Mercy Lounge announces 9 year anniversary parties Jan. 20 and 21
January 11, 2012
Mercy Lounge is arguably the best venue in Nashville in the 300-500 capacity range, and they’re celebrating their anniversary (as they do every year) by throwing some free shows! Just as in past years, they’ve invited a slew of local bands to play and secured sponsorships from some of your favorite brews.
Lineups:
Jan. 20th– How I Became the Bomb, Cheer Up Charlie Daniels, Ponychase, Kyle Andrews, Wild Cub (ft. Keegan Dewitt & members of Pico vs. Island Trees) and local funksters ReLapse will close it out.
Jan. 21st– Heypenny, Evan P. Donohue, The Nobility, Mayhem performing Elvis Costello’s This Year’s Model, Escondido ft. Tyler James, and ReLapse will once again close the night out.
Both nights are FREE so arrive early in case things reach max capacity.
So there has been some excitement and confusion lately over a signal discovered by SETI researchers after they aimed one of their radio telescopes toward “objects of interest” discovered by the Kepler mission. These are possible exoplanet discoveries, but they’ve yet to be confirmed by other telescopes. (These are called Kepler Objects of Interest, or KOIs.) Until now, SETI researchers have been blindly aiming their telescopes all over they sky listening for possible alien radio signals. Now that the Kepler team has a few KOIs that might be habitable, it makes sense for SETI to narrow their search and start listening specifically in the direction of those KOIs. Well, they did just that, and they found an interesting signal! One that is clearly not just natural background noise. But, that signal is almost definitely interference from one of our own satellites, because the signal still shows up even when they aim the radio telescopes away from the exoplanets. So, don’t let anyone fool you- SETI has NOT discovered an alien radio signal.
As he always does, Dr. Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy lays out the truth on this. Universe Today has an excellent post on it as well.
A Few Good Shows: 1/6/11
January 6, 2012
I know it’s been a while. Sorry, after all the holiday-ing gets me out of a rhythm it takes a minute for me to get back into the swing of blogging.
This weekend is a tiny bit slow when it comes to rock shows, but here are a few things worth mentioning (and some shameless self-promotion):
FRIDAY:
Vitalic Noise presents CRAVE at Tavern. FREE, 21+, ft. resident DJs Losici (Josiah Lester) and Dali Drama (Jenn Harbin), and guest BURGERS (aka me). We’ll spinning the best in nu-disco/house/french touch/indie dance. Did I mention it’s FREE? It’s free.
The Dead Towns, Siberian Traps, The Bad Swears, & The Dirty Holidays @ The End. 9pm $5
SATURDAY:
The Tendoor, Kat Smo, Taxicab Racers, Ugly Kids Club @ The End. 9pm $5
Metal at the Mercy: a KISS tribute @ Mercy Lounge. 9pm $5
Happy Holidays- no posts for a while
December 22, 2011
I’m about to be busy with Holiday travel and other stuff, so I won’t be posting for a good week or so. Next week I may do a special “A Few Good Shows” post for New Year’s weekend activities, but I don’t know. I may or may not feel like it. I don’t owe you people shit!
KIDDING!
Happy Holidays!
Kepler finds earth-sized alien planets/Some amazing volcano photos
December 21, 2011
Credit: NASA
The Kepler team at NASA announced yet another exciting discovery yesterday: the first confirmed earth-size alien planets, Kepler 20f and 20e. The mission has found other exoplanets that pretty close to earth-size, but these two are by far the closest yet. What really befuddled me about this announcement was that that in addition to those two smaller, rocky worlds, there are three bigger gas-giant or super-earths in this system as well. No only that, but all five of these exoplanets’ orbits would fit inside our own Mercury’s orbit around our sun! That’s a lot of planets crammed into a tiny area! Of course that also means that these planets are scorching hot- far too hot to be habitable. But, it’s very reassuring to confirm that Kepler can positively identify alien planets that are earth-size and even tad bit smaller (Kepler 20e is about 87% the size of earth). As usual, Dr. Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy has a very good explanation of the whole thing. And I’ll also point you toward this article on space.com about the likelihood of us finding a true earth-twin within the coming year.
And now I will simply tell you to go take a look at this amazing set of volcano photographs and have a a few eyegasms. You’re welcome.
BURGERS Winter 2011/2012 Mixtape is out!
