Andy Gapin

It was a decent show. Some decent mic breaks, but also some technical difficulties.

Neither of them are new, but I just got around to seeing them finally…

1408 – This was pretty decent actually. When it originally came out, I was a bit meh about it, but I heard some good things so I wanted to check it out. Some of it was done really well. There was a bit of a false ending that would have really pissed me off if it were real, but I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen the movie.

Bride of Re-Animator – How it took me so long to finally see this, I have no idea, but it was ridiculous in the best of ways. Doesn’t quit live up to the first one, but is a worthy sequel nonetheless.

Jens Lekman – Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo

This song is incredible. The whole album (Night Falls Over Kortedala) is great as well, but this song is super addicting!

Great show last night. The music fit pretty well and most of my mic breaks were right on. I think my voice may have sounded extra nasally though.

A few weeks back I was in Best Buy to buy Planet Terror when it came out and I was looking in the horror section. I saw a movie called Flight of the Living Dead. I almost bought it on the spot, but decided to exercise a little self control and just decided to add it to my Netflix queue instead.

I finally got around to watching this last night. It was decently watchable for what it was and probably better than Snakes on a Plane was. The zombies were of the fast variety and were a bit crazy. They showed a few too many signs of being able to think though which kind of bothered me. As for the story, it was pretty standard for a zombie flick in that there was hardly one at all, but a good story is not something that I look for in my zombie movies.

There was plenty of blood all over the place, yet not much in the gore category. I could have gone for some stomach guts being ripped out, but alas there was none. The zombies all had yellow eyes that focused on what they were looking at which I wasn’t that into. I much more prefer dazed and clouded over eyes that just sort of look off into the distance.

Overall, I’d recommend checking it out, but it’s probably only worth one or two watches.

Note: The image is from a teaser under the original title of the movie before it was changed.

Is seeing the same band four times in one year too much? No, right? Maybe?

I saw Against Me! again last night at the Electric Factory. It was a pretty entertaining show.

We missed the first band, but got there in time for World/Inferno Friendship Society. They were awesome. I love seeing that band live. The singer is out of his mind and they do something that is truly unique. They’re not the type of band whose albums I’m going to listen to on my own, but I’ll always make an effort to get there in time to see them when they are opening for a band that I’m going to see.

Sage Francis was just kind of crazy. I never really listened to much of his music beforehand, but it’s pretty much just a fat, bald white guy rapping. The rapping was alright, nothing spectacular, but his stage antics were awesome and really funny to watch. I think that the highlight was when he did something that sort of looked like a chicken, waving his hand in the back of his head and kicking is legs out. He also started kicking his shoes around the stage. Dude is nuts.

Against Me! came out and did what they always do. They started playing and didn’t say anything or stop at all. I love how they do that. Just one song right into another with no breaks. They started off playing stuff from across their catalog for the first few songs, but then went on to play most of New Wave with Don’t Lose Touch in the middle. Everything was played at breakneck speeds too. It was pretty nuts. They had tons of energy and sounded great.

This was the first time that I had ever seen them do an encore, but it was kind of obvious when they sound checked an acoustic guitar, but didn’t use it during the set. Tom came out and played Baby, I’m An Anarchist by himself which was kind of weird, but then the rest of the band came out for two more songs and they ended with Walking Is Still Honest. It was pretty anticlimactic, but I feel like that’s what they wanted.

All in all, it was a very entertaining show.

Good music and good mic breaks last night. I was excited that I got to play Joy Division because of the reissues.

Yes, you read that right, 2006. I’ve started work on my top 25 list for 2007, but this could take a couple more weeks. It’s tough!

In the meantime, I figured that I’d remind us all of my list from last year.

1. Lawrence Arms – Oh! Calcutta!
2. The Loved Ones – Keep Your Heart
3. The Hold Steady – Boys and Girls in America
4. Bryan Scary – The Shredding Tears
5. Ben Folds – Supersunnyspeedgraphic, The LP
6. Against Me! – Americans Abroad!!! Live in London
7. MC Lars – The Graduate
8. Strike Anywhere – Dead FM
9. The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
10. Scream! Hello – Infinite Son
11. Murder By Death – In Bocco Al Lupo
12. Maritime – We, The Vehicles
13. Lucero – Rebels, Rogues, And Sworn Brothers
14. Hot Snakes – Thunder Down Under
15. McLusky – McLuskyism
16. Bright Eyes – Noise Floor (Rarities: 1998-2005)
17. Jonah Matranga – There’s A Lot In Here
18. Placebo – Meds
19. NOFX – Wolves in Wolves’ Clothing
20. The Bronx – The Bronx
21. Tilly and the Wall – Bottoms Of Barrels
22. Owen – At Home With Owen
23. Sonic Youth – Rather Ripped
24. Camera Obscura – Lets Get Out Of This Country
25. Fucked Up – Hidden World

Honorable mentions:

• The Paper Chase – Now You Are One Of Us
• The Dresden Dolls – Yes, Virigina
• Joan of Arc – The Intelligent Design Of Joan Of Arc
• The Fiery Furnaces – Bitter Tea
• Converge – No Heroes

Looking back at this list, I would probably make some changes. There are some albums that got completely forgotten about this year and others that got tons and tons of play. Some of these, I can’t even believe were from last year. It really doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.

I will say though that some of these bands will appear on the 2007 list as well.

I wanted to blog about this earlier, but I totally haven’t had the chance. I went to see Bee Movie last week and it was awesome. It was REALLY good. I was expecting it to be decent, but not on that level.

The humor was definitely reminiscent of your typical Seinfeld humor, but as a big Seinfeld fan, I loved this aspect of it. There were lots of jokes for everyone which make it a great movie for kids and adults. The story was pretty typical for what you’d expect, but it was cute.

I think one of my favorite things was all of the cameos. John Goodman as the evil corporate lawyer was simply perfect. So good. And Puddy (he really should just change his name to Puddy) is always awesome. Always.

Out of all of the computer animation movies of the last ten years, this one is definitely in my top five, but to be fair, I’m a pretty big sucker for these things. I love them!

It’s officially been two weeks now since I shaved the beard and as of this past weekend, I’d consider the beard back in full effect. My original estimate was that it would take two weeks to grow the beard back, but it only took about a week and a half. Impressive!