Category Archives: Music

Christmas time!

Christmas time is always great! I hadn’t really talked about it yet at all, so I’ll mention everything briefly in this post! Even though I was taking my family’s presents to my aunt’s house, I kept them under my tree. I like having a lot of wrapped gifts under the tree.

I went to two Christmas shows. The first was the Aquabats holiday show, which I talked about previously. They played with Emily’s Army and Kepi Ghouli; it was a great show.

After I posted some photos of the show on Instagram, user gogo13band liked some of my photos. The user’s description says they’re the “literal brother band” of the Aquabats. I looked into them, and it turns out that the lead singer of the Aquabats’ brother is the lead singer of a ska band called GOGO13. They played with the Vandals and Knock-Out at “The Vandals 18th Annual Christmas Formal.” It was a great show too! The Vandals played music from their album Oi to the World!

Alex and Darnell were in Brea at her parents’ house, so I came to visit too. Devin and Lorena gave me a bottle Beet that they infused themselves! It came with recipes for two mixed drinks. That photo is of a drink called The Beet Goes On, which was great!

Alex and Darnell gave me cranberry orange bread and homemade lemon curd. Wow, it was all so delicious! I put blueberries in the lemon curd a couple times, but it was so flavorful and tasty that I definitely ate a lot without anything extra!

gem gave me a Snuggie and The Geek’s Guide to Dating. While I haven’t read much of the book yet, it’s pretty interesting and funny too. gem knew I wanted a Snuggie and called a bunch of stores trying to find one. She could only find one store that had any in stock, and when she got there, she could only find a single Snuggie. She told me I could exchange it because of the print, but I definitely wanted to keep it. It’s very comfy 🙂

I spent Christmas Eve at my aunt’s house and Christmas day at my parents’. Here’s my cousin, Mitch, collecting all the gifts to him in one place so he could open them quickly.

I got all my cousins board games. I gave Apples to Apples, The Logo Board Game, and Munchkin Legends. On the subject of board games, I also bought Edward Arkham Horror. My brother got a video game from me instead – Super Mario 3D Land. I gave gem a Tokidoki x Sanrio clutch.

I also took gem to see Cirque du Soleil’s Totem. I talked about that yesterday, but it was excellent!

Edward gave me a new leather jacket! I was very surprised, and it’s pretty great. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a leather jacket.

On the subject of unexpected gifts, my brother got me a Harman/Kardon soundbar and subwoofer. I was pretty amazed. It’s connected to my TV, and I’m listening to it right now. When it put it on top of the TV stand in front of the TV, it blocked the IR receiver on the TV. I moved it to the shelf underneath, which looks a little odd but works. It’s a great sound system! Notice the bow on the present? My mom added that.

Duncan moved the bow to Sumo. He’s quite festive with it.

We tried to turn the box into a dog house, but Angel and Sumo really didn’t want to hang out in it. We’ve put their beds in it, hoping that would entice them to enter. Well, they’re not really going for it.

Anyways, that was my Christmas time! Yay!

The Aquabats concert!

After a week of eating the lunches from the Aquabats’ Pizza Day, I was ready for Saturday’s concert at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles! Emily’s Army and Kepi Ghoulie were the opening bands, but of course I was there for the Aquabats.

gem

You can’t make it out in the photos, but I’m wearing a blue rashguard and gem’s wearing a purple rashguard. I opted to leave my anti-negativity helmet and power belt in the car for ease of jumping around and getting slammed by people.

There’s always a game of Duck, Duck, Goose going in the back before the bands start playing, and this show was no exception. It’s pretty cool seeing the same fans at every show. I particularly remember the guy who wears a cool Aquabats lab coat, who I believe said he goes by Skibz, as well as the young woman with kids who was then the pregnant woman in the pink rashguard and is now the woman with the young baby! Very cool.

Kepi Ghoulie was really good; I enjoyed them a lot. Unfortunately, their bass player couldn’t make the show. They asked if anyone could play bass, and, well, Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk can!

The band released a bunch of balloons and streamers into the audience and even threw presents into the crowd. gem got one; it was a toy car!

We each also got a guitar pick from Kepi Ghoulie!

Finally the Aquabats took the stage!

