A Few Good Shows: 6/15/12
June 15, 2012
A lot of good shows, both local and non-local, are happening this weekend in Nashville. Here are a few that stick out to me.
FRIDAY:
Gospel Music, Bows and Arrows, Mom & Dad, The Dead Towns @ The End. 9pm $6
Queer Dance Party @ the 5 Spot. 10pm $1 21+
Reid Magette & the 1020s, Ri¢hie, and New Pleasure (Reid Magette’s album release show) @ Zombie Shop. 8pm $5
SATURDAY:
Hey Champ w/ Future Unlimited @ The High Watt. 9pm $10 adv/$12 dos
Chris Crofton, Faux Ferocious, The Fastboys @ The Basement. 9pm $5 21+
Umbrella Tree, O Don Piano, Eyes of the Elders @ The 5 Spot. 9pm $5 21+
SUNDAY:
The Weeks, Kingston Springs, and Asherel w/ special guests Shivery Shakes and Bobby Jealousy @ The High Watt. 9pm $7
Have a great weekend!
I didn’t fall of the face of the earth, I just totally forgot to post a disclaimer here that I would be out of pocket for a while taking photos at Bonnaroo. This was my 5th year there and we had amazing weather. It actually felt a bit chilly some nights! Anyway, please do check out the Nashville Cream for comprehensive coverage and lots of photos from me and Michael Bunch. Back soon y’all!
I’m sure by now you’ve heard about our planetary next door neighbor Venus transiting the sun tomorrow.
- What does this mean?
It means that from Earth’s perspective, Venus will appear as a small black dot moving across in front of the sun. It will be visible with out magnification, HOWEVER YOU MUST USE SPECIALLY DESIGNED EYE PROTECTION TO LOOK AT THE SUN. Seriously, you should never, EVER look directly at the sun- it could permanently damage your eyes! Here’s NASA’s page dedicated to safe sun viewing. Go read and learn how to do this safely! The transit will begin a little after 5pm Central Daylight Time and still be in progress when the sun sets on the western horizon. There are also tons of websites which will be streaming a live image of the sun, so you can watch it online quite easily. The best place is probably NASA’s website dedicated to this transit, but there’s also Bad Astronomy. Also of interest: 5 Weird Facts about Venus, and this guy who seems confident the space tourism industry will become cheap enough during most of our lifetimes that average middle class people will be able to afford a ride to a spot in space where we can see another transit, along with many other interesting things. I sure hope so! I think he might be a bit too optimistic, however… - Why should you care?
Well, you should care because you probably won’t be alive the next time it happens (from Earth’s view at least, 105 years from now). The reason it’s so rare is that despite what a lot of 2-D diagrams would have you believe, the planets in our solar system aren’t all exactly on the same plane, and none have a perfectly circular orbit. The orbits range from slightly elliptical to very elliptical, and all are at some degree of angle compared to the plane of Earth’s orbit. Therefore, the angle of Venus’ orbit causes it to only pass directly between the sun and Earth very rarely. The transits occur in pairs about 8 years apart, and those pairs only occur every 105 or 121 years.
So at the very least watch it happen online if you don’t have access to a telescope with a sun filter or sun safety glasses. It won’t be as spectacular as a comet in the night sky, or a solar or lunar eclipse, but it’s still a very rare event and worth seeing.
A Few Good Shows: 6/1/12
June 1, 2012
Good shows abound this weekend in Nashville! Seriously, you have no excuse to sit around on your bum. Here’s what sounds good to me-
FRIDAY:
What Up, English?, Fox Fun, and Calicocat @ the High Watt. 9pm $5
Miller Made Music Showcase ft. The Gills, Easter Block, The Future, and Josh Foster @ Mercy Lounge. 9pm $FREE
SATURDAY:
Brick Factory presents the After Crawl ft. Scale Model and By Lightning. Art opening at 7pm, bands start at 9:45pm. Free admission, free wine, free beer. (Shameless self-promotion here, but seriously, how can you say no to that much FREE? That’s right, you can’t.) FYI Brick Factory is in Cummins Station and at night the best way to get in is the side entrance by the loading dock that faces the Mercy Lounge/Cannery building.
Green Wagon Summer Block Party ft. Oh Dang Lo Mein, Denny & The Jets, Blackfoot Gypsies, Kat Smo, The Future, Two Bit Charlie and more. Noo-10pm, FREE. 1100 Forrest Ave.
Epic Ditch, Hurts To Laugh, and Cooler Kings @ Zombie Shop. 9pm $5
Paper Bird w/ T. Rust @ The High Watt. (Early show! Doors at 7:30pm/show 8pm) $5
FOLLOWED BY:
Y2K ft. my boy Fan Fiction (of Nashville Nights fame), along with residents Coach, Hands off Sam, and Revenant @ the High Watt. $FREE 11pm.
SUNDAY:
Corrosion of Conformity w/ Torche, Black Cobra, and Gaza @ Exit/In. 8pm $15
That’s all I’ve got. Have a great weekend!
