Some guy made an upright bass with scraps of wood, weed wacker twine and some radio shack science project for a pickup. Pretty Cool! Check it out

I’m not sure if I’m just getting old and cranky, or maybe I was just spoiled living in Cleveland. But Denver’s local music scene is crap! I have seen a fair share of the talent here and it has been mediocre at best. This past weekend was the Annual Denver Post Local Underground Music what ever Fest. Pay 10 bucks and see bands at 4 places (all within a block of one another) all night (6-midnight) I think there were 30 something bands playing total. All in all not a bad deal. Infact I was pretty excited. Unfortunatly every band we saw completly sucked. Infact for the most part, it was pathetic. People would psyche me up for a band. “Hey you gotta check these guys, they are a little of this withe a little of that they totally rock!” “Right on man, that doesnt sound bad let’s go see them” And… they were terrible. That was the pattern all night it became very dissapointing. There was a band that I had actually heard some tracks of (munly and the somthing harlots) that made me think Hmmm they could be interesting. Infact the place they were playing (way to small for a seemingly popular local act) filled up real fast. When they started to play… You couldnt hear anything. It was ridiculous, people talking over top an acoustic band trying to play through a coffee house sound system. C’mon!!! The band eventually got frustrated after a song or two and I guess went out back and tried to play there but then got yelled at etc etc It was a mess. For the Grand Finale we made it to another venue for one of the more talked about bands of the evening. They were called “Mr Pacman”. Hmmmm, Who were they? Well, apparently a foursome made up of a bassist, drummer and then two others playing Vintage (early 80′s) synths. On top of that they wore radiactive looking suits and helmets. Not
unlike the Moog Cookbook but I wasn’t looking for originality at this
point, just some good Music. Unfortunatly we didnt get good music, Just a couple of guys ( I admit with alot of energy which was needed for the evening) abusing the hell out of these great instruments. They were producing nothing but trash! None of the songs had much of a melody, and the few that did went nowhere from there. Their cute little schtick of saying they were from another planet and they have come to blah blah got really old when they couldn’t back it up with their music. Arghhhh! Anyway, if it wasn’t for the good crowd and hanging with friends all night, the evening would have been a total bust. You know I just may have to get my hands dirty.

This past weekend was by far the hottest 3 days I have ever experienced. 101 – 103 were the highs for the weekend and I know that may not be hot by Arizona standards but when you don’t have ac,  103 it’s hot anywhere! Unlike the humid Midwest where you sweat sweat sweat,  the dry Colorado air just bakes ya. Neither of which are desireable. I take AC when I can get it but I’ve lived most of my life with out it so it was never a big deal but I couldn’t wait to get to work today and be able to stay cool.

On another note, I went and saw the Racconteurs last night at the Filmore and I must admit the rocked pretty hard. I was pretty sure it was going to be a rockin show, but after the mediocrely bland opener (forget his name) I was starting to get concerned. none the less White and co. heated up the already hot venue for a much needed rock fest. I have always said that  The White Stripes would be so much more of beast if only they had a bass player and a rockin drummer. Well the Racconteuers enforced that thought. These are one of those bands that gives you that hope that Rock is back.

I have been using My Yahoo as my home page for probably 7 or 8 years now. One of the sections I have in My Yahoo is something they call Daily Picks. Every day this module is updated with 3 interesting, quirky, cool websites. Usually they do a pretty good job and every once in a while they come up with a real winner. That was certainly the case last night as i was checking Yahoo’s daily Picks.

www.pandora.com

you have to Check it out.
I was having a mind freeze when trying to describe Pandora so here is what they say “Pandoraâ„¢ is the doorway to this vast trove of musical information. With Pandora you can explore to your heart’s content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings – new and old, well known and completely obscure – to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you.”

… and thats pretty much what it does… all through a pretty slick flash interface. You can rate songs, remove songs and create up to a hundred personalized stations…

There is a free ad driven version and a subscription version.

I’m a pretty avid user of Yahoo Launch Cast infact, I am classified as a Fanatic (2,589 total ratings) So the first thing I started thinking was a comparison to between the two. Personally I think Pandora has done to 300,000 songs what I have done to 2,589 unfortunatly Pandora and I have different thoughts about music and I can see this as it plays a station. But I do have the ability to influence the stations I have created in Pandora much as I do in yahoo. I don;t think its quite up to Yahoo Launch cast but is really cool the y way it works and most certainly am going to spend some time with it… Gawd I love technology!

Someone or some band did a mediocre rock cover of the Katamari Damacy Theme. Love the double bass kicks

btw, There needs to ba an album full of Katamari covers

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Cool video for a Grandday Song “the Sophtware Slump” Done entirely on an AppleII
Check it out