Best Ofs.. Worst Ofs...

everyone's got one, and here's mine because i'm bored.

Best Show of 2005
Dredg 06.14.2005 Portland, OR 90 min set. nice lighting, band was firing on all cylinders. even the band admitted this show was one of their top 3 at that point of the tour.

Worst Show of 2005
04.25.05 Cursed/Mare/Born of Ashes. not really a bad show, just the worst in comparison. don't think it was worth what i paid however.

Best Song Performed Live of 2005
Autolux - Reappearing. a new song, so no one knew what to expeect. it slayed. just killer

Best Venue of 2005
Mesa Luna. Anything goes!

Worst Taping Venue
Audio Wise: PNE Video Wise: Commodore (you still suck)

Best Promoter of 2005
Sealed With a Kiss. also anything goes! plus they bring in cool smaller bands.

Worst Promoter of 2005
HOB. ok. so i only know of 3-4 promoters. but even if there was like 10, they'd still be tops. jeez blue house lighten up. stop hating already. i hope swak undercuts all your business.

Best Taping Related Purchase of 2005
Wide Angle Lens. no more thinking "im too close" when filming. DPAs a close second

Show I regret not going to the most
Stars/Feist/Apostle of Hustle in april

Worst Taping Related Purchase of 2005
DAT repair. $261 jeez...

Worst Taping experience of 2005
2 botched dredg sbds.

Best Taping experience of 2005
Terror/Converge 9/21/2005. 3 cams, 2 of them 3ccd. 2 up front one in back. all we would have needed is the sbd to call it a day.

Worst Let down of a show
getting sbd and a sweet up front view and then having murder by death playing w/o their cellist.

Best Non-Band related item on a merch table
(International) Noise Conspiracy's socialist-leaning literature

Most Memorable Merch
Star's Pillow cases $20 ea

Return of the DAT

the day before my stars show back in november, my baby died. the sony m1 wouldn't load new tapes. so i had to get it fixed. now dat players are a dying, well dead, breed of recorders. finding someone reliable who will fix one is pretty tough. actually theres really only one place in NA who everyone (probably) turns to. and that company is Pro Digital in NJ. I was expecting them to quote something like $100 max. to my chagrin it was much more. the part that needed to be replaced was only like $5 or something. but the labour would cost like 2 hours. overall w/ customs charges, it cost me $300. eepp.

on the plus side, they cleaned everything, tightened all the joints and stuff and basically made it like new again.

new 7 pin cable

been having problems w/ transferring dats as of late. so i decided to overhaul my transferring setup. the most glaring of liabilites was the 7 pin cable. core-sound sure knows how to low ball. really wish i had waited and bought a used oade or pro digital used. anyways bought a really excellent barely used oade passive in/out 7 pin cable off of someone from TS.com for $60. Great piece of work. OEM sony connector with sheilded head, well constructed all around. have no doubts that any transferring problems will not be from this section of the process.

dredg master torrents from hoobatour

put up to 2 of my masters from the hoobastank tour:

Dredg 07.22.2004 Vancouver, BC @ Commodore
Dredg 07.23.2004 Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater

I believe all dredg shows should go be upped there. so i'll have more up there shortly. just need to locate where i put the 0-gens.

12.10.2005 (International) Noise Conspiracy/These Arms are Snakes

Nightmare of you cancelled. no biggie. they sucked. or did suck from what i heard.

got to the venue to find a fairly decent lineup standing in the cold. i guess due to NoY not coming it meant the red room could open later. dear red room: wouldn't it make more sense to let us in anyways? we get to warm up, and you get to serve booze earlier. we both win.

took a stroll over to the the merch table after going in.. not surprisingly, (I)nc was selling (or maybe just giving out) socialist-leaning literature.

TAAS: really good set. played w/ a lot of energy. and their keyboards/synths, weren't obstructing my view either! unlike last time... steven whatever-his-name is was up to his usual spastic antics again. just climbing and jumping all over the place. he also did his going into the crowd thing. to be 'in-your-face' i suppose. suprisingly the guitarist also took a page from the stever's book and also without warning just walked off stage and into the crowd while playing. one of the cooler things that happened was at the around th 28 min mark of their set, they finished a song and let a guitar effect loop over and over while leaving the stage. house lights were left off and after about 30 seconds the house tech came onstage and started breaking things down. TAAS came back on and declared their set not over yet. the singer brought out a chair and used it to jump off it and such. they played another 10 min. pretty cool.









(I)NC: biggest disappointment w/ this band is the singer's not utilizing his screaming voice from his refused days. to me their set was meh. i will admit they're better live than on record. highlight of their set was during capitalism stole my virginity. singer did a head walk into the middle of the 'pit' (or where it would be if they moshed) and sang a couple of verses. i left shortly afterwards.

rating: $10/$14 (maybe if TAAS played a full direct support set of 45 min...)

it's the holidays

time to catch up on updates.