Rule 32: Enjoy the little things in life.

The other day while browsing around the net looking for new bands to listen to, I found a curious little band from Northern California called Lloyd’s Garage. Intrigued by their name, I promptly decided to check out their myspace. I quickly found out their name wasn’t just false advertising. This two man group sounds like what you’d think they’d sound like: a blues-heavy garage rock band. And it’s pretty sweet.

Lloyd's Garage

Lloyd’s Garage reminds me of the Black Keys, quite a bit. They both have that heavy blues rock sound, which impressive as they’re both only two people. Comprised of Seth Heitzmann on Guitars and Vocals, and Lloyd Llewelyn on Drums and Keys, Lloyd’s Garage really captures the essence of blues-rock. Heitzmann does a really good job with his potent blues riffs and vocals to match. His powerful and full strums amplify the strength of the chord progressions. His vocals remind me of Jack White, loud and gruff in a great way. Llewelyn also reminds me of White in a different way. Both of their drumming do a good job of complementing the surrounding guitars and vocals.

The other thing that kept me listening was how catchy and familiar the songs were. Really easy to listen to, the beat kept me hooked and interesting. Combine a good beat with swingin’ guitar riffs and pounding drums and you’re cooking with gas. And some sweet vocals as an igniter, and you’ve got a fireball of fiery, bluesy goodness.

Looks like a nicer garage than mine

I’ve had the pleasure of listening to Lloyd’s Garage CD, entitled From the Comfort of Your Home. Eleven tracks long, it’s quite a good CD. The pacing is primarily driven rock, but this isn’t a bad thing. The band knows their strengths and stick to them. Available on their site, Amazon, and iTunes, it’s a fun listen, especially for those times you want something loud and catchy. And it really is both. The heavy blue rings loud and clear, and I assure you you’ll find your foot tapping. The songs are familiar and accessible. Below are a few of my favorites.

Warmth is a great introduction to the band. Loud and bluesy, you’ll probably like it. I did.
Warmth

Return to Sender is catchy. Really catchy. Great progression in this one.
Return to Sender

First Fight is a nice swinging tune. Very nice vocals.
First Fight

So if you like what you hear, give Lloyd’s Garage a chance. Available at www.lloydsgarage.com and www.myspace.com/lloydsgarage, give ‘em a listen. You may like what you hear.

Went to a Maps & Atlases show last night at Blackbird Cafe in downtown Valparaiso. Apparently it was a surprise show. I had found out about it only the day prior. Still, there were about thirty-forty people, pretty good turnout for short notice and a coffeehouse. I have to say, I really really enjoyed myself. The band was great, atmosphere was fun and receptive, and with good friends around, it was one of best nights I’ve had recently.

I had listened to Maps & Atlases a bit before, not enough to recognize song names, but enough to appreciate and enjoy their sound.  They’re kind of like Vampire Weekend meets Kings of Leon with a touch of the Decemberists thrown in. Now that that’s sufficiently vague, just let it be known Maps & Atlases have a fun-to-listen-to sound that’s very melodic and percussive. Very fine indie rock.

I arrived at Blackbird Cafe (formerly Anneliesje’s) shortly before 7, when the show was supposed to start. I must have been mistaken, 7 was when they started setting up, didn’t actually start playing until about 8:20. No big deal, really though. Gave me time to hang out and catch up with some friends. M&A played for almost and hour an a half, and then we spent a half hour after that hanging out until management kicked us out. A fun night.

I love coffeehouses, I really do. Which makes it amusing that I don’t actually drink coffee. But I love the atmosphere. There’s just something about the relaxed, laid back atmospheres of coffeehouses that I love. Also, coffeehouses generally have open stages and other live music, which I love. There’s really nothing like a good live show to get the blood flowing. It’s just two of those things that go together well; coffeehouses and indie music, peanut butter and jelly, dog hair and my car. Just not gonna find one without the other.

The band was there promoting their new album, Perch Patchwork, which I purchased as my entry fee to the show. Now, if you work for a radio station and heard the album weeks ago, no big deal, but I had yet to hear their new album and was thusly pretty excited. Listened to it on the ride back and was not disappointed. A very good album. A little short, clocking in at just under forty minutes, but it’s quality stuff. A recommended pick up.

As much as I loved the album, they were even better live. They had an intensity that was just a blast to watch and listen to. Really good stuff. You could tell the band was enjoying themselves. They had a lot of good riffs that just came off really well, and the percussion was great. Just a really good show. Do plan on seeing them again.

All in all, just a fun night. Great times, great friends, and a great band. What more could one ask for from a Friday night?