Sorry for such a plain, boring photo, but the Aquabats threw beach balls into the crowd, and I got one. I didn’t take a picture of it until I got home. It’s probably about a foot in diameter. Pretty cool!

Someone threw a red sweater onto the stage, so the Bat Commander decided to wear it before proceeding to sing Red Sweater.

After that song, the Aquabats were attacked by an evil crustacean! Don’t worry though. They managed to defeat him with the help of name-calling! Crash also recited a little poem that led into Super Rad.

He also borrowed this cute hat from the girl standing to the left of me. I didn’t mention it, but it’s probably worth noting that I was right at the front and in the center. It was a sweet spot. I also got to enjoy chatting with security between sets.

Later the Aquabats got into another shorter fight but then found themselves hungry. Luckily, when they asked for a snack such as a granola bar, someone in the audience actually had one. Multiple granola bars, a Clif Bar, and a bag of Pepperidge Farms Milano Cookies were all thrown onto the stage. The Aquabats took a snack break, sang Snack the Night Away, a parody of Van Halen’s Dance the Night Away, and then… all licked the Clif Bar before throwing it into the audience for some “lucky” fan to eat.

Near the end of the show, the Aquabats left but came back like they usually do. When they returned, they were in Christmas costumes! Ricky Fitness and the Bat Commander traded roles, letting Ricky sing while the Commander played the drums. Funny thing – it sure looked like the Bat Commander had four arms. I was hoping to get a photo, but I couldn’t capture it. And no, there was no trick with lighting. Evan Sinclair, the Aquabats Super Show music supervisor and stage manager was crouching behind him while reaching around and playing drums. Weird but funny.

Speaking of Evan Sinclair, he came out at the end to sing a little Hanukkah song before the Aquabats sang a Christmas song.

I managed to grab a set list as well! In case you can’t see the photo, they played the following:

Theme Song
Fashion Zombies
Martian Girl
Look at Me
Shark Fighter
Pizza Day
Cat With 2 Heads
Red Sweater
Fight/Commercial
Super Rad
Legend Is True
Hey Homeys
Demolition Rickshaw
Doing Science
Awesome Forces
Ricky Xmas
Donde Esta Santa Claus
Christmas Is Awesome
Pool Party

It was a fantastic set, and it started off so strong too! After the theme song, they went right to one of my favorite songs from Charge! and then Martian Girl (whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa).

San Francisco vacation for Patrick’s wedding

It seems crazy that it’s been over two months since this trip and I’m just writing about it now. Patrick and Caroline got married on Saturday, May 18, 2013. gem and I headed to San Francisco on Thursday, May 16, 2013. I’m sorry this is so late!

Thursday!

We picked up a rental car early in the morning from Pilot Travel Center and headed up toward San Francisco. gem wanted to ensure we got a photo of a freeway sign that said San Francisco, and you can see at the top of this post. We stopped for lunch at Pea Soup Andersen’s. Pea Soup is great, right? Well, the split pea soup was decent (but not amazing like some Foursquare tips implied). The hot wings were delicious despite being breaded, and the restaurant had very clean bathrooms too. It was a nice lunch.

When we got to San Francisco we might have taken the FasTrak over the bridge into the city earning a ticket in the mail later maybe I don’t know…

Anyways.

We checked-in at the Travelodge Golden Gate, which was small but very clean. I was happy with it. Being close to the Golden Gate Bridge, we decided to walk to the bridge to see it. As it turns out, we weren’t really that close. We spent hours walking about 20 miles that day. That’s okay though, because it was amazing.

Once we got to the Golden Gate Bridge, which took a long time because we stopped for a thousand pictures, we decided to walk across it. It was offered a nice view and was a great experience. Once on the other side, we stopped for more photos with San Francisco in the background. You can’t really tell in the picture above, but we’re on the other side of the bridge in comparison to the city.

After crossing the bridge again, we got this great photo of the Golden Gate Bridge in the early evening. It was beautiful. We walked around some more, heading through the Palace of Fine Arts, but because it was dark, we didn’t see much. Near our hotel we stopped at Yukol Place Thai Cuisine for some to-go. We brought it back to the room to enjoy our delicious dinner. I love Thai food. For some reason, it seems like vacation food. Even when I eat it in Orange County, it’s when we’re out doing something exciting.

