New Online Photo Albums

hey. i just set up a picasa account for The Noising Machine.

http://picasaweb.google.com/thenoisingmachine

you can find TOO MANY Beati Paoli photos on there. my favorite album is the flyers and posters album. go look at it. plus there are a ton of tour pictures. some of which are amusing. some of which are not.

thenoisingmachine

Free stuff in New York

while we were on tour in new york, i was looking for things to do and came across this pdf.

it lists most new york museums, tells admission and hours of each, and lets you know what days of the week the various museums are doing specials like free admission or two for one pricing or whatnot.

i’m sure all this info changes regularly, but it’s a pretty good jumping off point at least.

cultural institutions: hours and admission fees

 

scott

some neat stuff to look at…

so… we’ve all been on tour for a while.

and that’s my only excuse for the dwindling posts. matt’s been doing a good job of keeping the flame burning, and i’m hoping to jump in and help him carry this burden.

this post is just a quicky. some art/design stuff i had in my favorites…

bookshelves:

“30 of the most creative bookshelf designs”

what i like best about looking at these is that it makes me want to start building my own furniture.

here are some favorites:

and while we’re on the topic of interior design…

hotel rooms:

these are all painted by san francisco locals at the hotel des arts.

next are some rooms at propeller island city lodge in berlin:

flying bed

4 beams

mirror room

upside down

gallery

padded cell

gruft

two lions

here are some other similar hotels:

Arte Luise Kunsthotel

Gladstone Hotel

Hotel De Filosoof

Hotel Fox

Hotel Max

browse those for a while.

scott

The Urgency Tour, Days 4/5/6

DAY 4

WICHITA, KS

DAY OFF (9/9/2008)

Today was a day off, and the Vertical Violet folks were nice enough to let us stay with them in Wichita. Waffles were waiting for us in the morning. These people are awesome. Breck, the dad, showed us his awesome record collection and told us how The Smiths got him into industrial (?). Spent most of the afternoon playing Risk….my first game ever. I was eliminating third out of five players, which apparently is decent. George and Cecil got into a pissing contest (not, unfortunately, literally) over the game; George took him, and everyone else, out. After a delicious chili dinner (during which we quizzed Freya the Fairy on various aspects of fairy life) , we spent the rest of the night hanging out, playing Boggle and Aladdin for the Genesis with Freya the Fairy, and petting kitties in the backyard. It’s disgraceful, the hedonism we get up to….

DAY 5

TULSA, OK

The Soundpony (9/10/2008)

Left the VV house, after another great breakfast. We would miss this place, even more so after tonight. We made our way over to Tulsa. I finished Xavier, Season 1. Tulsa reminded me of Des Moines. We ate at an amazing Chinese Thai restaurant Mandy found online called Be Le. All sorts of yummy fake meats. The show was at the bar called Soundpony, which was decorated with various cycling paraphanelia. Free hot dogs and High Life (no veggie dogs, booo….). A lady opened for us, just her and her box full of pedals. Pretty good, I bought her CD for $5. Then we played. During the first song, my eyes were closed. When I opened them, the bar was 97 % cleared out. Oops! We proceeded to play the entirety of our album to the bartender and two middle-aged drunks taking pictures of themselves. Admittedly, it was not a good room for live rock music: all concrete, leading to a very bright, loud sound. We sounded really good, at least. Annoyed, we decided to head on after the show to Springfield, MO. During the drive, we came across a strange building in the middle of nowhere that flashed psychedelic colors. Cecil wanted to stop and sleep there. I said that there was no way we could get in, but that we could go back and sleep by it if he really, really wanted to BUT if he didn’t go now, he couldn’t complain about it later. He said we could keep going. He complained about it later.

SETLIST

The album.