PS: Thanks to Katie for the pictures. Her phototaking skills are much better than what I could muster up.

So I’ve been working on my improv skills lately. Just messing around a bit and seeing what I could come up with. So what I did was pick a key, style and voicing and recorded what came out. No practice before hand, just a few seconds to find a key and voicing that sounded cool, and I went with it. They aren’t perfect and the quality ain’t the best, but that’s part of the fun and the charm.

Key: A Major
Voicing: Synth
Style: Disney World Melodic

A Major Raw Improv

Key: E minor
Voicing: Straight Piano
Style: Blues

E Minor Raw Improv

Key: E flat minor
Voicing: Rhodes
Style: Jazzy

E Flat Minor Raw

Now, I would like your help. Request an improve by telling me what Key, Voicing, and Style (like above). Also, feel free to include special instructions, like ‘make it sound like such and such song’ or ‘include a C# chord’ etc. Have fun, challenge me, and I’ll do my best to accommodate.

–theindiegeek

My favorite song off of Death Cab’s newest CD Narrow Stairs, I present you with Grapevine Fires. Enjoy!

Grapevine Fires

–theindiegeek

So in my hometown of Valparaiso, there aren’t that many great place to kill time. Unfortunately, given the spotting schedule of a piano teacher, it’s not uncommon for me to have an hour or so to kill. Usually it comes down to either loitering at Best Buy or Barnes and Nobles. I’m not a coffee drinker, so Starbucks is out. Gamestop’s fun, but I’m there enough already. So it’s either BB or B&N. The latter has free wi-fi, so it usually wins. One thing about killing time at stores is that sometimes you end up buying stuff anyways. Another reason Barnes is better than Best Buy. Easier to justify a $15 book than a $125+ piece of electronics. One of those random purchases was Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia, and boy was I glad I did.

Monster Hunter International is the story of Owen Zastava Pitt, our hero for the story. An accountant, one night while working late he gets cornered by his extremely annoying boss. Turns out there’s no love lost, as the boss reveals he was recently turned into a werewolf and intends to make Owen his dinner for the night. A battle ensues, and thanks to Owen being a gun nut (a huge gun nut, I must say. Takes after the author), he actually holds his own and wins. Very nearly dies, but is ultimately victorious over his lycan boss. This garners the attention of MHI, an international corporation whose sole purpose is to kill the things that go bump in the night. Before long, Owen is swept up in a series of events that could mean the end of the world. Not bad for a rookie hunter.

When writing fantasy fiction,  it can be hard to avoid cliches. I am happy to report that MHI avoids most cliches and actually mocks more than a few by turning them on their heads. MHI is very much its own story. It’s quite epic, very entertaining and definitely a page turner.

Owen Pitt makes for great hero/narrator. He’s a total badass, yes, but he’s also pretty believable. You can see where he’s coming from and his past makes sense. He’s also far from perfect. Other characters call him ’slow’, and occasionally ‘dimwitted’, and it’s hilarious to watch him clam up around Julie, the female lead and Owen’s love interest. But most of all,  it’s great to watch him transform from someone ordinary to a true hero, the kind that makes choices with life and death consequences, not just for himself, but the rest of the Hunters, and perhaps the world.

The rest of the cast is also excellent, Correia really did a great job with characters. Julie Shackleford, one of the lead Hunters, is the beautiful, gun-toting badass woman that we’d love to date but we know we never have a chance. Milo Anderson is the very Irish quartermaster who’s perhaps the only one more gun crazy than Owen.  Earl Harbinger, a Hunter commander, is pure badass. As in instead of blood and muscle, he’s comprised of badassedness. The other recruits on Owen’s squad, Trip, Holly and Lee are all very unique and interesting. A truly remarkable cast. Easily the highlight of the book.

One thing that occurred to me as I was flipping through MHI the other day after I had finished Book 4 of the Dresden Files, that like Jim Butcher, Correia isn’t afraid to put his characters in extremely dire circumstances and expect them to figure how to get out. A few times in Dresden File #4, despite knowing it’s not the last book, you genuinely think that Harry and his companions might actually die. The same thing happens in MHI. Owen, Julie and the rest of the hunters are put in extremely precarious positions and have to survive using all their wits, resources, and yes, guns.

Monster Hunter International is a fantastic read with great characters, an epic story and great gunplay and action sequences. Do yourself a favor and pick it up. I wish all the random purchases I made during my loitering were as good as MHI.

