was one of their birthday. It was my first time legally drinking in the city and first time going to a bar in the city so I was pretty excited to see what was up. He forgot to mention that the friends we would be meeting up would be four girls from the UK. A wonderful pleasant surprise for me. Overall, it was a really fun night.

My housemate and I burn wood in our backyards when it's cold and we are bored. It's a very unsafe habit.

Also I made a mix for a friend of mine titled 'Letter From Fresno, CA'
You can stream it on 8tracks here: http://8tracks.com/prufrock23/letter-from-fresno-ca

Rescue

I'm not sure if I believe in perfection anymore. Though I can honestly say that the closest thing I've ever come to having a perfect moment was when I was watching Explosions in the Sky outdoors during sunset at FYF Fest in 2011.

Speaking of sunsets, I consider myself to be very lucky to be living in California where the weather is really great and the sunsets are quite beautiful. Even though sometimes, you have stand on top of a car to take a truly beautiful picture.

About a week ago, I went to Oak Hill Memorial Park with three friends of mine. We were collecting data for our Gravestone Seriation Project. We ended up collecting data from about 200 gravestones, this was the only one I took a picture of. 

Uncorrected Proofs.

Here is a list. If I were to encounter my confused 16 year old self, I would give him this stack of records. It's not a greatest or essential list. (Not even the best album by some of the artists.) It's a list about establishing an attitude towards music that would have been useful; I wish these albums had been the bulk of my music listening when I was a teenage. (Only a few of them were.) I wish this had been my starting point.

1.   Siamese Dreams, Smashing Pumpkins
2.   Horses, Patti Smith
3.   Tennessee, Lucero
4.   Transformer, Lou Reed
5.   Icky Mettle, Archers of Loaf
6.   Left and Leaving, The Weakerthans
7.   Gold, Ryan Adams
8.   Being There, Wilco
9.   The Greatest, Cat Power
10. Let It Be, The Replacements
11. Vitalogy, Pearl Jam
12. Chelsea Girl, Nico
13. Lonsesome Crowded West, Modest Mouse
14. The Heart of Saturday Night, Tom Waits
15. Disintengration, The Cure
16. Different Class, Pulp
17. London Calling, The Clash
18. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
19. Out of Time, R.E.M,
20. People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, A Tribe Called Quest 

Help Rademacher

Want to do a good deed for 2012? Then help out one of my favorite bands reach SXSW. Rademacher are from Fresno, CA and are currently working on their second full length. If you have been around me, then you know how much I love their debut album 'Stunts.'

You can listen to them here
You can help them out here.

Seriously, please contribute. Your ears will be thank you. 

Little Motel.

San Jose is beautiful. 

It's about growing up low class in a working class setting. It is about wanting to get out of place for so long, not only a space on a map, but a space in your head- and then coming to an understanding that those years were somehow still some of the best of your life...and that space is home.