Friday!

Remember how it was too dark to enjoy the Palace of the Fine Arts Thursday night? We went back on Friday. It was very impressive. After exploring that, we headed to Golden Gate Park. It’s a huge park; there’s so much to see that there was no way we could look at everything. We did spend a long afternoon walking through it, enjoying the fixtures of the park as well as the wildlife. I got really close to some sort of gopher, which was pretty sweet. There were also squirrels galore!

SUPER PUNCH! I shattered the stone ground of Golden Gate Park!

We also checked out a small portion of the de Young Museum. Really we just wanted to use the bathroom, but we looked at the gift shop too.

After leaving the park, we walked through Haight-Ashbury District. We did some shopping at Amoeba Music. We purchased Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill (because it’s a sweet album), Patience Please’s Fleeting Frequencies (because of the mellow album cover), Super Furry Animals’ Fire In My Heart (because of the artist title obviously), Super XX Man’s X (I don’t even know why), and The Postal Service’s Give Up (Deluxe 10th Anniversary Edition) (because The Postal Service are great, I wanted their new music, and I was interested in listening to the remastered versions).

We also did some browsing in the KIDROBOT store as well as the Bettie Page Clothing store. Bettie Page Clothing was inspired by 1950’s pin-up model, Bettie Page. You’d expect the woman to drag the man to a clothing store, but I actually pointed it out to gem and asked her if she wanted to check it out. I really love that style. She didn’t buy anything, but I think she enjoyed trying on some dresses (and odd shorts).

I don’t have much to say about these buildings, but I thought they looked pretty.

Next it was time to check out the Castro District. I’ve always heard a lot about it, but to be honest, it was nothing special. It was basically like any other town except homosexuality was accepted and celebrated. You know, sort of what every town should do.

I assume this is where the World of Warcraft battleground, Twin Peaks is set. That, or it’s a bar. We didn’t stop here, but it looks pretty nice in the photos I’ve seen. We also stopped at the Hot Cookie dessert store. We bought a large chocolate covered macaroon in the shape of a certain part of the male anatomy.

We took a modern cable car to Powell St. and then walked to Union Square. This was pretty fun for me because I stayed at the Westin St. Francis twice previously for 1C Company’s Another Night in Moscow events in 2010 and 2011. It was nice to share my experience with gem.

After looking around, we stopped at the Powell St. Cable Car Turn-Around. There were some street performers there that entertained us while we waited for a turn to hop on the cable car and head to Pier 39. That’s me on cable car in the photo above. We actually ended up a bit west of Pier 39 and had to spend a half hour or so walking, but that’s quite alright.

Pier 39 was the grand location of our guild meetup! And by guild meetup, I really just mean that we were meeting our guildmates Marc and Matt for the first time as well as Matt’s girlfriend, Katharine. You can see some of us in that photo. We had dinner at Neptune’s Waterfront Grill & Bar. I don’t really remember what I had, but I remember that I liked it!

After dinner Matt took us the 21st Amendment Brewery & Restaurant. (We got cozy on the way in the car.) It was a pretty fun bar I think, but honestly, I had a good buzz going. Besides evenings where I might drink a single glass of wine, I don’t drink very often. I had two or three drinks at the 21st Amendment – a hard cider and some sort of watermelon beer, I think (sorry, I like my drinks to be tasty) and was done. It was a lot of fun. I’m really glad to have met them! In fact, I informed them of how we were now totally best friends.

Saturday!

On Saturday, gem tried to get her hair done at Drybar, but they couldn’t fit her in their schedule. We had lunch at a nice restaurant called Taco Bar before heading to St. Patrick’s Church. We spoke briefly with Patrick when we got there before proceeding to the pews where we saw Collin, a friend from college. I hadn’t seen him in years, so it was cool to catch up. The wedding was very nice, and Caroline looked beautiful. Between the wedding and reception, Collin, gem, and I spent some time wandering around the Metreon before Collin drove us to the reception.