Over the past weekend, I finally had the chance to see a movie that had long been on my list of ‘to-sees’. Not sure how it was elsewhere, but around here it seemed like Pirate Radio was only playing at one theater and for only a couple weeks, so despite my best efforts, I was not able to see it in theater. Needless to say, this disappointed me greatly, as an indie film about rock and roll with an amazing cast, I was very eager to see it. I’m very glad to say that upon a finished viewing of said movie, I was not disappointed. Pirate Radio is well worth your time and an all around fantastic movie.

Pirate Radio, aka The Boat that Rocked in Europe, is about a rock ‘n roll radio station housed on an old fishing boat, broadcasting to all of Britain 24/7 during the mid 1960’s. Despite the government’s best efforts to ban the ‘filthy music’, the pirate radio station continues to travel the airwaves while it’s motley crew of DJs and sailors live their carefree lives away in near-bliss.

Being a movie about rock ‘n roll, one would expect the soundtrack to also be about rock ‘n roll. And one would be correct. The soundtrack is quite awesome. Ranging from The Kinks, to Smokey Robinson, to Jeff Beck, The Who, Cream, Leonard Cohen and Procol Harum, the soundtrack is really an ode to the period. Such a fantastic collection of songs from the era, it is a joy to listen to. I highly recommend buying it.

Now a movie about a rock and roll radio station wouldn’t be complete without DJs of appropriate craziness to go along and serve up the music. Pirate Radio has a truly impressive cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays The Count, an American who came to England for the sole purpose of playing rock ‘n roll. I must say this is one of my favorite roles Seymour Hoffman has played (and that’s saying something). A very fun and interesting character to watch, The Count is pure awesomeness. Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) played Quentin, owner of the station. Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords’ Murray) plays an equally awkward Angus. Nick Frost (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) plays the sex-addled Doctor Dave. Needless to say, Nick Frost is great and hilarious in anything he does and this is no exception. Chris O’Dowd (The I.T. Crowd), Kenneth Branagh, Jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean), and Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace) co-star as well.

Now, with a boat full of these crazies, the audience must need someone ‘normal’, a protagonist, someone they can related to to experience this crew and this boat. Luckily, newcomer Tom Sturridge plays Carl, Quentin’s godson, recently expelled from school for smoking and sent to live on the boat by his mother. A likeable character, he does the job well.

Pirate Radio is an extremely enjoyable movie with a very likeable cast, fantastic soundtrack and great sense of humor. Do yourself a favor and watch it.

–theindiegeek.

A long long time ago in a galaxy far away, a saga was born. And it was great. Great characters, epic story, good versus evil, this movie had it all. Two more movies later, and the Star Wars Trilogy was complete. A bright, shining example of greatness. Thus everyone hungered for more. Fast forward to not so long ago at a movie theatre near you, we finally got our wish. And the lesson we all learned was ‘Be careful what you wish for’. But I digress. Remember the hype? The promises of greatness? The sheer excitement of, simply put, more Star Wars? Enter our hereos. Five friends in their mid-twenties for whom Star Wars is more than a hobby, more than a great movie. It’s a way of life. It’s a fandom.

Windows, Zoe, Eric, Hutch and Linus: The Fanboys

Set shortly (six months, twelve days, eight hours and a few minutes to be exact) prior to the release of Episode I, Fanboys follows our heroes as they undergo one of the most fantastic heists in geek history. They plan to sneak into Skywalker Ranch under the cover of night and steal a copy of Episode I. Along their way, they encounter such trials as Trekkies, the police, Vegas, Kevin Smith, Seth Rogan the pimp, Darth Maul, parents and a gay bar. All this in the name of friendship, for Linus has inoperable cancer and will not likely survive the six months until the movie is released. So, in the name of friendship and fandom, they set off down the road and into geek history.

What made this movie stand out to me is that you actually grew to really care about and like the characters and empathize with their struggles. They’re more than geeks, they’re actual people. It’s more than a movie about geeks. You care about them, about Linus’ struggle with cancer, with Eric’s inner struggle between what he wants to do and what his parents want him to do, about Windows’ lovelife, about Zoe’s conflict between her geek and feminine sides and Hutch….Hutch is just Hutch.

But yeah, Fanboys would have been a entertaining movie had it been just a Star Wars tribute, but what really elevated it in my mind is the characters and the story. With such likeable characters and the story about friendship and just life made it a great movie. Also, the best use of the song “Fair” by Remy Zero since Garden State. So if you like Star Wars or atleast crazy hijinks, please see Fanboys.

Lastly, the trailer.