DAY 6

SPRINGFIELD, MO

Outland Ballroom, 9/11/2008)

Rolled into Springfield around 4 A.M. Pulled into a church parking lot and uncomfortably went to sleep. Was awoken a few hours later by the flashing lights of two police cars parked behind us. We were afraid we’d get towed or treated to some “southern hospitality”, but they soon left. Went back to unrestful sleep. Woke up soon after, and wandered around downtown. Went to a coffeeshop. Wandered some more. BORED. Found a nearby cave that you are driven around in, but it cost $20 +. WTF. Found local art museum (which was free) instead. It was ok. Spent several hours at 1984, an awesome arcade with games from the late 70s through early 90s. Really, really fun. Scott set a new Burger Time record. I dedicated a song to it that night. I played Golden Axe, P.O.W. and Space Invaders, mostly. Scott gave the free pass he won for getting the high score to our waitress as part of her tip. The first two bands who played with us, New Madrid and The Verbs, were good and had a crowd. We, of course, cleared the room but of a few people. Do I sense a theme? Andrew from New Madrid let us crash at his place. Really cool guy. We were incredibly sleepy though, and could offer only mumbling in reply.

SETLIST

don’t remember.

G.

 

miloprometheus

The Urgency Tour: Day 3

Day 3

Wichita, KS

The Vertical Violet

Awoke to the sound of traffic zooming by just a few feet from my head for my second morning in Omaha. Yes, I have become the new Uciel of the band. I had been spending the nights in the van due to the overabundance of cats in Hotel Frank. They were very cute, but they make me sneeze aplenty.

After everyone doing their usual morning activities, we headed out for Wichita around one. The five hours drive was relatively uneventful, though it is worth noting before I took over the second half of the drive, Kerry Wood was seven innings deep into a no-hitter against the Seattle Mariners in the final game of the World Series on Triple Play 2000 for the N64. Sadly, I had to turn off the system and the game was lost.

As we pulled up to the Vertical Violet, we were greeted by a bearded gentlemen whom introduced himself as Brack (or Breck or Brock). He quickly ushered us into the house as dinner was ready. We were met with all sorts of vegetarian/vegan friendly pizza/pasta/snacks. If only every venue/house was like this, the world would be a much better place!

After getting a tour of the house and finishing dinner, kids of all ages trickled into the house and the show began. The first band was The Fall of the Empire which kind of reminded me of Brian Eno at certain points. They also had a Sanrio guitar and bass. They were pretty cool. Next was Hot Air Balloon Trauma. They were pretty cool too. As cecil said, “This is stuff that people in their 20’s should be doing…not 17 or 16 year olds.” The third band was Ghosts of Monkshood. They sort of reminded me of Of Montreal-type 70’s slightly jam rock. But in a good way.

We were the last band to play. I wish we could just play nothing but house shows. They usually seem to be better shows. A lot more fun. Really nice people. All-in-all it was a solid show. A nice variety of stuff.

Afterwards we chatted with Fall of the Empire about caves and debated whether Iowa or Kansas was more American. Greg and I thought Kansas was while they thought Iowa was.

I’m not sure what the setlist was, you’ll have to ask Greg.

EDIT:

GG:

Good show, and like Ryan said to me last night, all of the bands and the bill were nice, varied and good. The backyard of the house is home to numerous semi-wild cats, chickens and a pot-bellied pig, and has a playhouse and half-pipe. And the daughter of the family is a fairy. Like, with wings and pointy ears. Seriously.

SET

1.) RABBLE ROUSE

2.) A SENSE OF URGENCY

3.) LOVELY TO SOMEONE

4.) WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (SING ME SOMETHING NEW)

5.) YOU ARE MY MEGALODON

6.) IF THE MOOD SHOULD STRIKE…

Ryan

The Urgency Tour: Days 0-2

DAY 0

Des Moines, IA

(Vaudeville Mews,9/5/08)

Today was our CD release show for our first album, A Sense Of Urgency. Two shows, an early all-ages and a late 21 +. Support for the early show came from Adam Robert Haug and The Poison Control Center, while Ross Moffat and Maxilla Blue played with us at the second. For these two shows, we played the entire album. It was kind of a “listen before you buy” thing. All and all, we all think it was a great success. Thanks to everyone who came out, whether it was to see us, one of the other bands or both. We greatly, greatly appreciate it and it got our tour off to a good start.