Dinner was held at the Chaya Brasserie. Everything was so amazing at this restaurant! I had sushi, kabobs, fish fillet, steak, salad, chocolate desserts, and more. Seriously, it was so great. We also had a great time getting to know Patrick’s best man, James, and his girlfriend, Maggie. After dinner we went out near the Bay Bridge for professional photos of Caroline and Patrick. It was nice. When that was done, gem and I walked back to the hotel. It was a long walk, especially at nice, but nice and peaceful.

Sunday!

Sadly the last day of our vacation had to come eventually. On the other hand, it started with a superb lunch at Pacific Catch. We had a poke salad, shrimp taco, and baja taco with cod. It was all good. Foursquare advertised a special as well – check-in for the first time and get a dessert free. I ordered the fried dulce de leche spring rolls, and they were jaw-droppingly good. Now that I’m thinking about them again, I’m kind of sad that I can’t go eat them tonight.

Honestly, that was pretty much all we did in San Francisco on Sunday. After lunch we drop back toward Orange County, stopping a few times at McDonald’s and Starbucks for coffee. We did, however, get to listen to our new CDs! When we got back, we dropped off the car at the rental place. Antonio picked us up and we had a nice dinner at Umami Burger before heading home.

The Aquabats Live at the OC Great Park, 8/30/12

A couple weeks ago I saw the Aquabats at a free concert at the Orange County Great Park. It was outdoors, and while there was a large crowd in front, hardly anyone stood off to the side. That’s where I was. It let me get close without getting jostled, which meant I could actually film. No, I couldn’t really see Ricky Fitness, but I never really get any good shots of him.

They actually performed two sets, which was pretty cool. They put a break in the middle, pointing out that parents with young children could take the kids home. I’m sure it was mostly the fact that they needed a break.

Notables:

They fought a giant shrimp
The called a young fan, Joey, up to the stage. Joey was super fast even with his forearm crutches!
The Aquabats performed “Martian Girl” with Jimmy on saxophone because his keyboard was having problems. It sounded great!
Ricky Fitness sang “I Don’t Want to Lose Your Love Tonight” while the M.C. Bat Commander drummed.

Video list:

Sorry for singing a lot. I couldn’t help it.

Christian Dasilva has a Posse Benefit Show

Last night was the “Christian Dasilva has a posse” benefit show. The Aquabats’ former tour manager, Christian Dasilva, passed away recently, and all proceeds from the show went to his family. While the Aquabats posted about it n the Super Show Facebook page, I probably wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for a bit of a coincidence. On Friday, Toshiba had two food trucks at its Chili Cook-off. For the first time ever, I wore a t-shirt to work because I knew it was going to be hot and we were outside. It happened to be an Aquabats t-shirt, and the guy working the Longboard Ice Cream truck knew the Aquabats. Not only was he a friend of the band, he was a former roadie and has been in the Aquabats! Super Show! He told me about the show.

Shortly after we arrived at the Chain Reaction in Anaheim, we saw the Battle Tram pull into the parking lot! It’s a bit smaller than it is in the show…

That didn’t stop gem and me from posing with it though! How awesome is that?

First up was a grunge band from San Diego called The Makeup Sex. I hadn’t heard of them before, and they weren’t mentioned on any of the announcements about the show, so I didn’t know what to expect. Luckily they were pretty entertaining. Strangely, the OC Register’s slideshow featured a handful of photos of the singer and drummer, both, well, fat, sweaty guys (photo 18, for example), yet only included one picture of the attractive bass player (photo 19).

Scotty Professional took the stage while Starpool set up, performing an acoustic version of the Aquabat’s Martian Girl. I really enjoyed it. While I’m not familiar with him, nor had I been to the Chain Reaction before, I could tell that he really cared about Christian Dasilva. I’m glad I recorded his performance; I’ve already ripped the audio so I could listen to the song.

Next up was Starpool. I hadn’t heard of them before I looked them up in preparation of this show. As it turns out, Starpool consists of the former members of Save Ferris and one former member of No Doubt. They were incredibly awesome! Their music was sweet, wonderful ska, and their stage presence was superb. The singer definitely took control of the stage. I especially enjoyed their rendition of “Shout” with the singer jumping into the audience and leading us as we crouched low to the ground, a little bit softer now. More bands need sax, trumpet, and trombone!
I later sent Starpool a Facebook message, letting them know how much I enjoyed the show. I also had to let them know that I bought their album and EP after the show. Great stuff!