–theindiegeek, also a fanboy

Today is a very good day for music fans. Along with new releases from Gorillaz and Broken Bells, Christian Kane has finally released his new EP. Now, I’m not usually a country fan, but after hearing his music in Angel and Leverage, I couldn’t ignore the simple fact that Christian Kane can play, and he’s got the vocals to match. The five tracks on this EP show his skill quite well, as well as his range, from hard rock to soft ballads. For the price tag (around $3.50), you really can’t go wrong, and it would be ashame to miss out.

Now, onto the tracks:

American Made is a nice rock song that starts off the EP strong and loud. Good melody, and wholesome, American lyrics.  The House Rules is just an awesome song. A great tune that you can’t help but crank the volume up on.  And put on repeat. Whiskey in Mind has a really great chorus that will stay in your head long after you turn it off.  Very catchy.  Making Circles is a slower tune that helps bring things down.  I quite like this ballad. Some nice piano work on this one. The final track, Let Me Go is absolutely beautiful. A great way to end the EP. Make sure you pay close attention to the lyrics of this one, they’re great.

The EP is available on both iTunes and Amazon, as well as www.christiankane.com. Do yourself a favor and pick it up.

So let me break it down for you, I recently had the opportunity to see Owl City in concert.  That’s the good.  The bad: it was at my alma mater, the good old Valparaiso University.  Now I wouldn’t say I hate going back to VU, rather the contrary, I go back fairly often to see my sister and a few friends still there.  But I would say I hate being in enclosed spaces with hordes of VU students.  Partially my crowd-strophobia (is that a word?), partially ‘didn’t I finish four years of this recently?’, and partially ‘I hate VU administration’.  But hey, it was Owl City.

Might I say that it seemed like the town of Valparaiso had gone crazy that night?  There were people lined up before 6PM for a 7:30 show.  Note: They weren’t trying to get tickets, all had been sold out well in advance.  Also, it seemed like half the town was drunk, (drivers included).   Valparaiso drivers aren’t shining examples of driver paragons, but this was nuts.  People stopping in the middle of roads for no reason, parallel parking attempted doomed to fail from the start, etc.  Also, plenty of crazy people at BW3’s, but that’s normal.

Owl City

Stopped at BW3’s for food, skipped most of the opening band then headed to the show.  Having elected NOT to wait in line for hours, I walked right in.  Opener played a few songs. Nothing fantastic, but ok.  Sounded like a poor man’s Yellowcard. And then I waited. And waited.  The opener finished around 9 PM, pretty sure it wasn’t until about 9:45 that Owl City came on.

An impressively large group for a band that started out as one guy in his basement, Owl City was quite fun to listen to, and they put on a good show.  Adam Young did a good job, despite being sick.  And yes, his vocals weren’t spot-on because of it, but I don’t blame him for it, not his fault nor his control.  Props to Adam Young and Owl City for doing their best and performing well.  They pretty much ran straight through Ocean Eyes, something I had no problem with. Great album with plenty of good songs.

Wasn’t a perfect show though. To be honest, pretty far from it.  And I mostly blame VU.  Honestly, who holds a concert on a Thursday night, people either have class or work the next morning.  But my biggest gripe of all is the acoustics.  The concert was held in the Union Ballroom, as it was put on by Union Board.  The Ballroom is a big long box with terrible acoustics.  It felt akin to wearing a foam hat.  Everything felt really muffled.  Had I not known the songs, I wouldn’t have understood what he was singing.  Union Board, leave concerts to The Source, they know how to do concerts, and quite awesomely I must say.

To wrap up, it was a pretty good show, not great, but that’s mostly due to the venue and Adam’s illness, no fault lies with the band. I look foward to seeing Owl City again in a real venue.

PS: Thanks to Kylee for the pictures.

Recently, a friend lent me the DVD Directions by Death Cab for Cutie.  Directions is a visual companion to their album, Plans.  Each video has a different director who was given essentially total creative freedom with their video.  This results in a very creative myriad, each one being quite different from the rest.  The band themselves do not appear it apart from an introduction at the beginning of the DVD, and in the music.  The real goal of the DVD is to present a different way of experiencing the music.  Instead of merely an audio coming from your CD player, the video hopefully enriches the experience that much more.  Do I feel they accomplished that?

I do.  I have been a fan of Death Cab (and Plans) for some time.  But still watching the videos for the songs felt like a new, but familiar, experience.  Well worth watching, a few of my favorites are “Crooked Teeth”, “Jealousy Rides with Me”, and “Summer Skin”.  It is an entertaining experience, the culimination being more that merely a sum of its parts.

–theindiegeek