Two major things to mention (or re-iterate, since you may have already seen this):
Photographer/filmmaker Joey Ciccoline has been hard at work on a very cool-looking short film titled 88:88 and my pal Matt Pusti aka Makeup and Vanity Set did the soundtrack. Awesome in every possible way. Here’s the trailer:
You can also download the trailer and free mp3 of “The Cross” at the MAVS bandcamp. There will be a full soundtrack album released in the future as well.
Uncle Skeleton released another (the third and final) teaser single from their upcoming album All Too Human. “The Well-Tempered Albi” is available for free download on their bandcamp, along with remixes from DPAUL, Makeup and Vanity Set, and Shaboi, as well as 2 unreleased b-sides.
What a treat to have all of these great projects originating right here in Nashville. *warm fuzzies*
New Look!
April 1, 2012
Boom. After waaay too many years I’ve finally updated to a new theme/skin and made a couple other minor adjustments. It’s cleaner and lighter overall. I hope your eyes are thanking me right now. 🙂
A Few Good Shows: 3/30/12
March 30, 2012
Obviously after yesterday’s post, the beer festival will be a large part of my weekend, but there are also plenty of good shows to be seen this weekend… here’s what seems cool to me:
FRIDAY:
Parachute Musical (final show), Winter Sounds, Baby Baby @ The 5 Spot. 9pm $5 21+
The Danberrys w/ Kelsey Waldon @ The Basement. 9pm $5 21+
SATURDAY:
By Lightning! w/ Wax Fang and Poly @ The Basement. 9pm $7 21+
Couched, Youth Camp, New Pleasure, Reid Magette @ The End. 9pm $5
Quintron & Miss Pussycat w/ Nashville’s Dead DJs @ Third Man Records. 7pm $7
SUNDAY:
Jesco White (The Dancing Outlaw), with Beitthemeans, Pick Up The Snake, and Roger Alan Wade. 9pm $15
On completely separate note, I wanted to direct you to a brand spankin’ new blog just created by my girlfriend- Old Red Boots. It’s centered around fashion and other girly things, and I’ll be taking most of the photos for it, so check it out.
Also, have a great weekend!
Belated East Nashville Beer Fest/Craft Beer Week post
March 29, 2012
Y’all. I’m slackin’ this week. I fail at blogging. So sue me. I should have mentioned on Monday or even over the weekend that this week is craft beer week in Nashville, and it all leads up to the 2nd annual East Nashville Beer Festival in East Park on Saturday. I went last year and got soused on some amazing beer, and I’m VERY much looking forward to it this year, mostly because I now live a couple blocks from the location and can casually stroll down to it with my girlfriend. They’ve expanded everything this year, and I’m very excited about some of the specialty brews- rare/limited run beers from well-known names that you’ll probably never see anywhere other than at beer festivals such as this. The festival tickets sold out in only 2 hours when they went onsale Feb. 10th, but I’ll be you can find some on craigslist if you try really hard.
While the ENBF is the main event, there have been other fun things going on around town this week as part of Nashville craft beer week. I stopped by the Brooklyn Brewery tasting session at Woodland Wine Merchant yesterday and had their Local #1, Local #2, East India Pale Ale, and Monster Ale Barleywine. All fantastic in their own way. Tonight from 5-7 they’ll be having a Green Flash free tasting session, and Friday New Belgium will be in the store for some free tasting. There are other tastings and events going on elsewhere, so check the schedule for today and tomorrow’s festivities.
I must also take this opportunity to mention how pleased I am that we have several new local breweries popping up here in Nashville. TN’s laws are literally some the WORST in the nation for small-scale craft breweries, but it’s very encouraging to see the huge success of Yazoo and the emerging breweries such as Fat Bottom, Black Abbey, Broacast, Nashvillion, Jackalope, and Jubilee. (All of which will have beers at the ENBF.) Bosco’s and Blackstone will be there as well, but they are in a class of their own in my head- they are restaurants with breweries inside them. Their beers are a force to be reckoned with, however small-scale they may be! And Blackstone has just recently expanded their brewing to a separate facility and are bottling/distributing regionally now. I highly recommend their Chaser Pale- a Kolsch-style ale which is very light and refreshing. You don’t see Kolsch as a flagship beer from many craftbrewers, so I applaud them for doing it!