SET:

1.) Rabble Rouse
2.) A Sense Of Urgency
3.) Girl Friday
4.) Lovely To Someone
5.) Vulgarity Drifting Diary
6.) Maggie
7.) Every Day, An Elegy
8.) While We’re Young (Sing Me Something New)
9.) You Are My Megalodon
10.) If The Mood Should Strike…

DAY 1

Omaha, NE

(Hotel Frank - East Wing, 9/6/08)
The real first day of the tour, though going to Omaha was downright leisurely compared to some of our other first-tour-date drives. Wanted to leave at 2, ended up leaving around 6:30. This is pretty typical. Spent short Omaha drive getting acquianted with Guitar Hero: On Tour for DS (Verdict: pretty fun, but don’t play for more than 15 minutes at a time or you’ll get carpal tunnel) and watching the first three episodes of Xavier: Renegade Angel, an Adult Swim show created by the guys who did Wonder Showzen. Even though I’ve lost touch/become disenchanted with Adult Swim’s penchant for randomness for randomness’ sake, I liked Wonder Showzen a lot and this was in the same vein. So funny, basically. We were supposed to play at another venue in town for this date but that fell through, so Adam was nice enough to let us play at his house, The Hotel Frank. It’s basically two large, old houses connected by a thruway where apparently, under various different names, it’s hosted tons of shows throughout the years. This show was played in the east wing of the house in a living room with Adam and a band called Honeybee. Honeybee was pretty good, they’re suited for this kind of show. I don’t think we are, though. It was ok, but I felt a bit awkward stripped down and I’m not sure if the kids took to us much. Oh well. Adam was really fun, as always. After the show, most of the crowd went on to another house show. I’m lame though, so I went to sleep instead. Oops!

SET:

1.) Girl Friday
2.) Lovely To Someone
3.) Vulgarity Drifting Diary
4.) Belgian Congo
5.) Every Day, An Elegy
6.) You Are My Megalodon

DAY 2

Lincoln, NE

(Box Awesome, 9/7/08)
Woke up, played with cats aroud the house. We went a couple houses down to McFoster’s, an awesome natural foods restaurant. I got the Mexican omlette with pineapple papaya salsa. Excellent. Afterwards, we made the rounds to the local record shops in an attempt to get our album stocked. Succeeding in stocking one; have to call the other ones to make special arrangements. The one that let us put records in, The Antiquarium, had a “Box of Jandek” on the counter though, tons of assorted Jandek albums for $6. Weird. Bought some windshield wipers!!! Picked up Adam from the Hotel Frank and headed out for tonight’s show in Lincoln. After getting stupidly lost, finally found the venue, Box Awesome. Tonight we played with an interesting instrumental act named Mwumbles and Adam again, marking the end of the brief BP/ARH tour. Darren Keen, who basically is The Show Is The Rainbow, was supposed to play with us, but didn’t show. After we played our set to virtually no one, we had to clear the stage for the late show, some reggae nerd named Jah Roots. As we were loading up, Darren came up and apologized. He had thought it was a late show, and was watching an episode of The Shield when he realized. Oops! But he was a nice guy, honest mistake. It was only as we were leaving that Adam mentioned that Darren is the bass player in a band on Saddle Creek called Beep Beep. Mandy and I both think Beep Beep is awesome, so I would have liked to ask him about their new album and stuff. Oh well, maybe next time. This show was also notable as George, Scott’s uncle joined up with us. He’ll be coming along with us on the road until the 20th, or until he gets bored. Which will probably be tomorrow! Oh well, on to Wichita….

SET

1.) Lovely To Someone
2.) A Sense Of Urgency
3.) E As In X-Ray
4.) Belgian Congo
5.) Girl Friday
6.) You Are My Megalodon

G.

 

miloprometheus

WOW WOW WOW WOW A-OOOOGA SCHWING

I saw THIS SITE!  advertised on a video game forum today.  I fucking dumped Patricia and joined the site.  I’m gonna fuck a Thai slut for the rest of my life!

kicknz

AMPHIBIOUS RV!!!

this is probably the greatest invention i’ve ever seen:
THE AMPHIBIOUS RV!

 

 

scott

UAE Likes Their Tall Buildings

So, I came across an article about an 80-story, energy-efficient, rotating skyscraper that is being built in Dubai. 