Heavy Cream is the perfect example of how a band should evolve. When you say a band has “matured” it can often have bad connotations- it can be treated as a nicer way of saying a band has gotten boring or lost their raw energy. That is most definitely NOT the case with Heavy Cream. They have matured, but in an entirely good way. The rhythm section is anchored solidly by Tiffany Minton’s furious and powerful backbeats, Mimi Galbarez’s riffs have gotten more interesting while maintaining that rudimentary charm they’ve always had, and frontwoman Jessica McFarland’s vocals… well, they’ve always been really good and they’re still really good. As for the new album, it’s solid and well-produced. I have a terrible tendency to talk a lot about the production value of albums when I review them on here, but I really can’t help it this time. Ty Segall produced this album and the real victory here is the drum sounds- they’re insane but just right. Distorted but not painful… weird but not too weird. The snare drum barely even sounds like a snare drum anymore… more like pounding on muffled trash can lid at times. But for some reason it works! And the somewhat beefed-up guitar tones actually complement the overall sound quite well. The songs are as catchy as ever- but most venture into a slightly more complex rhythmic territory. There are even a few slow-burners (well, slow in comparison to most of their material at least…) that take the band from their old “girl-Ramones” vibe to a more straight-ahead, fist-in-the-face rock & roll feel that reminds me more of the Runaways. That’s a very obvious comparison but it has to be made. The biggest point I want to make is that this band has done nothing but get better over time, and this new album is the best example. Grab it now via Infinity Cat Recordings.
As I’ve mentioned before, local electronic music genius Makeup and Vanity Set did the soundtrack for the locally produced independent film 88:88. Only some of the music is actually used in the film itself, but MAVS created a whole album of material based on the ideas/emotions of the film. That soundtrack album will be released via VHS tape, yes VHS tape, on May 31st. Telefuture is behind it and, well… it’s possibly the coolest distribution idea ever, only because it’s so absurd. By absurd I mean absurdly perfect for this release and this release alone. MAVS himself tweeted “I would encourage everyone who grabs one of the 50 copies of the VHS to watch it alone in a dark room the first time. Trust me.” If the above teaser clip is any indication, I wholeheartedly agree. If you can find a VCR to play it on.
Stream the whole album via Soundcloud below:
Success! Astronaut Don Pettit successfully captured SpaceX’s Dragon capsule today at 9:56am EDT with the space station’s robotic arm. They will now bring the Dragon capsule in and dock it with the ISS. This is an historic moment- the first time a commercial spacecraft has ever docked with the ISS. Hopefully within a few years, these amazing private spaceflight companies such as SpaceX can fully take over the duties of ferrying cargo and people to and from the ISS. More at NASA.gov.
A Few Good Shows: 5/25/12 (Memorial Day weekend)
May 25, 2012
There are plenty of great shows to catch on this extended weekend around Nashville. I’ll be out of town but if you’re around and need some good shows to see, look no further than here.
FRIDAY:
Pierced Arrows, Bad Cop, Ghost Dance, and Don’t @ The End. 9pm $7
How I Became the Bomb, Colorfeels, and NORM @ the High Watt. 9pm $7
A Re-release party for Chris Crofton’s first comedy LP “Pearls Before Swine: Live at the Springwater” @ Springwater. 10pm $5
Jeremy Lister, By Lightning, Oh Dang Lo Mein @ Mercy Lounge. 9pm $8 adv/$10 DOS
SATURDAY:
Nobody’s Vault But Mine: Dex Romweber Duo, Black Belles, Jane Rose & the Deadend Boys, Jeff Zentner, and Elin Palmer @ The Basement. 9pm $15
OBN III’s, Useless Eaters, Cy Barkley & the Way Outsiders @ The End. 9pm $5
The Boom Bap @ the 5 Spot. 9pm
SUNDAY:
Nobody’s Vault But Mine: PUJOL, Brian Olive, Boogaloosa Prayer, The Ultras S/C @ The Basement. 9pm $15
That’s all I have. Have a great 3 day weekend!
(Fast forward to about 2:30 to get to the actual launch.)
SpaceX successfully launched their Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a Dragon capsule filled with supplies and experiments bound for the International Space Station this morning at 3:44am EDT. This mission is far from complete, however, and with the capsule now in orbit the company must also prove their capsule can be docked with space station, unloaded, reloaded with used experiments, and splash back down safely in the pacific ocean. This flight is historic because it will be the first private, non-NASA rocket to complete a full mission to the ISS.
SpaceX has thus far been the leader among the various private companies vying for the top NASA contract to ferry cargo and astronauts to the ISS. The Dragon capsule will catch up to the ISS and perform a few maneuvers before slowly and incrementally approaching until the crew of the ISS can latch onto the capsule with the station’s robotic arm. They will then bring it in for docking using that arm this Friday May 25th. I really hope this mission is successful because as I’ve said all along, I’m a big fan of private companies taking over the low earth orbit duties for NASA. Keep your eye on the NASA website for updates. (Video via Universe Today)
Credit: Planetary Habitability Laboratory at UPR Arecibo, NASA, EUMETSAT, NERC Satellite Receiving Station, University of Dundee.
As you probably already know, there was an annular solar eclipse that was visible to parts of the Pacific rim last night/this morning. Because of the international dateline, I had the days mixed up and thought it was happening today (Monday May 21st) for the western U.S., when in fact for us it was at sunset last night. But it was Monday May 21st when it began for areas like Japan, because for them it happened early in the morning. Confusing right? It’s like the eclipse time-traveled. Anyway, the above photograph gives you a different perspective on it. The dark dot over the northern Pacific Ocean is the shadow of the moon! (Photo via Universe Today)
In other space-related news: SpaceX scrubbed the launch of their Falcon 9 rocket early Saturday morning due to a faulty check valve in one of the nine Merlin main engines. Their system has a computer that runs a full diagnostic check on everything right as the engines fire, and if even the slightest problem is detected the system shuts off everything immediately. Engineers are working diligently to get the valve replaced and run diagnostics with the rocket still on the launch pad. The new target launch date is May 22nd at 3:44am Eastern Daylight Time. I hope this all works out- I’m a fan of commercial spaceflight and feel that it is essential that NASA be able to rely on private companies to handle all their low-Earth orbit operations so that it can focus its main efforts on exploring asteroids and Mars. For more info see SpaceX’s website, and NASA.
steve cross loves music and science 