Ok, off my beer soapbox. Hopefully you have tix to this awesome event- if not, get some to the much bigger Music City Brewer’s fest in July.
A Few Good Shows: 3/23/12
March 23, 2012
This weekend has some quality show offerings, especially of the local variety, so get your ass out there and see some good local bands!
FRIDAY:
Ponychase, Evan P. Donohue, Jasmin Kaset @ the 5 Spot. 9pm $5
Spongebath Night ft. Seth Timbs Thing, Jason Moore (of the Katies), The Hellens, Marc Scibilia, and Cory Chisel @ The Basement. 9pm $5 21+
Gardens & Villa, What Up, English?, and Hanzelle at the High Watt (in Mercy Lounge). 9pm $5
SATURDAY:
Red Bull Music Academy’s Nashville session ft. Eliot Lipp as guest speaker. 4-5pm @ 12th & Porter. FREE
Boom Bap ft. Rob Swift @ the 5 Spot. 9pm $10 Yes THAT Rob Swift.
Y2K ft. Kidsmeal, Coach, Hands off Sam, and Handi-Snacks @ the High Watt. 10pm $3(21+) $5(18+) Girls 21+ free till 11. The High Watt is the new home of DJ Coach’s immensely successful DJ night Y2K. Come out and help them celebrate the a new era!
Scale Model, King Arthur, Mize & The Drive @ Wall Street (in Murfreesboro). 9pm $5 Yea, this one’s down in the ‘Boro but my band is on it and I gotta shamelessly self-promote, dig?
SUNDAY:
Mind Spiders, Cy Barkley & The Way Outsiders, The Cannomen @ The End. 9pm $5
That’s it. Have a great weekend!
Neutrinos don’t go faster than light, afterall
March 22, 2012
Just as I and most rationally-minded people in the world thought, it’s almost certain that the alleged faster-than-light neutrinos observed by the OPERA experiment in Geneva last fall were nothing more than a fluke due to measurement errors. As exciting as it would be for the results to be true (especially for the textbook publishing industry- every single science textbook would have to be rewritten and republished, after they rewrite the entire Standard Model of physics!), it looks as though the hypothesis that faulty fiber optic wiring in the detectors were to blame for the 60 nanosecond discrepancy the was observed. Thought scientists apparently aren’t 100% sure that the faulty connection was indeed the cause of the error, they are quite certain that it was some sort of error and not neutrinos actually traveling faster than light. They are quite certain of this because a second experiment- the Imaging Cosmic and Rare Underground Signals, or ICARUS, which uses a different detector in the same facility as the original OPERA experiment could not replicate the results. With the ICARUS experiment, the neutrinos behaved as expected, arriving at the speed of light and obeying the laws of physics as we know them. This, however, is still not enough to put this issue to rest in the eyes of science, and several other experiments around the world intend to independently measure the speed of neutrinos. A few are scheduled to happen in May, and I’d be willing to bet that they will all show that neutrinos aren’t the rebels the initial OPERA experiment showed them to be.
This is how real science works, and why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. One experiment’s results are never, ever enough to conclusively make any kind of claim. Even with established, large-scale theories things can change as new discoveries are made.
All of this via Universe Today and Live Science.
My pal Joseph over at Nashville Nights has been working with Red Bull to promote one of their awesome Red Bull Music Academy sessions, which is happening this Saturday at 12th & Porter from 4-5pm. It’s totally FREE, and the guest speaker is none other than Eliot Lipp. This is very unique treat to have here in Nashville, and I suggest checking it out. It’s free so what have you to lose? It’s to promote the 2012 Red Bull Music Academy, taking place in New York Sept. 30 – Nov. 2. If the full-on RBMA is something you’re interested in, and you’re from Nashville, then you simply must check this out. It’s a very cool idea: kudos to Joseph for getting involved.