I also remember watching a program on HGTV about world architecture and Dubai is home to the world’s tallest building, the world’s tallest hotel and, soon enough, the world’s tallest structure.  It seems like a lot of buildings in Dubai are still being competed and they are all claiming that they will be/are the world’s tallest.  To keep it simple, I included the winner’s on HGTV.  Also, Iowa is home to the 10th largest structure in the world, the WOI-Tower, which is in Alleman.

Tallest Hotel: Burj Al Arab

World’s Tallest Building: Burj Dubai

ninjagarden

Epcunt

Today, Tony and I concluded our Orlando adventures with a visit to Epcot. I was just there 2 years ago with Patricia so there wasn’t much that was new or fresh for me but there were some changes. Here are the rides we braved . . .

Test Track: Meant to simulate riding a car in a General Motors test track. There are some lame moments and some fairly exciting moments. Recommended overall. B

Mission SPace: A shortish, decent space simulator. Nothing very engaging. I liked it a lot more 2 years ago. B-

Ellen’s Universe of Energy: Oh, fuck, it stars Ellen Degeneres and she’s as awful as ever. This one is newwwwwwww but awful. Also stars Bill Nye the Science Guy, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Alex Trebeq. It’s mostly a movie but partially a ride. Most of the ride section is recycled from the old Exxon dinosaur ride that used to inhabit the same part of the building. Some very patronizing, simplified, and inaccurate scientific information. Also pandering to creationists by referring to Big Bang as something that “many scientists believe”. Oh, really? Many? Not almost all? F

Spaceship Earth: A slow, relaxing ride featuring the history of mankind, basically. The scenes are elaborate and the animatronics decent. It could have received a very high score but there’s a very clear Euro/Mediterranean bias, attributing the invention of paper to Egypt (China had it first). It also attributes the creation of complicated highway systems to Rome, even though Persia beat them to it by 200 years. In fact, the only “achievement” attributed to someone other than Europe/Egypt is the Middle East, but only for possessing copies of the books lost in the fire at Alexandria! C+ (could have been an A-!)

The Seas With Nemo and Friends: A new ride. Sort of the evolution of the boring Winnie the Pooh type rides. You travel through real, physical environments but the actions of the Nemo characters are projected on various screens. Just okay. C+

Living With the Land: A boat tour thing. Initially, it travels through scenes of farms and various ecosystems. Pretty nice designs. Then it travels through a facility where various plans are grown in experimental manners. Pretty cool. B+

Journey Into Imagination with Figment: Slow, aimless, bad animatronics. D

River of Time: Stars Three Caballeros. Nice Mexican scenes but boring. C

The Maelstrom: A baffling ride. A mostly slow and boring boat ride through Norwegian scenes but with a couple of lame drops. Is it supposed to be a thrill ride?! C-

Shows . . .

Honey I Shrunk the Audience: Stupid. Unfunny. D-

China something or other: Awesome video in “circle vision” (360 degree view with screens surrounding the room). Made me want to move to China. That’s pretty good, right? Avoided any and all controversial CHina topics. B

Turtle Talk: Impressive. A Pixar-animated turtle somehow communicates in real time with audience members. I still don’t really get how they did it. The characters were cheesy but these parks are supposed to have things that make you say “wow” and there should be more stuff like this. B+

American Adventure: Not as cheesy or dishonest as the Hall of Presidents show. Good animatronics. Got hokey towards the end but featured Mark Twain and quoted John Steinbeck twice so gets a . . . B-.

Circle of Life: Unfortunately hilarious movie where Disney lectures the audience about “respecting every living creature” (there’s a restaurant serving chickens by the ton in the same building) and being responsible regarding the environment. Really? Disney World itself destroyed several marshland ecosystems when it was built and is still criticized for poor environmental practices and they’re going to lecture me?!

General gripes . . .
The whole park is a preachy environmental thing that fails to actually dig deeply into any issues. Most of the areas have a fucking sponsor. While waiting for the Honey I Shrunk the Audience show you watch Kodak commercials! No! I paid a million dollars to get in here, don’t try to sell me shit, unless it’s from a gift shop (which I can easily avoid).

kicknz