Then it was time for the Aquabats to take the stage! In this picture, you can see the M.C. Bat Commander on the left, Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk on guitar next to him further back, Crash McLarson next on bass, and, on the very edge, Ricky Fitness on drums. I don’t think I got any good pictures of Ricky Fitness or Bones really. Oh well.

The M.C. Bat Commander and Crash McLarson of the Aquabats!

Can you tell the Commander and Crash are good buddies? It sure looks like it to me! Of course, Crash is also gem’s big friend. He said yes at Comic-Con, you know.

Finally, here’s Jimmy the Robot, who plays the keyboard and sax, in front his keyboard. To his left is Crash. Jimmy grabbed by hand twice in the show! Swoon! The M.C. Bat Commander did once as well! Okay, I’ve seen them before and shaken all their hands, but it’s still fun!
When the show ended, the audience chanted “Where was the Captain,” and the Aquabats came back out to play Captain Hampton. Sadly, this took the place of Fashion Zombies and Burger Rain, which were written on the setlist. I really wanted to hear Burger Rain too!
When they played Pool Party, they threw pool toys in the audience like they’ve done previously. They also called all the young kids onto the stage. The Commander told them that the concession area in the back was the candy zone, and that they’d get free candy if they went over. He said that if the Chain Reaction didn’t want to pay for it, the Aquabats would. And how would the kids get there? Well, the Commander would throw them into the audience to crowd-surf to the back of course! They were all adorable. One very young boy, Jacob, even had a little mustache drawn on his lip like the M.C. Bat Commander!
It was a terrific show, and I had so much fun. I was pretty much soaking wet when I got home, and most of it was likely not my sweat. Those Aquabats fans with rashguards get pretty sweaty. I finally made it to sleep by 1:30, and I can definitely say I was sleepy today!
Christian Dasilva’s Benefit Show Featuring Starpool and The Aquabats! – Chain Reaction – 7/23/12, Priscella Vega, Heard Mentality, OC Weekly Blogs
The Aquabats perform at the Christian Dasilva Benefit Concert at Chain Reaction in Anaheim on Monday, OrangeCounty.com

The Aquabats!

Do you see that photo up there? That’s me with the Aquabats, the most fun and awesome band ever (obviously)! They were at Comic-Con, and gem snapped this photo of me with them while they were autographing.

This is the poster they signed for me. Sadly, it mentions a show that I didn’t attend; I was tempted, but it seemed better to spend my Comic-Con time actually at Comic-Con. I usually catch there Christmas show in LA anyways because they include past band members.
The MC Bat Commander, lead singer, asked if I wanted it addressed to me as he autographed it, and I told him I’d like it signed to “Peter and gem.” Not only did he do that, but he also started singing a little song. “Peter and gem, together again!”
gem got something signed as well, but I’ll talk about that in a later post.
Besides the poster, we also bought a pack that came with Aquabats boxer-briefs and a sweet, light-blue t-shirt featuring the Aquabats “A” symbol in the center. Later we were walking in downtown at night, and I saw some clothing on the ground. I wouldn’t normally pick up something like that, but something made me wonder if it was Aquabats merchandise. I kicked it with my t-shirt, and it was! We had found a t-shirt for The Aquabats! Super Show!

For those who don’t know, the Aquabats have a mythos that they’re superheroes from Aquabania. Over the course of their albums (and now TV show), they’ve accumulated enemies. One of them, from the album called The Aquabats vs. the Floating Eye of Death, is (as expected) the Floating Eye of Death! This was some pretty sweet cosplay.