No more posts this week but wormholes may be possible…
March 13, 2012
The bad news (for you at least): No more posts this week because this afternoon I’m embarking on my yearly SXSW jaunt. I’m back in the world of the badgeless this year, and currently have no obligations or assignments from the Scene, so this year should be interesting. Also, my band Scale M0del is playing the Red Gorilla Festival on Friday at 3pm at the Dizzy Rooster on 6th St. So if you’re down there, try to stop by! It’s totally free and doesn’t require a badge or wristband of any kind. Actually that may not be bad news for you at all, because it’s probably of little significance to you whether I post the rest of the week.
But, I do have good news! Wormhole travel is slightly less inconceivable now thanks to some research by a team of physicists from Germany and Greece! In short- those convenient things called wormholes that made intergalactic travel possible in science fiction such as Stargate, Contact, etc… are actually pretty tricky business, and were once thought to require unfathomable amounts of negative energy to keep stable enough for a person to travel through. All the while, the very existence of negative energy isn’t even a sure thing. BUT, this new research pulls from elements of string theory, quantum theory, and other far-out theories to get around that massive negative energy requirement. This New Scientist article explains it all, so head over and check it out. It’s a long one, but well worth the read. Unfortunately the idea of traveling through a wormhole is still pretty inconceivable, because according to these new calculations, the wormhole would have to be tens to hundreds of light years across in order for a human to travel through it without getting ripped apart by tidal forces. I actually LOL’d at the line “…our galaxy’s stars are crowded together within a few light years of each other. While this doesn’t prevent the existence of a wormhole with a mouth tens of light years across, it makes it hard to position it so that star systems don’t accidentally fall in. Fallen stars would surely disrupt the timetable and so users might avoid our galaxy altogether.” (Emphasis mine.)
This is one of those articles which requires you to create an account through New Scientist, but it’s free, and all you’ll have to endure is a few email newsletters full of fascinating discoveries and other tidbits from the science world. Not bad if you ask me.
I shall see you back here sometime next week, whenever my brain and liver have fully recovered from SXSW. Till then, cheers!
Goldrush: Prabir Mehta’s new band
March 9, 2012
Remember Richmond, VA’s Prabir & The Substitutes? Or even farther back, The Rachel Nevadas? Those were some great bands that used to tour through middle TN quite a bit, and they were all fronted by Prabir Mehta. The Substitutes disbanded in 2009, (whoa has it really been that long?) and out of the ashes came Goldrush. They’re playing the Basement this sunday night along with a few other bands who are passing through town on their way to Austin for SXSW. So I recommend, along with the shows listed in today’s A Few Good Shows, checking out the show this Sunday night at the Basement. Lineup: Goldrush, The Amboys, Battle Ave, and Andrew Leahey & The Homestead. Cover is $5 and it’s 21+ as always!
A Few Good Shows: 3/9/12
March 9, 2012
This weekend’s show listings are clearly dominated by the Freakin’ Weekend, but there are some other very notable things going on if you’re not feelin’ freaky deaky. Check it:
FRIDAY:
Freakin’ Weekend: JEFF the Brotherhood, Cy Barkley & The Way Outsiders, D. Watusi, Useless Eaters, Fox Fun @ Exit/In. 9pm $10
Maps & Atlases, Casa Castile and Santah @ Mercy Lounge. 9pm $10
Heypenny, James Wallace & the Naked Light, Antennas Up @ The High Watt. 9pm $8 (The High Watt is the new side-stage in Mercy Lounge. For more on that check out the Cream’s coverage of the stage’s debut show.)
Magnolia Suns w/ Buffalo Clover, The Lonely H, and Kenzie Gregg @ The 5 Spot. 9pm $5
SATURDAY:
Freakin’ Weekend: The Traditional Fools, Mikal Cronin, Heavy Cream, The Men, Cannomen @ The End. 9pm
Neon Indian w/ Purity Ring @ Mercy Lounge. 9pm $15
Ri¢hie, Mystery Twins, Century Club, Ohio Knife @ The 5 Spot. 9pm $5
That’s all I got for ya. Have a great weekend!
steve cross loves music and science 