December 20, 2011
The Burgers Winter 2011/2012 Mixtape is here and available for you listening/downloading pleasure. I kicked it off with some classic deep cuts, then took it to a chill/sexy/moody vibe, then finished it off with some great new discohouse. I’m kinda proud I managed to crank out a mix that didn’t involve Breakbot or Bit Funk. Those two dudes make pure gold out of everything they touch. It’s really hard to resist. But right now my DJ hard-on is all for Gigamesh. Seriously- that dude’s been busy making amazing remixes and golden original tracks. Check out his EP called “Space Dinosaur Stuff.“
LOL. It’s actually just “Gigamesh EP.” Anyway, here’s my mix:
Tracklist:
Prince-Controversy
Gino Soccio-Try it Out
Madi Diaz-Trust Fall (Jensen Sportag RMX)
Niki & The Dove-Mother Protect (Goldroom RMX)
Gigamesh-When You’re Dancing
The Magician ft. Jeppe-I Don’t Know What to Do (Fabian RMX)
Knight One-Hearts of Oak
Girls Generation-The Boys (Robotaki RMX)
Database-New Disco
P Money and Dan Aux-Kinda Lovin’
Caravan Palace-Clash (Jupiter RMX)
A Few Good Shows: 12/16/11
December 16, 2011
Before I get to the regular listings I have a bit of shameless self-promotion. I’ve been drumming in a new-ish (at least to Nashville) band called Scale Model, and we’re playing a free show at the 5 Spot this Sunday night along with I Believe in Hotpants, Girls & Money, and Karma Kite. This show is all noobs, so we decided it should be a freebie- therefore you have no excuse not to come. All of us are good bands with good songs and each is worth your attention. Now, on to the other good stuff happening around town this weekend:
FRIDAY:
Futurebirds w/ Grass Giraffes @ The Basement. 9pm $10 Adv/$13 DOS 21+
Mayhem performs The Doors’ LA Woman w/ Buffalo Clover @ the 5 Spot. 9pm $5 21+
SATURDAY:
Moon Duo, D. Watusi, Spanish Candles, and The Black Faces @ The End. 9pm $10
3rd annual Beatles vs. Stones Christmas Bowl, benefiting Second Harvest Food Bank. Ft. Mayhem & members of By Lightning!, Lonely H, Nite Nite, Jeremy Lister, Derek Hoke, Mike Grimes, Nikki Lane, Chuck Mead, Tommy Womack, Warren Pash, and many more… 9pm. $7 or 3 cans of food for admission. 21+
Natural Child, Ranch Ghost, Electric Dollhouse Groovebuggy, NEW BAND ft. members of the Cannomen and Bad Cop. @ Mount Swag. $3 It’s a house show so if you wanna go you can figure out the address. 🙂
SUNDAY:
Scale Model, I Believe in Hotpants, Girls & Money, Karma Kite @ the 5 Spot. 9pm FREE 21+ (See above!)
Have a great weekend!
Today’s ridiculous headlines
December 15, 2011
For some reason there have been several hilarious/ridiculous headlines popping up around my various internet haunts today. So I decided to just post them together here, for you clicking pleasure.
Two of them were on New Scientist:
“Mystery of the male ostrich’s erection solved.”
“Selectively bred fruit flies who can survive Titan’s harsh conditions after a diet of vodka rain.”
(Apparently they changed that last one… but that’s how it showed up in my reader initially, I promise.)
“Man Arrested After Attacking People At Toys R Us With Lightsaber”
“Wonder Woman and She-Hulk give themselves breast exams in Mozambique.”
And this one is just cute:
“Baby Seal Enters House, Sleeps on Couch”
You’re welcome.
The Higgs boson: progress made but nothing conclusive yet
December 13, 2011
You’ve no doubt already seen or heard mention of this breaking news elsewhere, but I simply must weigh-in: This morning physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider announced that they are making significant progress toward discovering the Higgs boson, or what many tend to call “the God Particle.” They really are on the verge of making a discovery that will change the face of physics forever, and vastly improve our understanding of the building blocks of EVERYTHING in the universe, and how the universe came into existence. The announcement does not mean that they have found the Higgs, just that they’ve seen a series of spikes in activity (the few nanoseconds right after a particle collision) within the predicted mass range for the Higgs. They’ve narrowed its mass down to a pretty small range with a fairly high degree of certainty because they’ve amassed quite a bit of data, and the chances that this is just a statistical fluke are getting lower and lower. Still though, the certainty is not high enough for physicists to claim an actual discovery. This elusive Higgs boson is the last missing “link” in the most widely accepted theory of particle physics- The Standard Model. If the Higgs is finally confirmed to exist within the range of mass predicted by the Standard Model, then this theory will essentially become rock-solid.
*Steps onto soapbox.*
But the beauty of science and the scientific method is that it will be just as exciting, if not MORE exciting, if the Higgs is proven to either exist outside the predicted range of mass or not exist at all! Science relies strictly on data, and if the data shows something not predicted then you go back to the drawing board and keep trying until you have a theory that fits the reality of the data. That method is infallible, and that is why I love science.
*Steps down from soapbox.*
For more-
the Guardian has been posting live updates to their story.
But BBC News has the best coverage I’ve seen.
A Few Good Shows: 12/9/11
December 9, 2011
This weekend has a pretty good selection of show-going opportunities in Nashville. Here we go:
FRIDAY:
Vitalic Noise presents CRAVE at Tavern (1904 Broadway). Nashville’s hottest Friday night dance party is back in a new location, and last week was a very successful kickoff. This week’s DJ lineup includes Losici (Josiah Lester), Dali Drama (Jenn Harbin), and Burgers (me). FREE, 21+ 10pm
White Rabbits w/ SONOI @ Exit/In. 9pm $10
DJ Craze @ Mai. 10pm $???
SATURDAY:
Little Viking, King Arthur, Calicocat, and O Giant Man @ The End. 9pm $5
Carolina Chocolate Drops w/ Frazey Ford @ Mercy Lounge. 9pm $18
SUNDAY:
The Greater Good, Dead Legs, Night Beds @ The Basement. 9pm 21+ $5
Have a great weekend!
P.S. If you haven’t seen the glory that is Texts From Bennett, take care of that problem right now.
steve cross loves music and science 