I attended their panel on their TV show, The Aquabats! Super Show! Unfortunately, I wasn’t sitting near the front, so the video isn’t great. On top of that, they showed a lot of clips that I wasn’t allowed to record, so I had to edit them out. Even so, I’m glad I recorded it.
One of the things they showed was a Mega 64 video that was given to them to put in the show as a fake commercial. Unfortunately, the Hub, their TV channel, didn’t allow it. It was a commercial for a kit to turn a garage into an adventure play set for kids, built around the idea of a child pressing the garage door button and then rushing to get under it before it closed like Indiana Jones. It was pretty funny, but we couldn’t record it.
I think the most interesting part of the panel was finding out that one of the adults in attendance wrote a letter to the Aquabats years ago as a child suggesting a particular hand motion to do during one of the songs, Martian Girl. After reading the letter, the Aquabats have used that hand motion every time they played the song.

The Broken Yoke, a restaurant in downtown San Diego specializing in eggs, was redone to be a restaurant based on The Hub. Our table featured the Aquabats!

There was a section on the menu called “The MC Bat Commander Breakfast.” Of course, I had to order from it; I had Betty’s Southern Biscuits and Gravy.

As part of Mega 64’s collaboration with the Aquabats, they created commercials for fake “Gloopy” products. Here’s some ketchup rebranded to look like Gloopy Catsup.

Here’s one last thing to share – Gloopy Eyewash. “Pour directly into eyes.”

IRIS by Cirque du Soleil

For Mother’s Day, gem and I took her mom and aunt to see IRIS by Cirque du Soleil in LA. It was a lot of fun, and I took a few photos throughout the day.
We spent a few minutes talking at her parents’ house before heading up to Los Angeles. We got there around 5:30, and the show started at 7:00, giving us some time to walk around. We spent a little time just wandering (and taking photos). I also had a super delicious hot dog with bacon and lots of toppings, including whole grilled jalepeño. Why wasn’t I always putting whole grilled jalepeños on my hot dogs?
IRIS itself was fantastic. It’s about the history of cinema. It uses a lot of the “basics” (contortionists, jugglers, trapezists), but it’s very inspired by cinema. It plays a lot with light, shadow, and recording in very cool ways. Of course, there’s an overall story to it as well that involves the film industry. They even threw an awards show in the middle! Some acts were less obviously about cinema. The Kiriki act involved a group of performers in different colored costumes flipping, climbing, and balancing on each other. gem whispered to me “I think this is about the introduction of color.” I hadn’t realized it on my own, but it seems very likely. It was one of the best acts in my opinion, but it wasn’t my favorite. That honor goes to a noir scene that’s set a wonderful mood and segues nicely into a noir, rooftop fight scene heavily using trampolines. Very cool.
Anyways, it’s an excellent show. And the music’s on Spotify.

Chip’s Challenge, the Band

I know I’ve talked about Chip’s Challenge a lot recently, but usually I’m discussing the game. Did you know that there’s a band with the same name? (I hope they don’t mind that I’m hotlinking their logo. Well, I am promoting them.)
Chip’s Challenge is an awesome chiptunes band featuring three people from Rochester, NY. They describe themselves as “instrumental pop punk with an 8-bit flair.” It’s like I’m rocking out to an NES.

Their sampler, Halfbit Hero, is available for free.

Their first album, 1bit Wonder, is priced at whatever you want. You can pay, or you can download it for free. I’d suggest paying! I particularly like the second track, Special Beam Cannon, although Kickpuncher is really good too. I also really love how it went from Halfbit to 1bit!
If you like chiptunes or video game music, give Chip’s Challenge a listen!

Duck Sauce

Duck Sauce – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In another dance hit 2011 have submitted the song “Big Bad Wolf” is the name of the new duet song Duck Sauce. “Big Bad Wolf” was released on BBC radio, the tune used in the sound of wolves howling, similar to that shown in movies of suspense and terror. Duck Sauce, the band formed by American DJ Armand Van Helden and A-Trak and last year launched the hit “Barbra Streisand”, debuted her new clip for “Big Bad Wolf”. The controversial video shows two people who have a kind of deformity in his legs also made howling over the issue. To discover is that they are the heads of the two DJ’s, and have a life. During development of the clip are appearing more characters with the same “problem” to interact with other heads and even women. The video, which for some can be fun and other unpleasant, also has a high sexual content. The creators worked to surprise all the time but even more in the end, with a quite controversial.

Thank you, Wikipedia. You truly are the encyclopedia of the new generation.

Duck Sauce – Big Bad Wolf

This is so weird, and I really like it.